Nursing organizations have a tremendous impact on the profession and on the good of society. When nurses begin their practice after graduation, many of them are well aware that they are responsible for their own professional development. Joining a nursing organization is the best way to dedicate oneself seriously and realistically to one’s professional development since these entities have such a strong focus on continuing education and shaping society for the better. Nursing organizations are able to critically impact the profession because of the unity they create among professionals. Nursing organizations creates a system of membership and camaraderie that offers nurses a continual education, opportunities for certification, and role-related skill-building along with educational gatherings and programs (Schneider, 2015). Part of the reason that nursing organizations are so crucial is because healthcare is constantly in flux. There are daily updates and changes that occur in this arena and the nursing profession is largely able to keep up with them when they organize in this manner. One of the biggest challenges as a professional nurse is being able to keep up with the all the developments in evidence based research. Nurses have such demanding schedules daily. It isn’t always humanly possible for them to read studies and entire journals when they are done with work for the day. When nurses align with reputable nursing organizations that support or focus on one’s area of specialty, this pushes nurses to the forefront of all relevant nursing changes in practice. It makes the professional stronger and allows patients to receive a higher level of care.
Joining a nursing organization that is centered in one’s arena of practice means that one will have a front row seat to relevant continuing education opportunities. Furthermore, the opportunities to go to conferences is essential. Conferences gather nurses together from all over the nation allowing them to share practices, tips and findings that are relevant and that advance the practice of nursing as whole. Nursing organizations can be powerful in getting their voices and platforms heard, by virtue of their large size and influence. As a result of the fact that nurses are on the front lines of patient care, they often have a very specific understanding of the unique needs or issues that need to be adjusted in order...
Hence when they seek to influence policy in order to improve the good of the nation and the people in it, they can do so with greater success as an entire nursing organization. Advocacy is a tremendously large part of the nursing field. Nurses have to constantly advocate for the people and issues around them: for patients, for the field, and for aggravated areas of concern. As one professional nurse and leader in the community writes, “Our advocacy, motivated by moral and ethical principles, seeks to influence policies by pleading or arguing within political, economic, and social systems, and also institutions, for an idea or cause that can lead to decisions in resource allocation that promote nurses, nursing, and all of healthcare” (Matthews, 2012). This is so crucial as it demonstrates how nursing organizations can have a very real and discernible impact on the course and manifestation of the entire healthcare arena.
One of the very obvious and important ways that nursing organizations impact the profession is in the power of the alliances that they form. Every specialty nursing organization helps to advocate for nurses as their organizational objectives directly connect to members, their needs, their areas of focus and their standards of practice. One of the major ways that these organizations can help to influence and improve the profession as a whole is by the ways in which they benefit the public. “Many specialty organizations, and their members, educate the public, policy makers, healthcare administrators, and professionals on specific issues. Nursing organizations are cognizant of the power of unity and engage in collaborative ventures with other nursing and health-related professional organizations when appropriate” (Matthews, 2012). These alliances and the influence they wield can be immensely influential on methods and standards of practice and be precisely what is needed to ensure that the level of care is elevated. This helps to streamline the overall strategies of nursing so that the profession as a whole reaches a more elite level of excellence.
Without nursing organizations, it can be too easy for nurses to fall into the trap of thinking that their only job is to provide care to patients, when in reality each nurse has an enormous potential to influence policy and the overall…
