Critical Professional Biography: Nursing - Essay Example

My interest in nursing dates back to when I was 14 and a close friend was involved in a grisly road accident. I frequented the hospital where he was admitted and was impressed by the kind and compassionate care provided by the attending nurses. Notwithstanding, many of them had worked long shifts and sometimes appeared to be exhausted, they lay aside their personal feelings and discomfort while attending to him always smiling and encouraging him. Drawing from the experience, I decided that nursing is what I want to do with the rest of my life, I asked myself how I could make a mark in the world by engaging in a fulfilling and altruistic career , and it was in the corridors and wards of the hospital that I found my answer. Academically, I studied for a Diploma in HE Nursing and an Intermediate University Degree in Nursing Science at the College of Health Sciences Jazan in Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Subsequently, I pursued a bachelor’s degree in at the School of Nursing and Midwifery, Curtin University Australia. I am currently pursuing a Master’s Degree under a Scholarship and I will be graduating in July with my B.S.N from the Curtin University of Australia. When I attained my diploma, I was employed as a registered nurse from 2006 to 2008 and I worked as Chronic Ward nurse at the Jazan Psychiatric Hospital. Afterwards, I moved to the King Fahad Central Hospital where I worked at the Ophthalmic Ward. These varied experiences have provided me with invaluable understanding and expanded the breadth of my skills as a nurse as well as facilitating my Nursing Board of Saudi Commission of Health Specialists membership in 2011. One of the most important lessons that I have learnt as a nurse is that professional values are a critical part of one’s career as they guide our actions and decisions (Clark 2009). My first nursing job was as a staff nurse in Ling Fahad central hospital in Saudi Arabia where I worked in the surgical word, my duties included carrying out admission orders, preparation and drug administration as well as updating patient records. These tasks and others require a high degree of professionalism and conscientiousness, for instance negligence when updating patient records could have fatal results if it resulted in a patient getting the wrong medication or procedure. For that reason, I learnt to be constantly aware my actions and appreciate the ramifications they could have on the patients whose lives I was entrusted with. To work through the myriad ethical dilemmas that are an inevitable part of the nursing job, nurses are required to have a working knowledge of professional values that are instrumental in developing the most suitable solutions (Stacey et al. 2011). They must strive to cause no harm through their actions or inaction as well as provide uniform dedicated and unprejudiced care to every patient irrespective of their cultural, racial-ethnic religious or even sexual orientation (Erlen and Sereika 2008). As a nursing educational coordinator, I have often found it necessary to impress upon the need for trainee nurses to understand and embody the professional values that are just as key the professional training academic skills (Shaw & Degazon, 2008). Nurses need to be more than just efficient professionals, they should embody several other values such as compassion and kindness since their work require they work closely with people who have undergone extremely disturbing or injurious experiences in need of human warmth and sympathy (Thompson & Dowdy 2002). The delicate nature of the work nurses undertake makes it a prerequisite that we embrace professional values so that we discharge our duties with diligence and integrity required of us. I understand that a great deal of the work we do requires sacrifice and I am flexible and not averse to taking irregular shifts and I can work well during the day or at night. Ultimately, one of the marks of a true professional is their ability to balance their personal and professional life (Scriber & Alderman 2005), and I consider myself an effective time manager and whichever duties are assigned to me, I will be sure to effectively create a balance between my work and outside life. In my current role as a nursing education coordinator, I have come to appreciate the value of communication expertise in my profession concerning both language and interpersonal skills. Today, I can easily serve a diverse range of clientele owing to my linguistic flexibility and this is very useful in my coordination role since I often handle clients and partners from abroad who cannot speak Arabic, which the primary language at the hospital I work at. Personally, I realized that it be very difficult for me to study on conduct any meaningful social interaction in Australia unless I improved my command of the English language. I enrolled myself in Perth Institute of Business and later the Technology English Language Centre, Curtin English Language Centre, Australia. I managed with time to improve considerably both in my performance and in competence. As a result, I benefited from a multiplicity of social cultural experiences within and outside the school, from which I would have been alienated had I not taken the initiative to pursue linguistic excellence. Saudi Arabia’s