The Responsibilities of a Student Nurse Essay

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Student Nurse Ethics exploring ANA Code Ethics

Explanation of your own core personal values

Honesty, kindness, persistence, security, lifelong learning, and family are my core values and beliefs. I use these values to guide me in making my day-to-day decisions. It is my belief that to be a nurse one has to be caring and to have knowledge and integrity. Nursing as a profession concentrates on patient healing, patient needs, patient empowerment and patient safety. It is my belief that the professional objectives of nursing as a profession are in agreement with my personal values and beliefs because my values overlap the forces at the heart of nursing. The characteristics or values that make me effective at doing my job cannot be switched off like a switch the moment my shift ends, but are part of my core as an individual and I carry those values with me wherever I go. To practice my values and beliefs daily I have to always do my best. And since as humans we are all not perfect, whenever something does not go as I planned, I have to quickly examine the situations, learn from my mistakes and make the appropriate adjustments. Learning from my mistakes enables me to continue grow and working with confidence because then I know that I am better than I was the time I made the mistake. I will also always make time to monitor and assess my own actions to make sure that I am on the right track professionally and that my actions reflect the best practices in nursing (Dahlin, 2015).

Where your values are derived from My personal values and beliefs are derived from culture, family and the society in general.

Example of how your values guide your actions as a student nurse

As nurses, most of us face tough choices every day. As a student nurse, I face several instances which test my character and patience. I always make sure that my personal values shape every decision I make. These values serve as personal markers to tell me if am on the right track and if things are going as planned. When our words and actions are matched with our values, we feel content, satisfied and confident in our actions. However, when our behaviors are not aligned with our personal values, we begin to feel uneasy. This sense of uneasiness is an indicator to us that all is not good. These feelings can in turn result in anxiety and general unhappiness. Making a conscious and deliberate effort to determine which values are most important to us and which decisions made with those values will help keep anxiety low, can help us to stay happy. They can also help us to increase our sense of self-worth (Blackwell, 2008).

Summary of the provision you have chosen

The main commitment of a nurse is to the patient.

Primacy of the patient's interests -- My main responsibility is to the patient (whether an individual, a group, a family or a community). In other words, my duty is to the recipient of healthcare services. Nursing has a primary commitment to an individual's uniqueness as a patient and thus any plan of care must take into account this uniqueness. I am always alert to the fact that I should make efforts to provide my patients to get involved in planning their individual care and to back the implementation of the care plan.

Conflict of interest for nurses -- I often face scenarios where I face conflict of interest due to loyalties in the work environment, such as instances where there are conflicting expectations from the physicians, patients, colleagues, families and in many instances, healthcare institutions and plans. As a nurse, I should always evaluate the conflicts emerging out of professional and or personal values, the beliefs and values of others who also have a commitment to patient care, and those of the patients themselves. Nurses make efforts to resolve such conflicts in such a manner that ensures patient safety and with the patient's interests at heart. The resolution of the conflict should also take into account the nurse's professional integrity.

Collaboration -- This facet is, as I understand, more than simply cooperation; it is a joint or mutual effort of concerned individuals and groups for achieving a common goal. In healthcare, the goal is to meet the patient's and the public's health needs. The complicated nature of modern healthcare delivery systems necessitates an approach that is multi-disciplinary so as to enable service delivery based on a solid support and participation of all health professionals.

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With this in mind, it becomes clear that my profession's scope of practice, unique contribution and relationship other healthcare professions, needs to be well structured and preserved.

Professional boundaries -- Lastly, in acting as a professional, I should be able to recognize and maintain boundaries that create proper limits to relationships. While nursing is personal in nature, the relationships between the nurse and the patient and between the nurse and his or her colleagues have the purposes of promoting, protecting and restoring the health of the patient, as their foundation. In this context, the relationships between the nurse and the patient and between the nurse and his or her colleagues differ from those which are unstructured and purely personal, such as friendship. The personal nature of nursing as a profession, nurses' participation in vital and sometimes highly emotional events, and the nurses' dependence on each other, are all processes that can result in the blurring of the boundaries of professional relationships. Expressing myself as an individual and maintaining my identity and uniqueness, and at the same time, remaining within the bounds established for the purpose of the relationship, pose to be challenging for me especially for long-term relationships (American Nurses Association, 2001).

Why this particular provision (and its interpretation) caught your attention?

This provision caught my eye since it addresses the issue of conflicts between personal and professional values. In my pursuit of being caring, I am prone to overlook professional limits in interpersonal interaction, that I need to be wary of. Another reason is that it describes my primary responsibility and as a nurse and highlights the fact that the patient's interest should be a priority. It also helped me to be aware of the fact that the purpose of the nurse-patient and nurse-colleague relationships is not merely friendship but to alleviate suffering and to promote and restore the health of patients (ANA, 2001, p. 11; Lachman, 2009).

How you may (or already do) incorporate this concept as a student' nurse

I see the relationship between me and my patient as a unit in which much of my nursing ethics and practice occurs. The ethical sensitivity of a nurse is the first requirement in the practice of this provision that is patient-centered. This provision acts like an indicator of the ethical concerns or issues in a given case and thus I as the caregiver have the opportunity to check my own reactions to the case. The ethical sensitivity and the intuitive reaction that follows come from my own values and culture (American Nurses Association, 2010).

Responsibilities (as a student nurse) toward patients/clients

1. Advocacy: My commitment as a nursing student is to promote the rights of the patients. This necessitates an awareness of the patient's rights, the applicable standards, the relevant federal (e.g. Patient Self-Determination Act, Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), etc.) and state (e.g. Nurse Practice Act, etc.) legislations and medical facility's procedures and policies so as to meet the patients' rights and needs.

2. Confidentiality: unauthorized access to data that specifically identifies a patient and his/her condition should be prevented.

3. Timely care: patient care is time sensitive, thus we as nursing students should always know the time schedule set forth by other healthcare professionals. I am required to be aware of the discharge plan even as the patient sets foot on the medical facility.

4. Appropriate action to ensure safety of patients: Being a nursing student, I am also required to be able to quickly identify and remove ungainly conditions such as suspicious persons, faulty equipment, and unprofessional behavior by other healthcare team members towards the overall safety of my patients.

5. Professional care: Professional appearance, behavior and communication by the nursing student demonstrates respect for the both the patient and self. And as a nursing student I carry the responsibility to meet the duties assigned to me and demonstrate quality nursing practices (National Student Nurses' Association, Inc., 2009).

Responsibilities (as a student nurse) in the classroom and clinical settings

1. Academic or clinical setting: As a Nursing student I must be alert to the fact that my behaviors and actions affect the reputation of nursing as a profession. Thus whether on clinical or campus settings, I bear a responsibility to provide quality nursing practices.

2. In the academic and clinical setting: in this setting, as a nursing student, I have the opportunities to build critical thinking skills and to be….....

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