Introduction
Health care contributes over 10 percent of gross domestic product of most developed nations. Nursing is one of the top occupations in health care in terms of job growth. Anywhere in the world, we see individuals taking up studies in nursing. Although majority of them we cannot gauge if they really have their heart in it, the fact still remains that many individuals take up nursing and would soon be taking care of ill patients in health care settings.
Health care is a major concern these days, considering that the population is growing. People are more aware of their health today than they are years ago. Advancements in technology play an important part in people’s awareness – people can now be easily diagnosed of their illnesses and technology can also help prevent further occurrence of some diseases. Because of these, people live longer than before. Everybody in the world has experienced health care in many ways, like when we go to the doctor for checkup or when we go to a health organization to be immunized. But most of the time, we see the nurses in the front line of providing us with the health care services that we need.
Effective nursing and health care concern has been and still is a growing concern for everybody. Many problems threaten the very foundation of the nursing profession. Among these are nursing shortages, wrong education of the nurses, and nurses whose hearts aren’t really in the profession but in the high pay which the profession brings in.
Different people have different perspectives about nurses and nursing care. A nurse could be different from one person to another. We all have different understanding of nursing. This paper will examine two photographs which depict areas in the nursing profession and will attempt to analyze the images, identify the issues, and think about the issues.
Context
Two photographs are provided for this paper. First, there is a need to describe these images in detail. Second, based on the photographs, nursing issues will be presented. And third, these issues will be discussed.
The first photograph is a black and white image of several nurses together with a man. The man looks like someone of authority, someone who is accustomed to giving out orders. On the other hand, he could be a priest. But then, we can only guess. The man is wearing an all-black suit in the photograph, but then again we cannot really be sure since this is not a colored photograph. At the back of the nurses is a large tent.
The nurse at the farthest left beside the man seems to be looking or reading at something which looks like a piece of paper in the man’s hand. Most of the other nurses took no notice of this but look straight into the camera. Some faces are just passive while some are also smiling.
This photograph could have been taken sometime before the 1950s and maybe during the war. These are like nurses assigned to take care of soldiers in battle field. Or they could simply be nurses on some health care mission to less privileged areas. They look like a bunch of children getting ready for a class pictorial.
The second photograph is a colored one and looks more recent that the first one. In this photograph, there are only three persons. On the front is a white man who, judging by his clothes, is a medical doctor. Behind him, on each side are two women. One woman is dark skinned while the other woman‘s ethnicity cannot be judged since she further back and the picture starts to blur. This picture seems to be taken within the hospital halls.
This photograph looks like more of a promotional picture for a television show featuring doctors and nurses within the hospital setting. You could see that they are posing like models with arms folded and feet apart and staring straight into the camera with serious determined faces, or at least I could tell by the doctor’s face.
Identification and Discussion of Issues
Going back to the first photograph with the nurses posing for the camera with a man clothed in black, let us identify the issues that can be gauged from the picture.
From the photograph, three issues can be presented: (1) nurses usually work with other nurses in the provision of health care services, (2) in the provision of these services, other individuals could be involved – even if these individuals are not health care professionals, and (3) if we compare this picture to pictures of group nurses or team nurses at present, we can conclude that this team in the picture comprises more nurses than most nursing teams at present. This only goes to show that perhaps there is a growing shortage of nurses at present.
Nurses can work alone. But nurses can also work in groups. Collaboration, they say, is the key to success. Nurses working together can provide a better quality of service, thus improving patient’s health also. In most cases, nurses work in groups or in teams where there is a leader assigned to take in charge and lead the group.
Other individuals are involved in the provision of health care services by the nurses. By this, we do not mean other health care professionals but ordinary citizens or even the patients themselves. People had a right and a duty to participate individually and collectively in the planning of their health care. This highlight the importance of nurses looking at their practice critically and maintaining up-to-date research-based knowledge, illustrating that healthcare professionals need to be empowered to empower others effectively.
We question – why is there a growing shortage of nurses when in fact we see more and more people taking up nursing profession in schools. The growing shortage of nurses is due to the fact that the world is growing. More nurses there may be, but still population is growing day by day.
A nursing shortage in almost all countries has been reported. There are a number of strategies made in dealing with the crisis. With the total population of the world growing, along with the different mutated new diseases that attack the bodies of man, the population growth was expected along with the nursing shortage.
In the second photograph, an issue to raise is that nurses work with other health care professionals in the provision of health care services. As depicted in the photograph, nurses work with doctors. Partnership between doctors and nurses is seen to be an essential prerequisite to the success of providing the best quality of care to the patient, and the key to successful partnership within health visiting practice is mutual respect and open communication between parties. There should be no feelings of jealousy, instead, health care professionals should collaborate and cooperate with each other.
