Nurse Take Risks Every Day,

¶ … nurse take risks every day, simply to practice their craft. Nurses are exposed to countless contagions not to mention people with significant physical and mental impairment, as a result of the sometimes extreme nature of their health condition. Internationally, the experience of nursing can be an extremely risky proposal, as was experienced by many risk taking nurses, who put themselves in harms way to care for individuals and advance understandings of disease and heroic care. The text gives examples of Clara Maass, who allowed herself to be bitten by Malaria infected mosquitoes to prove that these vectors were the harbinger of the disease, Edith Cavell a WWI nurse who not only served in danger but assisted in helping soldiers escape the enemy, Sharon Lane a nurse who died in combat during Vietnam and lastly Barbara Fassbinder who contracted HIV in her service of duty and advocated for mandatory testing of health care workers. (p. 40)

In the international community many diseases that have been eliminated or extremely reduced in incidence in the developed world are still rampant and in some cases more virulent. Some examples are antibiotic resistant Tuberculosis, Polio, Smallpox, Cholera, HIV, MRSA and others that have been contained and have rational treatment regimens in the U.S. And Europe. As a nurse I would be willing to risk by traveling to an international destination and providing nursing care for individuals who are without care as a result of financial burden and regional access. Seeking to follow this path would likely put me at some risk of exposure to diseases which are no longer a threat in the U.S., but seeking to help those who have no health care access is an essential aspect of the role of a nurse as a risk taker.

The role of caring is an essential aspect of nursing and is often a big part of the reason that nurses become nurses. Caring is not simply a demonstration of sympathy and empathy for an individual's particular situation, as focusing on such might impair the ability of the nurse to look at long and short-term health goals that could be uncomfortable but might realistically assist the patient to maintain a better quality of life in the near future. Caring for those who are limited in ability to do so themselves, children, soldiers, the poor and the elderly and this is the historical precedence of nursing in general. The text of this course stresses that the development of nursing, like many other caring professions had a great deal to do with the need to provide professional caring to those who were at risk, and lacking the family and economic connection that was the basis for the maintenance of health in earlier times.