health sector is one of its fastest growing sectors (Al-Dossary Barriball & While 2008); however, to make the steps we are making we have had to interact a lot with the western world and language skills have proven invaluable on numerous occasions. Additionally, essential communications skills are an indispensable part of the job since some of primary duties in nursing include attending, listening and providing empathy and support (Webb 2011). Consequently, one must learn how to engage in patient centered communication as well as be an excellent listener, this however sometimes has to be balanced with firmness since at times as a nurse one needs to give instructions of news that the patient of their families may have a hard time accepting. Therefore, an effective nurse needs must be a capable communicator and listener with a high level of emotional intelligence and maturity (Thomas & Pollio, 2002). Nurses are often faced with split second decisions just like many other professionals and their presence of mind and wisdom is frequently put to test (McNamara 2005). Conversely, unlike most other professions in which a wrong decision may result in losing a contract of annoying a client in nursing it could literary be a matter of life and death. As aforementioned, nurse are required to act in accordance to professional values prominent among which are that they should do no harms and consistently strive to alleviate suffering and offer comfort(Bach & Grant 2009). Therefore, prior to making any decisions, it is pertinent that a nurse takes to account the corollaries for the patient, and this means that all actions must be carefully thought out since there is no room for error. One of the most prominent descriptive theories applied in nursing and midwifery is the information processing theory, it proposes that before on makes a decision, they go through several stages in which their previous knowledge and experience interact with the prevailing circumstances to facilitate informed decisions (Lunney 2010). In my case, most of the decisions I make are administrative such as recommending individuals for promotions as well as job placements. One of the ways decision-making has been made easier for nurses is through the introduction of portable electronic records systems so that they can be provide with sufficient data to make the right call. For the greater part of my career, I have been in positions where responsibly over other nurses was entrusted to me and to perform effectively I have had to work on developing my leadership skills. Working as Nursing Supervisor at the Jazan Psychiatric Hospital I was my primary responsibilities involved coordination and organization of work schedules as well as managing the various departmental issue under my care. This falls under the scope of nursing service management that can be described as the process of planning organizing and coordinating resources in an organization environment to attain the organizational objectives. Nursing care also requires that individual learn to function as parts of teams since a lot of the activity in nursing group effort. Medical Procedures often require inter-disciplinary and hierarchical cooperation; for instance, the physician will order the necessary intervention and the nurse is expected to carry it out, then a specialist therapist may be called in to perform specific patient care activities (Brodsky & Dijk 2008). All the observation especially if there are any changes in the patient’s status should be shared between the team members and this is usually the responsibility of the nurse (Burgio et al. 2002). To this end, the nurse must see himself as a part of a team as opposed to an autonomous individual (White 2005), since I work at a management level, coordinating and assigning responsibilities to various teams in a vital part of my job. I have honed my skills as a team player over the years and I believe I can function effectively as a member of a team irrespective of the role assigned to me. Throughout my nursing career, I have come to appreciate the importance of exemplifying the professional values as well as developing my communication and interpersonal skills. These have been instrumental in improving my effectiveness both as theater and staff nurse and as an administrator and supervisor. In addition, the need for teamwork transcends all stratification in the profession since the job calls for individuals to work as one unit to pool their knowledge and experiences for effective care provision and management (Bigger 2004). References Al-Dossary, A., Barriball, L. & While, A. (2008). Health care and nursing in Saudi Arabia. International Nursing Review, 55(1), pp. 125-128. doi: 10.1111/j.1466-7657.2007.00596.x Bach, S. & Grant, A. (2009) Communication and Interpersonal Skills for Nurses. Devon: Learning Matters Ltd. Bigger, M. 2004, "The link between commissioning and teamwork within primary care", Journal of Community Nursing, vol. 18, no. 11, pp. 4-9. Burgio, L.D. et al. 2002, "Teaching and maintaining behavior management skills in the nursing home", The Gerontologist, vol. 42, no. 4, pp. 487-96. Clark, D. K. (2009) “Professional values: A study of education and experience in nursing students and nurses.” ProQuest Dissertations and Theses. Erlen, J., & Sereika, S. 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