Nurses are very important! The more you stress this fact, the better it is. Want to know why? Introspect and reminiscence over their role in the pandemic. They have worked tirelessly without thinking about their family and kids. Nurses are the heroes of healthcare. They are the force that keeps it going when faced with adverse challenges. They make up the largest group of healthcare providers and are often seen filling in for physicians too. In the far-flung areas where many physicians don’t prefer to go, who do you find there helping the families? The answer is simple, “nurses.” They are responsible for providing the best care to the patients and steering them on the road to recovery. Here are some more reasons why nurses are important.
In this article
1. Emotional support
Patients come to the hospital in a very precarious situation. They are unsure about their health and what will happen to them. The families are also worried about their patients. In this difficult time, nurses provide emotional support and a shoulder to cry on. They communicate with the family members, show them a ray of hope, and take care of them emotionally—though it is not their responsibility. Thus, nurses not only cure you physically but also help with your emotional well-being.
2. Higher medical knowledge
Often nurses have high educational qualifications to provide the best support. Those who work with a diploma enroll in BSN, while MSN nurses prefer a DNP (Doctor of Nursing Practice). So, during their whole working life, they get higher education to benefit their patients.
As an RN working in the hospital, you might be curious about the DNP program as it could be just the stepping stone you are looking for to advance in your career. So, asking “how long is a dnp program” and “What do you get out of it” are fair questions as you might manage it with work. A full-time DNP program is usually three years long if you include summer studies too. As a result of an MSN or a DNP degree, nurses get advanced knowledge and learn more research-based practices to treat their patients. Even though continuing education and working simultaneously are not easy, nurses are still doing it for the sake of their patients. But a plus point is that higher education helps them excel in their career too.
3. Nurses wear many hats at their workplace
Thinking that nurses only take care of patients, administer medicines, and ensure food is provided on time is narrowing the scope of their work. In reality, nurses wear many hats in hospitals or patient care facilities. The first point of contact for anyone coming into the hospital is often a nurse. They help them navigate their way to their doctor’s room, help them with the hospital procedure, and undergo medical screening. They are always accessible to answer your questions and help the family members manage the appointments. So, you will find nurses in all roles, including management and leadership. So limiting their work to clinical duties is quite unfair. Without nurses, patients would go astray in the hospital and, hence, won’t get the quality of care they expect. So, why are nurses important? Because they are “priceless” and “irreplaceable.”
4. Roles as patient advocates
Nurses spend the most time with lower-level staff and patients. All these people don’t have reach to the higher management. So, there is no way they can communicate their concerns by themselves. This is where the job of the nurse comes to the forefront. The advocacy role of nurses is extremely crucial to the normal functioning of healthcare and providing the best treatment to patients. They can communicate the concerns of the patients and their families to the management. Patients might be complaining about complicated check-in or check-out procedures, the cost of the treatment, the neglect of the doctors, and much more. Their advocacy role extends to the families, too, where they discuss the patient’s medical condition and help them understand the treatment and its various modalities. The advocacy role of nurses often helps the hospitals improve the systems and patient care standards if feedback is taken seriously. Outside the hospital, their advocacy role can rally support for policy changes and better facilities for patients.
5. Passion for the work
The job of a nurse is tiring and complicated, so you cannot perform it just for the sake of money. Even if there is a lot of money, it does not come easily. So, it is the passion of nurses that keeps them going during long and tiring shifts. You will often see one nurse taking care of many patients simultaneously. You will often find them working during holidays and festivals when others consider it their right to take a break. Their passion for work is the only thing that can explain their resolve to work under war-like conditions such as an enemy attack or during natural disasters.
6. Compassion for others
The underlying need for a nursing position is having compassion and empathy for others. You have to feel the pain of others and put yourself in their shoes when treating them. The compassion of nurses towards their patients is priceless for the survival of care facilities. This is also how management can boast about the best care they offer in the hospital.
Conclusion
A nurse’s job is indispensable for healthcare; it is as simple as that! There can be no bigger explanation than this. They are important because they are an inseparable part of healthcare. No hospital can function without the dedicated work of nurses. They often neglect their family and kids and seldom take care of their well-being when on duty. So, if nurses are called the heroes of humanity, there is some reason behind it.
