Role of the Registered Nurse
The role of the Registered Nurse within today’s healthcare field is rapidly changing. Expectations and duties of the nurse are multiplying by the day and it seems to be becoming increasingly difficult to provide fundamental nursing care to patients. According to Melissa Fitzpatrick (2015), the very heart of nursing is the basic nursing care that is becoming so difficult for nurses to perform in healthcare settings today. She also states that their needs to be a shift of focus within these settings that promotes “high-touch” nursing. High-touch nursing can be described as, “where the nurse has plenty of face-to-face time and a personal connection with patients and their families (Fitzpatrick, 2015, p. 2).NURS 3101 Week 2 Essay Discussion
Holistic care for patients can often seem as if it is impossible for nurses to deliver while carrying out the multitude of other tasks that are assigned per shift.However, “Recognizing that everyone has individual preferences and personalities and putting them at the heart of nursing care is essential” (Glendening, Heaslip, & Riding, 2017, p. 391).Each patient requires different needs and levels of care.It is up to us as nurses to assess these needs and to be able to realize when and how to implement these essential nursing tasks.For example, there have been many shifts in which I have been running late on my medication administration because I have had to safely assist a patient to the bathroom, or immediately had to bathe a soiled patient.During times like these, nurses must not forget to revise their priorities in order to deliver the safe and effective care that is required at that moment.It takes courage and integrity from the nurse to ensure that the patient’s primary needs are being met even though his/her “to-do” list may be falling behind schedule.