Five Attitudes toward Quality Nursing Care Essay

Five Attitudes toward Quality Nursing Care - Essay Example Nursing profession is a most noble profession of all and apart from various skills it always harps on some traits or attitudes that need to be cultivated to fulfill the cause for which this profession is known. Florence Nightingale was perhaps the first nurse in human history in true sense to possess the traits for which she became popular at that time. She showed to the world that generous nursing attitude can make a lot of difference in the life of the patient. During the Crimean war, she visited military hospital at Turkey along with some women nurses and made terrific changes in the hospital. The mortality rate, which was at 40% when she entered the hospital, came down to just at 2%. That was the first recognition to the nursing profession that became an integral part of the medical treatment as an intimate care taker. Nightingale became a role model for future generations in nursing profession. (Quan, Kathy) Since then medical science has made a lot of progress in terms of facil ities and modern equipments but importance of nurse has never diminished. Attitude of Professionalism: The ICN code of ethics for nursing informs, â€Å"The nurse’s primary professional responsibility is to people requiring nursing care.† ... The process of communicating to the patient and obtaining consent regarding a course of treatment through patient's signature on a form is one of the important requisite as a frontline caretaker and this forms a part of professional attitude for the nurses. The patient’s consent is sacred and must be protected while undertaking any nursing procedure; however, when patient is incompetent for physical or mental handicap, due to age or unconscious state then consent is required from legal guardians in the best interests of patient. (David, Deena 2009) By virtue of nursing profession, they hold patient’s confidential information and nurses use judgment while sharing them. Respecting the confidentiality is one of the professional necessities on part of the nurse to form a bond of trust between patient and nurses. (Hendrick, Judith 2000) Nursing attitudes what is desired and what is not desired at times could be subjective but having heard one real life incident of one of the patient, it can certainly be outlined in more authentic way. The patient belonged to a big town in US where she was born and brought up. She was well aware of nodules in right breast but she assumed that they were merely benign cysts and that will go away after some time and she didn’t pay much attention on it. When she went for her annual well women visit she was asked to go for immediate mammogram and surgical consultation. She listened to the heed and fixed the appointment for a mammogram two weeks later. As she narrated, mammogram checkup was her distasteful experience. â€Å"Do these technicians and nurses really care?† that is what her first experience was. She was alone, unsure, afraid, and a bit confused. Professionals go through all this as per the daily routine and they