What Makes A Good Nurse

What makes a good nurse?
Nursing and its various branches have developed over many years in response to
different needs being identified within the population. Specialised needs, as identified within
children’s nursing, lead to that branch of nursing developing its own knowledge and technical
base.
This report focuses on the work of hospital nurses, often seen as the ‘Cinderella
workforce’, because their specialised knowledge and technical base remain largely
unrecognised and/or disregarded. In acknowledgement of the continuing shortage of hospital
nurses, it was the intention of this project to identify the nursing roles and activities most valued
by patients/clients and staff so that they could be retained and developed.
Nurses play an essential part in providing care. Neither doctors nor hospitals could
function without them. Given the opportunity, nurses have always been creative in their
approach to practice. For example, nurses were the first people to identify a need for hospice
care and to provide this service. Hospitals and communities need nurses. They are needed to
care for the sick, and to advise so to keep people well. These extraordinary people, with their
amazing achievements, could be an inspiration to nurses today, but nurses rarely hear about
them. Nurses do not ordinarily learn about the history of nursing and the people who have
contributed, in many different ways, to the development of their profession.
Significance of the Study

Literature related to this study
Who are the nurses? There is a tendency to think of nurses as a homogenous group, with shared
values and goals. The reality is more challenging as registered nurses form a complex group both within
the profession and outside in organisational structures. White (1988) identified three main groups of
nurses:
• The mangers – who want to control the nursing staff and budgets. The managers support the
existing structures that maintain their positions in the hierarchy.
• The generalists – who are in their jobs mainly to earn a living. There is nothing wrong with this
but again it is in their interests to support the existing systems and resist change.
• The professionally minded – this group may include specialists. These nurses look to higher
education and specialist knowledge to develop practice. They tend to challenge existing structures and
working practices, so come into conflict with the other two groups.
Nurses are individuals with some common ground, but with many different aspirations as well.
They often have to function within well established peer groups, which exert strong pressures to
conform. Nurses are not a uniform group; they do not have a clear focus and so lack the strength they
could have if consensus was possible.
What do nurses do? As described previously, nurses fall into three main groups: the managers,
the generalists, and the professionals including some specialists. Arguably, all three groups should
undertake nursing practice, but frequently it is the last two groups that have most contact with patients
and the care they receive. Care has to be managed, standards of care maintained, the education and
support of staff co-ordinated – these are all activities nurses should be involved in. Nurses also carry the
responsibility for the care given to patients in their area. This is particularly true for sisters and charge
nurses but the team of nurses supporting these people carry a share of the responsibility.
In recent years, nursing practice has become blurred with the practice of medicine. In some
areas the use of technology and the tasking of procedures have begun to take priority and status away
from nursing care. A shift in emphasis like this can make care a dehumanising activity for the nurse as
well as the patient, instead of the therapeutic relationship it should be (Dean 1998). What makes a good
nurse? 55 Nursing care remains hard to define although many people have tried (Webb 1992). One way
to identify nursing care is to look from the position of the patient. Virginia Henderson’s 1960s definition
of nursing (cited by Clark 1998, p39) still stands firm today: The unique function of the nurse is to assist
the individual sick or well, in the performance of those activities contributing to health or its recovery (or
to peaceful death) that he would perform unaided if he had the necessary strength, will or knowledge.
And to do this in such a way as to help him gain independence as rapidly as possible. This part of her
function she initiates and controls, of this she is the master. Nursing work is about meeting the needs of
patients until they can do it for themselves. Nursing work may not be glamorous but it is always
important (Lawler 1991). Here is one nurse’s description of nursing activity (RCN 1992, p10): I was a
student nurse and I was being taught by the enrolled nurse how to pass a nasogastric tube on a patient.
The lady we were working on was quite poorly. She had lung cancer and had had fluid drained from her
pleural cavity twice that week. It was very painful and nauseating for her. She couldn’t keep anything
down, and she retched a lot. The nasogastric tube was to let us drain off some of the foul bile stained
fluid that she brought up each time she was sick. The enrolled nurse explained to her exactly what we
were going to do, and how much better she would feel. He was quite clear about how unpleasant the
tube could be when it was going over the back of her throat. He then explained it again to me, and she
watched like a hawk, holding the tube he had given her in her hand. After all the preparation, he
proceeded to put the tube up to her nose, and lifted her two hands and wrapped them around his. ‘At
any time when you want, you can stop this,’ he said. So she did, three seconds later. The second time, he
was just as patient. Eventually, with tears pouring down her face, she pushed at his hand to ‘help’ the
tube going right down her throat. After she was all tidied up and settled, and some of the bile had been
drained off, we all held hands for a second, and he made her laugh by inviting her to help with the
intubation of any other patient who might need it. (Staff Nurse) What makes a good nurse? 56 The
nursing task was to pass a nasogastric tube. What makes the task described special are the nursing
ingredients of knowledge, understanding, sincerity, patience and humour. Such elements could be called
the art of nursing.

What Makes A Good Nurse

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

What Makes A Good Nurse

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Description:

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

What Makes A Good Nurse

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

What makes a good nurse?

unrecognised and/or disregarded. In acknowledgement of the continuing shortage of hospital

by patients/clients and staff so that they could be retained and developed.

contributed, in many different ways, to the development of their profession.

Significance of the Study

existing structures that maintain their positions in the hierarchy.

could have if consensus was possible.

the art of nursing.

You might also like