There are several important issues in the
profession of nursing today. I’m
Going to discuss
three of the most important ones I believe are major issues nurses
face. Within the
profession there are issues with short staffing. This issue
can lead to
nurse
burnout; because of unit organization or inequitable assignments nurses tend
to
leave hospital jobs. Workplace
violence is another issue in nursing today; the
violence can
come from a patient or coworkers themselves. This can lead to nurses
being bullied by
other nurses or patients. Another major
issue with nursing today is
compensation;
depending on what region the nurse finds a job plays a role on how
they will be
paid. Gender; males get paid more than female nurses, and needless to
say the amount
of work that is done by a nurse is not at all compensated with pay.
Short
staffing is an issue of both professional and individual concern for
nurses
today. Short staffing is one of the most common reasons why nurses
experience
burnout. Nursing in itself is a stressful job and not having staff to rotate
and
work with one another can make a nurse feel overwhelmed and frustrated.
Without
enough staff the nurse cannot take a break and this takes a toll on the nurse
and
her health. This can also lead to mistakes made with medication and charting.
Based on the article Nursing staffs’
emotional well-being and caring
behaviors;
Burnout and psychological distress levels have been found to be high in
National
Health Service nursing staff and furthermore this emotional distress has
been
found to affect patient care. In a National Health Service striving to provide
high-quality
patient-centered care, it is essential that factors affecting nursing staffs’
well-being
and their caring behaviors are examined. (Journal of Clinical Nursing,
2015).
Nurses are often obligated to work
long hours. It can be because of the
hospitals
being short-staffed or trying to manage cutting costs. However; whatever
the
reason, nurses, working longer than they’re supposed to, is harmful. It can affect
the
quality of care they give to their patients, and can also put their health at
risk.
While
in clinical and watching the nurses and other staff members I realized the
importance
of having enough staff to have a unit function properly. I also saw the
toll
it takes on nurses and how they developed issues such as chronic back pain,
legs
and
shoulder pain.
The research article I read did a
cross-sectional correlation-based survey a
sample
of 102 nursing staff from an Acute National Health Service. The results were
as
follow: Demographics were not found to relate with nursing staffs’ burnout,
psychological
distress or caring behaviors. Work stressors, coping strategies and
self-efficacy
were found to be connected with nursing staffs’ burnout and
psychological
distress. Caring behaviors were also connected with coping strategies
and
self-efficacy. Importantly, relationships were found between caring behaviors
and
nursing staffs’ burnout and psychological distress. (Journal of Clinical
Nursing,
2015).
Here is were I think nurses should Be Full Partners, with Physicians
and
Other Health
Professionals, in Redesigning Health Care in the United States. Based
on The
Future of Nursing: Leading Change,
Advancing Health IOM report nurses are a
key component in helping implement a plan for change within
a facility. In care
environments, being a full partner involves taking
responsibility for identifying problems
and areas of waste, devising and implementing a plan for
improvement, tracking
improvement over time, and making necessary adjustments to
realize established goals.
(Foundation, 2015, pg 32). Nurses being on the board and
being full partners will help
with work stressors and nursing burnout. It will be direct
impact as to what the nurses
are going through with their jobs and help with bettering
patient care at the bedside
and within the facility.
In nursing another
issue is workplace violence, which can
come from a patient
or coworkers.
There is a saying “nurses eating the young” and this has been around
for a long time.
It is very common for new nurses to graduate and go into the field
and be bullied
by senior nurses. This can make it very intimidating for a new
graduate. This
can make a person question their decision and impact there way of
looking at
nursing as we are suppose to be a community within the health field and
should want to
help each other to become better at what we do. Physicians tend to
play a role with
treating nurses unfairly and hence the reason I think a nurse should
be apart of the
broad to gain respect in the health field that is deserved. This can
impact a nurse’s
ability for patient care.
Based on the article ‘Bullying among nursing staff:
Relationship with
psychological/behavioral responses of nurses and
medical errors” Nurses
play an
integral
role in achieving safe and effective health care. The method used for this
research
used an “internal e-mail system, an e-mail requesting the participants to
complete
the questionnaire on Survey Monkey was sent to a sample of 1,078 nurses
employed
across three facilities at a university hospital system in the Midwest. Two
hundred
forty-one completed questionnaires were received with a response rate of
23%.
Bullying was measured utilizing the Negative Acts Questionnaire-Revised. The
results
found to be negatively associated with age of nurses; physically intimidating
bullying
was positively associated with age. Male nurses experienced higher work-
related
bullying than female nurses (Wolters Kluwer Health, 2015). What I take
from
this nurses need to be able to function at their best, and in doing so health
care
facilities
need to ensure that negative components are unacceptable. A monthly
meeting
should be implemented in health care organization to ensure the
seriousness
of bullying and workplace violence.
Another issue in todays field of
nursing is compensation. When it comes to
nursing
compensation depending on what region and cost of living will determine
the
pay received. Nursing all around, no matter where you live is a tough job.
Understandable
depending on which field a nurse goes into, pay may vary because
of
the extent of education and furthering your education. Nurse salaries differ in
cities
across the U.S. due to cost of living and other factors. (www.Nurse.org)
According
to the Bureau of Labor
Statistics, the median salary for RNs in 2016 was
$68,450.
The lowest 10 percent earned less than $47,120, and the highest 10
percent
earned more than $102,990 (www.bls.gov). Based on these reports the best
paying
RN positions are in California, also San Francisco and Bakersfield. Another
issue
with this is having to retake the NCLEX to move to these cities to make the
same
amount of money as these RNs.
Another issue within compensation is
the difference in pay with male and
female
nurses. As this is an issue in most other occupations this is a big concern to
me
in nursing. Based on the 2015
The Journal of American Medicine released a
study on the
pay gap between male and female nurses. This study showed that male
nurses earn
about $5100 a year more than women (Muench, 2015).
There should be
equality as
everyone is doing the same amount of work and should begin at the
same pay rate
all around.
On the three major issues in nursing
I chose to research she shortage in nursing
staff should
be something taken more serious. Without a nurse in health care
organizations
the facilities wouldn’t run and patients wouldn’t have great outcomes as
they do today.
When I graduate I would like to help make a difference in these areas and
conduct
research as the IOM.
