Nursing and Academic Practice

In modern nursing practices, nurses need to have good academic knowledge, professional skill and performance standard to perform manifold tasks with perfection and efficiency. In the modern nursing field, the main problem is that most of the student nurses are not able to gather proper nursing knowledge and expertise due to poor guidance from their mentors and poor communication system. With the rising number of critical health issues in the modern world, nurses need to develop high expertise and professional knowledge to meet patients' needs. This essay is going to demonstrate how student nurses can develop a high level of professionalism in their practice by using wide ranges of learning options such as academic, digital and information literacy skill. The essay will also describe obligations that student nurses have throughout their practice. Finally, the essay will also discuss the behaviour, values and knowledge that nursing professionals have to develop to provide safe as well as high-quality person-centred care to patients.

Throughout the practice student nurses are introduced to many fields of nursing that enable them to learn new things and develop new skills that they can use in their performance to provide safe and high-quality care to patients (Lim and Jo, 2016). Student nurses need to develop strong academic skill in which they can learn the importance of patient’s autonomy, patient’s consent, patients’ privacy, hygiene and patient management. During practice student nurses need to develop their communication and interpersonal skill that assist them to maintain a transparent and systematic information delivery system in their workplace. Student nurses need to develop a good knowledge of using different health assessment tools into nursing care. For example, in modern nursing practices, student nurses are provided with training about how to use NEWS (National Early Warning Score) that assist student nurses to learn how to determine the severity of patient's health condition (Hwang and Shin, 2017).

Throughout the practice, student nurses can develop their practical knowledge on first-aid, patient-management, medicine-management of the patient and infant care (Shim and Lee, 2017). During the introduction to the cardiovascular system and homeostatic, student nurses have the scope to develop their knowledge on how to deal with patients with cardiovascular disease and cardiac arrest. Student nurses can develop their knowledge on care processes that needed to be implemented to maintain homeostasis in patients’ body. On the other hand, throughout the placement with an introduction to the respiratory system, student nurses can get the opportunity to develop their knowledge on how to deal with patients with COPD and the relevant care settings that can be set to improve the health condition of these patients. Along with the academic skill and information skill, student nurses need to develop the digital literacy skill that is important in modern nursing practice to provide high quality and innovative care to patients (Park and Yoo, 2019). Through undertaking training and nursing program, student nurses can develop their knowledge on using online communication system in the workplace and online health assessment tools (Tanaka et al. 2016). Through using these tools nurses can observe patients’ health and online software and application program to maintain an online inventory of patients’ health details.

As mentioned by Lee and Park (2017) although digital literacy is highly important in modern nursing care, in many times nursing professionals are unable to use the online assessment tools and Electronic Health Records accurately that can mislead the entire care delivery process. Sometimes student nurses cannot get the technical infrastructure in the hospital during their practices which make them unable to develop their skill in handling online technical processes. The virtual learning environment is highly effective for student nurses in which they can undertake online training and self-assessment which enhance their digital literacy and academic skills (Jang, 2016). Through a virtual learning program, student nurses can access wide ranges of academic sources on different nursing topics that assist them to develop their academic knowledge and understanding on these topics (Jo et al. 2019). Additionally, through undertaking training on first-aid, digital patient-management and online health check-up of patients, student nurses can develop their practical knowledge on providing fast holistic and person-centred care to patients.

Student nurses are obliged to maintain as well as implement the health and social care policies into their practice. Student nurses are obliged to follow the NMC (2015) codes of conducts throughout their practices in terms of providing safe as well as compassionate care to patients [NMC, 2015]. Additionally, student nurses are also obliged to maintain their professional integrity as well as accountability throughout the care delivery. According to Skaaden (2019), professional integrity is the practice of maintaining behavioural ethics. In nursing practices, nurse’s must adhere their duties to their ethical and moral principles such as dependability, trustworthiness and honesty. Student nurses must follow the NMC (2015) codes while performing any function. Under NMC (2015) codes, nurses must ensure they adhere to the code ‘preserving safety’. Nurses must work under their level of competence to provide safe care to the patient [NMC, 2015].

As mentioned by Lee and Chae (2016), students nurses must know their level of competencies under which they would work to ensure the safety of patients throughout the care delivery process. Student nurses need to be aware of their strengths and weaknesses that will assist them to be involved in that kind of task in which they have enough expertise and proficiency. Under NMC (2015) code, student nurses must ensure that they are aware of the organisational regulation, ethical and moral values of their profession and health and social care policies [NMC, 2015]. Student nurses must ensure that they adhere their roles to the NMC Codes of Conducts such as providing the right care, preserving the safety of patients, respecting the autonomy of the patient. As mentioned by Yim and Kim (2017), student nurses must be aware of their professional boundary beyond which they cannot perform any task otherwise it can interfere with the patient's safety. They are obliged to respect the patient’s autonomy, patient’s’ preference, interest and choice of treatment which providing compassionate and person-centred care to patients. Additionally, student nurses must develop strong professional and academic skills that enable them to provide the right care and support to patients suffering from chronic disease. Student nurses would also have the team working skill that will enable them to work in a multidisciplinary team (MDT), thereby working synergistically with doctors, health and social care staffs and nursing professional to provide holistic care to patients with critical needs.

