Nursing is a profession focused on assisting individuals, families, and communities
in attaining, maintaining, and recovering optimal health and functioning. Modern definitions of nursing define it as a science
and an art that focuses on promoting quality of life as defined by persons and families, throughout their life experiences
from birth to care at the end of life. (Wikipedia2007 [online])
THE BEGINNING OF NURSING
The beginning of nursing become writes from the day the first baby was born.
The mother is the first nurse for her baby. She takes care of the baby and his needs. Taking it a bit further nursing started
as a profession right from the early days when nurses were employed to take care of the babies and old people (Mitchell 1998).
THE COURSE
Nursing has become has a major professional course that earns a good degree,
contended profession and above all the service to man kind. The professional courses for nursing teach its pupils the knowledge
of basic disease and how to take care of the patients during that phase. Nursing course also develops the skills of keeping
the hygiene in cases of extreme communicable diseases. The basic ways of administering the medicines is also taught here to
nursing students.
There are many world renowned institutions that offer nursing degree. These institutions
have a host of courses that cater to specific need of the modern day hospitals. There are courses for general nursing and
then further training can be taken for specialization.
There are also courses that make the nursing students aware of latest instruments
available and also teach them how to use them.
DUTIES AND CHALLENGES OF NURSING
The basic duty of the nursing staff is to take care of the patients and ensure
that they are comfortable. Nursing person has to deal with the patient as well as the family members of the patients so the
nursing person should have the quality to keeps it’s cool and work under such pressures.
VARIOUS FIELDS OF NURSING
With the branches of medicines getting more and more specific the need for specific
nursing staff has also grown up. There are various fields of nursing available now.
1. Cardiac care nursing
2. Clinical nursing
3. Critical care nursing
4. Dermatology nursing
5. Domestic nursing
6. Pediatric nursing
The above are a few of the specific nursing fields that have emerged?
SCOPE OF NURSING
There is a wide scope of nursing staff all through out the world. The hospitals
have a growing need of trained nursing staff that can work in different fields. Generally all hospitals are also running nursing
schools that train the nursing students and give them hands on experience on the job. This also offers a good chance to the
nursing students to wet their hands in the profession and experience what service they have to offer once they become the
professional in this field (Hammerschmidt Clinton 2000).
LAWS GOVERNING NURSING
Nursing is also governed by laws. These laws are different in different countries,
though all aim at taking care of the nursing staff and avoid their exploitation. Apart from them, there are laws that govern
the functioning of the nursing staff and also take it a serious offense if a casualty is caused due the negligence of the
nursing staff. So the nursing professional should be well aware of these laws before he or she steps in the profession (Burns).
References:
Nursing knowledge by Mitchell.
A Little book on Nursing by Rosalie Hammerschmidt and R. N Clinton.
Practice of Nursing by Burns.
www.wikipedia.com[online source]. Last accessed 10 November 4, 2007.
