Nursing-introduction to personal & professional development - Essay Example

e simple understanding of multiplication and division, percentages, conversion of units and the handling of different ratios and proportions in medication. So, in mastering the skill of numeracy, proper learning framework and teaching is very much required for the nurses so that they can perform not only well in classrooms but also in their practical settings. Adequate guidance and support by practitioners and educators is also required for the new nurses. In United States a shocking number of patients die every year just because of severe medications errors on the part of the nurses.

Institute of Medicine, a generally cited estimate, places thousands of deaths as the result of calculations and medications errors and concludes these errors the fourth leading cause of causalities in United States. Numbers are very important in medicine and drug therapy. The term numeracy skills mean the utilization and recognition of numeric data or numbers accurately and clearly. This data may be used on forms and in performing other numeric calculations. So, we can say that the use of numeric data in a proper way is very required for a professional nurse.

Furthermore, it is also important to use this data effectively and competently which is only possible if a nurse learns the basic skills of numeracy. Remember, the success of any nurse always depends on the professionalism associated with the use of numeric data. As already mentioned, that nurses always require proper understanding of the numeric data. Some basic courses or entry level lessons in home nursing always include the ability to understand and learn medication calculations plus numeric data related to various tests.

These calculations may be in fractions, numbers and percentages and considered as the building blocks of the career of any nurse. So, here the question arises why numeric data is so important? Actually various calculations are always required for the proper assessment of the patient. For example, if