Newman Nursing Shortage Newman\'s Theory of Expanding

Newman Nursing Shortage

Newman's Theory of Expanding Consciousness and the Nursing Shortage

The education which is required to effectively train today's nursing professional is constituted of equal parts applicable procedure and theoretical underpinning. It is the theory element of this training which offers stability, a framework for proper decision-making and guidance on deciphering the needs of the patient in an often volatile field of work. Such stability, framing and guidance are especially necessary in this era of healthcare provision, where nurses must work to navigate the difficult realities of universal staffing shortages. This can make certain theoretical models particularly pertinent. To the point, this discussion will offer a theoretical framework which is extremely valuable in helping to bridge the gap between the modern healthcare practice and global or holistic philosophies of wellness. To instruct a theoretical approach to nursing that is, therefore, based on Margaret Newman's groundbreaking "Health as Expanding Consciousness" theory, this discussion highlights the importance of a practice that does have a strong founding set of principals to which nurses can refer as they attempt to work around critical staffing needs.

With respect to these critical staffing needs, significant evidence persists that nurses must increasingly learn to carry a greater labor burden to compensate for poor nurse to patient rations. And evidence denotes that this condition will only worsen. According to Cullen et al. (2010), "in 2008, American Health Care Association's report of vacancies in long-term facilities and American Hospital Association's report of hospital vacancies combined relayed an even larger shortage of 8.1%[iii]. By 2025, the shortage in RNs is projected to grow to an estimated 260,000 FTEs, twice as high as any U.S. nursing shortage since the 1960's." (Cullen et al., p. 1)

This denotes a critical need not just to recruit and train more nurses but, realistically, the help prepare current nurses to compensate for the reduced manpower. Newman's theory is particularly valuable in achieving this level of preparation. Specifically, the 'expanding consciousness' model calls for a level of personal attention and compassion that may help the nurse to optimize the time spent with individual patients, even if this time is shorter than would be ideal. Conjecturing that a nurse will provide a specific emotional connection and psychic closeness to "people facing the uncertainty, debilitation, loss and eventual death associated with chronic illness," Newman's model illustrates that the theoretical approach taken by the nurse will bear as instrumental an impact as will the proficiency of medical attention offered. (Newman, 1)

Here, it can be evidenced that the empathy accorded by the theoretical framework will provide an ideological umbrella for how best to address one's condition while simultaneously abiding the regulatory medical requirements common to most forms of modern treatment. Thus, as a nurse determines which information to be utilized and which to be disregarded, this umbrella may serve as a needed constant even when the availability of labor is not. The effective nurse, working in this framework, will succeed at engaging the emotional and social needs of the patient while simultaneously attending to core health needs, working to balance labor shortages. Service in this capacity, according to Newman's theory, can have a transformative impact on treatment outcomes for patients of a wide variance of needs even under such pressures.