WHAT IS NURSING

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WHAT IS NURSING?
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HISTORY

• 1931
• Florence Ambler wrote
• The changing of the nurse from a mere automaton
  to a skillful assistant to the physician..

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• 1940
• Mary Sewall wrote
• ..there are recognized boundless opportunities
  for utilization of womans special gifts in
  raising the level of the social order through the
  medium of nursing.

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Websters Dictionary

• To Nurse
• To foster or cherish (to nurse ones talent), to
  treat or handle with ardent care (to nurse ones
  nest egg), to bring up, to train or nurture, to
  clasp or handle carefully or fondly (to nurse a
  memento), to preserve (to nurse a drink).
• Nurse suggests attendance and service the
  opposite suggests neglect

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Tabers

• A nurse is an individual who provides health
  care, distinguishing among the different types of
  nurses
• Charge nurse
• Community health nurse
• Flight, general duty
• Graduate, head, licensed practical,
• Private duty, registered, school, anestetist,
• Midwife and practitioner

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Definitions in the Law

• Legal definitions of nursing care are contained
  in nurse practice acts and exist to protect the
  public and protect the title.
• The practice acts though regulatory, do not
  protect the nurses practice from a charge of
  practicing medicine without a license or
  malpractice.

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Early Law

• Protected the title, but did not define the
  practice
• It permitted anyone to perform legally the
  functions of a nurse for compensation
• Only licensed individuals could use the RN title.

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• In 1907, an amendment to the nurse practice act
  in North Carolina created a Board of Appeals for
  nurses denied certification.
• The Board consisted of physicians, and their
  decisions were binding to the nursing Board.

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Licensure

• Licensure is usually sought by a profession
  (i.e., medicine) to protect its own interests.
• Therefore, the business of defining the work of a
  profession with the law, is a political act.

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But what is Nursing?

• New York defined nursing as
• diagnosing and treating human response to actual
  and potential health problems through such
  services as case finding, health teaching, health
  counseling, and provision of care supportive to
  the restorative of life and well-being..

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By 1990

• The ANA changed the language of the definition of
  nursing as the performance of services for
  compensation in the provision of diagnosis and
  treatment of human responses to health or
  illness
• The change here is from HEALTH PROBLEMS to HEALTH
  AND ILLNESS, which broadens nursing practice.

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• The legal definitions of Nursing are Political in
  nature, and based on Theory or Concepts.

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FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE
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OK, but WHAT IS NURSING?

• Florence Nightingale
• a nurse means any person in charge of the
  personal health of another, and that nursing
  ought to assist the reparative process. Neither
  (nursing or medicine) can do anything but remove
  obstruction neither can cure nature alone
  cures. Nursing puts the patient in the best
  condition for nature to act upon him.

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VIRGINIA HENDERSON
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• Virginia Henderson
• The unique function of the nurse is to assist
  the individual, sick or well, in the performance
  of those activities contributing to health or its
  recovery (or to a peaceful death) that he would
  perform unaided if he had the necessary strength,
  will or knowledge.

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• Even after over 100 years of discussing, Nursing
  still remains a mystery to those outside nursing.

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This we do know

• Nursing involves the care of the sick or the
  potentially sick, and the tending of the
  environment within which care happens.
• Nurses deal with the most basic of human needs
• Birth
• Death
• And everything in between

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• We get our hands dirty, our uniforms stained, and
  our psyches eroded by daily contact with humans
  in need.
• With our hands and eyes we touch the lives of
  others, and are admitted to the privacy of their
  inner space without even asking.
• We are scientists, psychologists, pharmacists,
  biochemists, social workers, experts in data
  analysis, managers, and administrators to name a
  few.

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WHAT IS NURSING?

• Nursing does not defy definition, it is simply
  too huge.
• Nursing is changing and continually evolving.
• If there is confusion, it could be because nurses
  are everywhere and doing everything.

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• NURSES DO IT ALL!