Nursing Ethnographic Essay

Nurses What exactly is a nurse? Nurses are no longer considered the doctor’s handmaid, but an important part of the medical team. Nurses tend to make up a culture within the medical field establishing a group of considerate, motivated, and intellectual people who take pleasure in helping others in a time of need. According to U.S. Department of Labor, nurses have been described to “work to promote health, prevent disease, and help patients cope with illness.” Nursing is a profession that blends the rich traditions of the past with the ever changing realities of today’s health care industry. The status of nursing as a profession reflects the values that society places on their work and how nurses are to the good of society. I feel that having a caring and compassionate heart work together to create professional nurses, who not only treat their patient’s physical well being, but also facilitate a healing of emotional aspects.Nurses are the ones who are always there, providing valuable expertise. They offer their essential caring, support, and advice to those in need, their families, and other caregivers. On a daily basis, nurses are competent, compassionate individuals, doing the work of helping and nursing their patients back to health. They are highly valued and are much appreciated members of today’s society. Nurses are vital to health care. They make a difference in the lives of individuals through one-on-one care, in communities through health promotion or even more broadly through research and leadership. Nurses positively affect the wellbeing and lives of all people who they come in contact with.Many opinions exist as to which values would be considered the most imperative in the field of nursing. Answers to this question are bound to be greatly varied due to the fact that, different nurses tend to deal with different things, and they each have their own personality and experiences. One thing that I noticed about nurses while I was Doctor's Hospital in Laredo, TX, is that you need the following values to carryout your vocation: compassion, confidentiality, and teamwork. A nurse is a person that worries about the physical and psychosocial portion of the illness. Nurses are the type of people that need to treat everyone as a unique and special individual regardless of where he or she lives and where he or she is from. Each nurse must truly care for and be sensitive with the needs of others. They use their knowledge and expertise and set goals to endorse the well being of patients’ lives.Being a nurse is a career you can be spiritually, emotionally, and financially satisfied with. In this day and age this is a unique opportunity, but it is not for everyone. A special person with qualities such as empathy, compassion, intelligence, and above all patience should only apply. The skills and knowledge they attain as they plan to become a nurse are highly marketable and portable. Nurses can choose one area of interest when they begin to study nursing, and then explore new educational and career opportunities as they gain experience in the workforce. Nursing is a profession to grow in because you have many different paths that they can follow to find out which area suits them better.Nursing opens up many doors to a wide assortment of career options depending on what area you would like to go into. Many people often view each nurse the same, but in reality, there is a difference between each of them that is dependant on the different areas they work in such as fast paced hospitals or a busy doctor’s office. To begin with, by being a nurse, you need to learn basically a whole new language. There is so much medical terminology that you need to learn and understand in order to get by. Every nurse that works in a hospital also knows that they need to understand the precautions and safety rules that they are to follow.Another thing that I noticed while was shadowing a nurse at Boston’s Children’s Hospital is that nurses that work in hospitals tend to be constantly on their feet doing so many things at once and never stopping for a break. It seems to me that they love their job so much and there is no time for breaks because there is always someone in need of their help. Nurses tend to have numerous responsibilities and they know that they cannot mess up, and they need to make sure that their daily duties are fulfilled before they leave. Even though they may be frazzled with their hectic schedules, they calm down in front of their patients. They do not let their patients see them at intricate times. In a hospital, nurses develop a relationship with their patients in order to help them out and so the patients can feel comfortable talking to them. The calm and caring approach of the nurse towards the patient and the nurse’s perceptiveness helps in receiving an improved response from the patient and ultimately leading to a better relationship with the patient. It is very imperative that they have a caring and dear relationship between them. I noticed this also while attending both hospitals. The nurses there were very calm, soothing and very interested in what their patient’s had to say, and by doing this, the patients felt that the nurses were considerate willing to hear their problems. This is how the patients tend to open up to the nurses. The Nurses are constantly in contact with each of their patients always checking up on them making sure they are okay and that they have everything they need to feel comfortable.Nursing is a special profession like none other. Nurses are trusted with very personal information. They see a person at their most vulnerable time. Some of their patients may feel humiliated or embarrassed for the nurses to see them unclothed or needing help with activities of daily living such as feeding, toileting and personal grooming. It is up to the nurses to make that person feel comfortable and in doing so the nurses will become a trusted confident. I feel that the nurses do not care whether they see you at your most vulnerable time because they are not going to make fun of you or judge you even though the patients may be embarrassed. The nurse is just doing his or her job.As a nurse, you are held in confidence by your patients with whom in turn they tend to develop close relationships with. Nurses cannot let these relationships alter your professional decision making. It will become difficult when nurses lose a patient. This is where some nurses are really tested. Some people can accept this and move on while others may find it difficult and try not to get as close to a patient again to avoid that pain. It can be very emotional after they have developed a close knit relationship with that patient. However, this is part of the job and people need that special attention.Hospital nurses attend to patients young and old and around