Comparison and Differentiation
Comparing the two photographs only in terms of how it looks can generate many differences, not similarities. To name a few, these differences includes the number of nurses in the picture, the clothes of the nurses, and the color (or lack of it) of the photograph.
Nurses nowadays not only wear white during their duties. They wear other colors too in their duty, like the color blue. The style of their uniform also varies. In the old photograph, the nurses are wearing skirts – long skirts which made them look like they are wearing gowns; while in the newer photograph the two nurses are wearing pants.
In both photographs, we can see that nurses are not alone in their quest of providing quality health care services. In the first photograph, we see that the nurses are with a man who seems to be helping them in some sort of way. In the second photograph, the nurses are with the doctors who are undeniably able to help nurses and can also play a big impact on the role of the nurses.
In both photographs, we can safely say that nurses are being provided with support from different sides. Nurses get support and empowerment from fellow health care professionals like the doctors and also from other individuals, even their clients. Empowerment is defined as “moving decision making down to the lowest level where competent decisions can be made” (Szaloczy, 1998).
Representation and empowerment of clients raises important issues. If nurses are to truly follow their code of professional conduct, they must view nursing not as a source of power, but as a means of empowerment through the sharing of knowledge (Du Plat-Jones, 1999).
Discussion
By working in partnership with doctors and even clients, nurses can best represent their needs and redistribute power for the good of all concerned. A critical appreciation of the sources of influence in health care is important. Yet, more importantly, unless nurses can learn to represent themselves, their interests and those of their clients more effectively, they will continue to be a large body of professionals with a relatively small voice within the wider political, social and health care arenas (Du Plat-Jones, 1999).
The nurse has a dual role to play in providing a service for clients and helping clients to access appropriate services. The client’s right to health care confers on nurses an obligation to assist clients to meet their individual health needs. Representing the client can take two forms – advocacy and empowerment.
The nurse-client-relationship has for some decades been considered the cornerstone of nursing (Hummellvoll, 1996). In nursing research and practice the nurse-client relationship is a central theme. The nursing care partnership model, challenges the traditional, professional helping- role characterized by objectivity and neutrality, both of which have dominated psychiatry. They reason that changing social conditions and new health problems require an alternative model of nursing practice.
Nursing care plans are a guide to nursing practice. These are either specific to nursing or integrated in multidisciplinary treatment plans. One purpose of nursing care plans is to ensure inter-professional communication. Nurses working together can learn from one another’s nursing care plans they make for their patients.
There is also a need for nursing organizations to empower their staff to deliver client-focused care. Empowerment should come not only from doctors or clients but also from the other nurses. These could who work together in the same health care setting or these could be nurses of an entirely different hospital setting.
In the hospital setting, this would most commonly be at the point of direct client care or staff nurse level; however, this kind of empowerment requires an environment of autonomy where mutual trust and respect are encouraged. The empowerment process requires that staff be prepared to accept and effectively use expanded decision-making responsibilities (Szaloczy, 1998).
To start changing the work environment into a healthy one, there should first be mutual trust and encouragement in all the parties involved. Each and every opinion should be respected and given consideration in the decision-making process. There should also be an all-out support for this desire for change.
Incorporated within the concept of empowerment is the individual’s willingness to see the vision and make the personal changes necessary to connect with that vision. It is how the concept of shared leadership works (George, et al, 2002).
Developing an empowering culture in which positive relationships are nurtured, leadership capabilities are developed, and professional practice is supported can improve the work environment and satisfaction of staff nurses (Walker, 2001). Simply put, collaborative work relationships should be actively enhanced and promoted in order to create a positive work environment.
The professional accountabilities of the empowered nurse includes having a sense of value about their work and willingness to provide the full scope of practice as well as ability to work as equal members of a comprehensive interdisciplinary team. In order to move into a fully empowered position, professional nurses need mentoring, education, awareness of political activism opportunities, and networking skills (Szaloczy, 1998).
On the other hand, individuals who help the nurses can also restrict practice and provide a form of control over nurses. It is plausible to infer from this that power is being exerted over nurses and by nurses in many situations. Thus representation has now become a key issue for the status and future of the nursing profession.
Conclusion
The role of nurses in the world varies, as we can see in the two photographs. They could be in the open field with other individuals who aren’t health care professionals or they could be in the hospital with the doctors and other health care professionals. But even though their roles vary, they serve only one purpose: to promote and practice health care thru the knowledge they earned from training and practice.
It is the job of the nurses to take care of those who require health care. It is their job to give quality health care so that patients will get cured and will have confidence in their safety and the excellent practice of medical practitioners. Both patients and doctors could benefit from the nurses.
A good nurse shall also serve as a model to her fellow nurses and nurses to be, and teaches them good ethics and practice. A nurse must also be adept to new technologies, especially those that pertain to medicine. Over the years, we can see as is in the photographs that nurses have changed yet there is one thing that didn’t change. And that is the continuing provision of the best quality of care to those who need it.
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