Journey through Nursing
Through Nursing as an Art and Science
Nurses worked at the forefront of science in the early 20th century implementing new treatments like light therapy at the London Hospital. Danish scientist Niels Finsen developed this treatment, with concentrated light through a lens, to help treat skin tuberculosis by killing the bacteria that caused the disease.
Chapters of Your Journey The first chapter of your journey began with becoming an influential nurse where you learned nursing knowledge domains and standards of practice; values, beliefs, and practices that define the role of the professional nurse; and the significance of patient-centered care. You developed skill and knowledge in information management to inform nursing practice. Holistic Nursing took on new meaning with a focus on cultural competency, genograms, and conducting a comprehensive health history assessment. Foundations in scientific inquiry, evidence-based practice, critical thinking, and ethical considerations within quantitative and qualitative research further emphasized the nurse’s legal and ethical obligations, and reinforced the moral and professional responsibilities within ethical and legal contexts of professional practice. Your journey continued as you explored the nurse educator role in partnership with patients, families, communities, and populations. This chapter examined the influence of primary and secondary cultural characteristics on teaching and learning; focused on population health of people with individualized teaching plans embracing caring, cultural and ethnic considerations, and commitment to health promotion. This journey took you through leadership and management as you collaborated with members of the interdisciplinary team to effect change, improve quality, and apply best practices within healthcare organizations and across community healthcare settings. Your experiences with professional organizations opened your eyes to new types of leadership; those to emulate as they characterized leaders that mentor, transform, and empower others. You learned to assess the impact of social, political, and regulatory processes on nursing and the workplace and recognized the influences they all have on the management of health care systems. Population health and public health were also added to your forte of knowledge and skills as you moved through community health nursing. You also addressed health disparities and evaluated health promotion and disease prevention strategies. You looked to make a global impact on the health and wellbeing of populations of people.
Your journey culminated as you designed and presented evidence-based initiatives to assure best practices in nursing; evaluated organizational cultures and designed strategies that model core professional values and standards, clinical judgment and inquiry, inter-professional collaboration, and professional practice environments. You recognized the appreciation of others and the importance of building on strengths to encourage engagement, respect, civility and productivity in the workplace. You learned how to transform cultures of patient-centered care, relationships, and inter-professional collaboration. You shaped professional nursing practice environments that encouraged innovations, curiosity, empowerment, and authentic leadership. Moral sense of nursing through moral courage, upholding values and ideals, and modeling respect and engagement laid the groundwork for forming a professional identity and philosophy of nursing with a vision for the future.
Keep your book open to new ideas and new opportunities. Envision your future as a contributing member of the profession as we evolve into the next several decades of nursing as a profession. Remind yourself of your many contributions as a member of the profession. Add yet another chapter to your journey in nursing. Where do you go from here? Is it to build on the theoretical and empirical foundations of the nursing discipline as a science? Is it to enhance the art and skill of giving through healing within a sacred place of caring? As one member of the profession you can make the difference in continuing the legacy of nursing as an art and science into the future.
Continue to challenge yourself and go beyond what you thought you could only become, and you will find your journey has just begun!
In module 8 activities, you will envision what you see for the future of nursing. As you venture into the future, think about how your contributions can make a difference in shaping solutions and advancing nursing practices that meet the many challenges of the profession while upholding nursing’s commitment to excellence.
Image Citation: U.S. National Library of Medicine (ca. 1900) http://www.nlm.nih.gov/exhibition/picturesofnursing/exhibition2.html "Open book" (2011) by Kydriashka https://www.flickr.com/photos/eoskins/8724847630/in/photostream/