Empathy as an Attribute of a Registered Nurse: Analytical Essay

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This essay focus on the attributes of a registered nurse. There are many attributes required for the role of a nurse. Attributes are the characteristic of a nurse. Caring, kindness, empathy, compassionate personality, attention to detail, fairness, trustworthiness, best communicator, and many more are the best attributes of a nurse. According to Eileen Shepherd in Nursing times, she describes nurses are born not made and the views of many scholars are the same because of their special kind of compassionate personality, their empathy towards others, and moreover their intestinal fortitude to care for patients in their times of need.

Successful nurses use their natural talents and affinities but no two nurses are the same especially in the case of a novice nurse and they do not behave as the same as the senior nurse because they need a lot of training to make them perfect as others. According to Levitt Jones & Kenny 2012, they believe attributes are an integral aspect of creating and maintaining therapeutic relationships with clients and their families. In order to keep the qualities, the same and to maintain the professionalism of our Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia (NMBA) set some Standards and Code of Conduct. I am considering mainly two attributes of a nurse such as Empathy and Communication skills based on the NMBA Code of Conduct for Nurses 2018 and my topic identifies Principle 3 which discusses Cultural Practice and respectful relationships.

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Thinking beyond our own concerns by putting ourselves in the position of others is known as Empathy. To be frank empathy is not something we can express clearly but it does everything when a medicine didn’t able to do by itself alone in curing a patient health. It is considered as a basic and important attribute of a nurse. Empathy is also a component of all helpful relationships between a patient and a nurse. When our researchers researching various areas of nursing care it proves that empathy plays a key role in order to build trust and the relationship between a nurse and a patient in our care. Furthermore, when the trust is built then the patients allow a nurse to discuss all about the patient’s feelings and inner thoughts in them, and it’s really helpful particularly when treating a patient with mental health. Dagenais F Meleis Al said that empathy is related to sensitivity, sociability, adaptability, and consideration in nursing by opening a range of interpretations. According to Cynthia Clark, a strategic nursing advisor and consultant for ATI Nursing Education, founder of civility matters and author of Creating & Sustaining Civility in Nursing Education she discusses Empathy as an effective way to enhance empathy is to pay attention and stay engaged in what happening around us and this will be happening by listening carefully by suspending our interest and making a concerted effort to understand others and where they are coming from. Doing so will help build esprit de corps, fellowship and collaboration. Empathy is an attitude that must be cultivated and practiced if it is to become part of our daily lives. By doing so we improve the lives of others. Studies identify that verbal and nonverbal behaviours create high levels of empathy for patients. It’s something like not only nurses understood the patients feeling but also have to accept their views and ideas keeping a professional distance.

My second attribute is nurses are a good communicator in order to say how I would like to explain about communication and its involvement in nursing practice. Communication involves the exchange of messages and is a process which all individuals participate in. Whether it is through spoken word, written word, non-verbal means, or even silence, messages are constantly being exchanged between individuals or groups of people (Bach & Grant 2009). All behaviour has a message and communication is a process that individuals cannot avoid being involved with (Ellis et al 1995). In nursing practice, communication is essential, and good communication skills are paramount in the development of a therapeutic nurse/patient relationship. The aim of this essay is to discuss the importance of communication in nursing, demonstrating how effective communication facilitates a therapeutic nurse/patient relationship. This will be achieved by providing a definition of communication, making reference to models of communication, and explaining how different types of communication skills can be used in practice. In order to engage in meaningful communication and develop effective communication skills, nurses must engage in the process of reflecting on how communication skills are utilized in practice.

Communication consists of verbal and non-verbal. Verbal communication relates to the spoken word and can be conducted face-to-face or over the telephone (Docherty &McCallum 2009). Nurses continually communicate with patients; verbal communication allows the nurse opportunity to give information to the patient about their care or treatment, to reassure the patient and to listen and respond to any concerns the patient may have (NMC 2008). Effective communication is beneficial to the patient in terms of their satisfaction and understanding, of care and treatment they have been given (Arnold & Boggs 2007), while at the same time optimizing the outcomes or care and/or treatment for the patient (Kennedy- Sheldon 2009).

According to Brendan McCormack on Practice Development (2003) he told that the achievement of sustained high-quality patient-centred care is not just the responsibility of individual nurses, but instead it requires active organizational commitment to supporting practicing nurses in developing practices. While individual nurses clearly have a responsibility for the quality of their practice and the way that practice develops, much organizational change is needed to realize the full potential of what is possible in practice. Nurses provide safe, person-centre, and evidence-based practice for the health and wellbeing of people and, in partnership with the person, promote shared decision-making and care delivery between the person, nominated partners, family, friends, and health professionals.

Person-centred care is very beneficial to any patient as its widely recognized as a foundation for safe, high-quality healthcare. It is very respectful, responsive, and preference the needs and values of a patient. It involves seeking out and understanding what is important as a patient, fostering trust, establishing mutual respect and working together to share decisions and plan care. It’s also important that the patient family would understand his/her medical condition so that they support the patient in curing their medical problem.

The Code of conduct for nurses sets out the legal requirements, professional behaviour, and conduct expectations for all nurses, in all practice settings, in Australia. It describes the principles of professional behaviour that guide safe practice, and clearly outlines the conduct expected of nurses by their colleagues and the broader community. Individual nurses have their own personal beliefs and values. However, the code outlines specific standards that all nurses are expected to adopt in their practice.

The code will be used:

  • to support individual nurses in the delivery of safe practice and fulfilling their professional roles as a guide for the public and consumers of health services about the standard of conduct and behaviour they should expect from nurses
  • to help the NMBA protect the public, in setting and maintaining the standards set out in the code and to ensure safe and effective nursing practice
  • when evaluating the professional conduct of nurses. If professional conduct varies significantly from the values outlined in the code, nurses should be prepared to explain and justify their decisions and actions. Serious or repeated failure to abide by this code may have consequences for nurses’ registration and may be considered as unsatisfactory professional performance, unprofessional conduct or professional misconduct and
  • as a resource for activities which aim to enhance the culture of professionalism in the Australian health system. These include use, for example, in administration and policy development by health services and other institutions; in nursing education, in management and for the orientation, induction and supervision of nurses and students.

Conclusion

In conclusion I would like to say that not two nurses will perform in the same way if these Codes of conduct will not exist and in order to keep and maintain professionalism and perfection at work and to provide excellent service to the patient our NMBA maintain some Standards and Codes of Conduct and these Codes of conduct provide professions with a benchmark, a standard or a guideline with which to measure the growth and development of a profession as well as inform the public of what to expect in our framework of protection. There are many researches has done in a various service provided by the nurses and they agree Empathy as a basic and key role of nurses in building patient and nurse relationship which is very important in treating people. Most nurse educators are confident about teaching technical skills but when it comes to teaching interpersonal skills such as empathy, they can’t that’s why I discuss before that Nurses are born not made as most of the nurses have this attribute without teaching itself and it’s their strength in curing patients. My second attribute discuss about Communication skills which plays a vital role and it can be verbal or nonverbal in order to treat the patients. communication is a complex process and an essential skill which the nurse must be aware of in every aspect, of care and treatment they give to patients. A full awareness of not only the spoken word, but also the influence non-verbal communication has on the messages being communicated, is essential in the development of a therapeutic relationship between nurse and patient.

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