While it comes to provide safe person-centred care to patients, student nurses need to maintain a transparent communication system with patients, patients’ family members and members of the multidisciplinary team (MDT). As mentioned by Tanaka et al. (2016), transparent information delivery system is highly important in providing good patient-centred care. In terms of maintaining patients’ safety throughout their care process, nursing professionals are obliged to work under their level of knowledge and expertise. Through this process student, nurses can determine the health needs of patients and provide them with the right care and support needed for promoting their positive mental and physical health. Nursing professionals would respect the values, decision and preferences of their patients in terms of assuring the care and treatment that are going to be provided to patients will not cause any harm or health risk (Park and Yoo, 2019). Professional practitioners would maintain polite, friendly and cooperative behaviour with patients, colleagues and health professionals in terms of developing a collaborative as well as the synergistic work environment. Student nurses need to be involved in partnership working with patients, health professionals and patients’ family members. Nursing professionals would always be highly cautious and concern about their responsibilities in terms of conducting safe care delivery and patient’s management (Jang, 2016). Nursing professionals would be involved in professional training and self-evaluation process that will improve their professional skill and performance. They need to ensure that they have good practical and academic knowledge on patients’ management, medicine management and handling of medical equipment’s in order to ensure the safe delivery of care to patients.

From the overall discussion, it can be concluded that student nurses need to have strong professional skill and high level of competencies that will assist them to meet patients’ health needs and provide compassionate as well as quality care to patients. Student nurses have several obligations on their practices such as respecting patients’ autonomy, taking informed consent of patients before starting any treatment, respecting the values and decisions of seniors and peers, and maintaining professional integrity and accountability. Throughout practices student nurses can develop strong academic and digital literacy skill that are highly important in modern nursing filed in term of enhancing the quality as well as the speed of the care delivery process to provide better cure to patients. Through digital literacy skill that student nurses can develop throughout the practice, they can use the digital platform in performing their jobs such as using the online health assessment tool and online communication with health professionals regarding patients’ health and keeping track of patients’ health records. Additionally, students nurse also need to shape their behaviour, approaches and attitudes while they are in practice to provide high quality and compassionate care to patients.

Reference list:

Hwang, E. and Shin, S., 2017. Factors impacting nursing professionalism among nursing students. Journal of Korean Public Health Nursing, 31(1), pp.97-108.

Jang, I., 2016. The effects of emotional regulation between clinical practice stress and nursing professionalism in nursing students. Journal of the Korean Data and Information Science Society, 27(3), pp.749-761.

Jo, H., Ahn, Y., Ryu, S., Lim, J. and Kim, H., 2019. The Effect of the Image of Nurses and the Major Satisfaction on the Nursing Professionalism among Nursing students in University. Journal of the Korean Applied Science and Technology, 36(3), pp.1008-1017.

Lee, E.K. and Ji, E.J., 2016. Factors influencing nursing professionalism in nursing students: Clinical learning environment and attitude toward nurse-physician collaboration. Journal of Korean Academy of Fundamentals of Nursing, 23(2), pp.126-135.

Lee, E.S. and Park, M.S., 2017. A Study of Convergence Relationships among Nurses' Image, Professional Self-Concept and Nursing Professionalism in Nursing Students. Journal of Digital Convergence, 15(1), pp.311-320.

Lee, K.O. and Chae, H.J., 2016. The relationships between emotional intelligence and college adjustment and nursing professionalism in nursing students. Journal of Digital Convergence, 14(10), pp.355-365.

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Park, M. and Yoo, H., 2019. Influence of cultural competence on nursing professionalism of nursing students. The Journal of Korean Academic Society of Nursing Education, 25(1), pp.38-47.

Shim, O.S. and Lee, H.J., 2017. A comparative study on the job satisfaction, nursing professionalism and nursing work environment of nurses in comprehensive nursing care service wards and nurses in general wards. Journal of Convergence for information Technology, 7(6), pp.25-33.

Skaaden, H., 2019. Invisible or invincible? Professional integrity, ethics, and voice in public service interpreting. Perspectives, 27(5), pp.704-717.

Tanaka, M., Taketomi, K., Yonemitsu, Y. and Kawamoto, R., 2016. Professional behaviours and factors contributing to nursing professionalism among nurse managers. Journal of nursing management, 24(1), pp.12-20.

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