Nurse Competency Nursing Duty and

Nurse Competency Nursing Duty and Competency The field of nursing is not as straightforward or as well-defined a practice as many outsiders might believe, but is actually a complex set of disciplines, knowledge areas, and practices that have a major and wide-reaching impact on overall medical practice. There are many responsibilities of nurses that are not directly related to medical needs and practices, but that focus instead on delivering a more holistic type of care to patients.

Ultimately, it is the individual patient rather than their identified diseases, conditions, or symptoms that the nurse must treat, and this leads to specific duties of care and certain standards that, while not necessarily understood or appreciated outside the nursing industry, are essential to those that would become successful in their nursing careers. This also has an impact on the role of nurses within the larger framework of medical teams providing care to patients.

Nursing in its modern sense as largely the result of work and theorizing conducted by Florence Nightingale a century-and-a-half ago. This remarkable woman transformed nursing from a job for women of ill-repute with few or no other alternatives for earning to a principled and respected profession with well-defined duties and standards (Goliath 2007). The duty of care defined by Nightingale remains largely unchanged today -- nurses must carefully observe and display great sensitivity towards the patient's needs (Goliath 2007).

This is not limited to their strictly medical needs, but refers to needs of companionship, respect, communication, and other aspects of humanity and individuality that are often taken for granted in other interpersonal relationships but that are left out of other medical transactions (Goliath 2007). The need for national competency standards of nursing in Australia is made clear simply by an examination of the published standards as they now exist.

The clear and exacting codification of nursing duties and expectations provides a roadmap for nurses and nursing students to know what is expected of them in a highly specific and explicit manner, rather than simply through general notions of caring for all of a patient's needs (ANMC 2006).

That is, the published National Competency Standards for the Registered Nurse do not really include anything that is not covered in the general duty of care attributable to all nurses, but without such a detailed and explicit breakdown individual nurses might come to very different conclusions as to what patients needs and how best to provide nursing services that fulfill these needs (ANMC 2006).

By publishing these standards, nurses and nursing students have a source to reference when they are unsure of how to proceed, or unclear on exactly what services and modes of assistance their patients require. There are, of course, many individuals besides nurses that are essential parts of medical teams when it comes to providing effective and efficient care to patients.

General practitioners (GPs) are primarily tasked with determining diagnoses and developing treatment plans for their patients, and with coordinating the efforts of the rest of the medical team (Thomas & Corney 1993). Specialists such as dieticians, diabetes educators, and physicians that practice in highly specialized fields all have their own niches that most patients require service in at some point in their lives. Nurses can support all of these roles without assuming them themselves.

From a nursing perspective, teamwork in the provision of medical services and overall patient care is heavily predicated upon mutual respect amongst the team members and acknowledgement of the competencies and skills brought to the group by each team member (Thomas & Corney 1993). Teams function most effectively when the individual roles in these teams are well-defined and well-understood, yet when communication between these roles is also facilitated with grace and ease and is not limited to the specific functions of each team member (Thomas & Corney 1993).

That is, nursing advice to physicians and vice versa should be accomplished without conflict in a well-functioning team despite the division of their roles and tasks within the framework of that team (Thomas & Corney 1993). In order to promote this type of effective and efficient teamwork, which has great benefits not only for the.