1.
Unit 2:
Nursing as
profession
Prepared by :
Christian Ravina
M.Sc.(N), 2nd year
M.T.I.N.
Changa

2.
Nursing Definition
• Nursing is rearing or bringing up under certain conditions
and certain environment, fostering and cherishing, managing
economically, assisting to develop into a certain form,
attending, trying to cure by taking care of onself(oxford
medical dictionary)
• Nursing is in effect, helping the person to keep well or regain
his health if he is ill(curriculum guide for schools of nursing,
1937)
• Providing an environment that allow nature to act on behalf
of the client( Florence nightingale, 1946)

3.
Nursing definition
• Virginia Henderson defined nursing in functional
terms: "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. And to do this in such a way as to help
him gain independence as rapidly as possible."

4.
Nursing definition
• Florence Nightingale defined nursing over 100
years ago as "the act of utilizing the environment of
the patient to assist him in his recovery(
Nightingale,1860). NIghtingale considered a
clean,well-ventilated, and quiet environment
essential for recovery. Often considered the first
nurse theorist. Nightingale raised the status of
nursing through education. Nurses were no longer
untrained housekeepers but people educated in the
care of the sick.

5.
Nursing definition
• In 1987,the Canadian Nurses Association(CNA) described
nursing practice as a dynamic,caring,helping realtionship in
which the nurse assists the client to achieve and obtain
optimal health(CNA,1987).
• Nursing is an art of applying scientific principles in an
intelligent humanitarian way to the care of people
experiencing potentially maladaptive stress. (Toronto, 1980)

6.
Nursing profession
• Profession – is a calling that requires special
knowledge, skill and preparation.
• An occupation that requires advanced knowledge and
skills and that it grows out of society’s needs for
special services.

7.
•Criteria of Profession:
• To provide a needed service to the society.
• To advance knowledge in its field.
• To protect its members and make it possible to
practice effectively.

8.
• Characteristics of a Profession:
• A basic profession requires an extended education
of its members, as well as a basic liberal foundation.
• A profession has a theoretical body of knowledge
leading to defined skills, abilities and norms.
• A profession provides a specific service.
• Members of a profession have autonomy in
decision-making and practice.
• The profession has a code of ethics for practice.

9.
• NURSING >is a disciplined involved in the delivery of
health care to the society.
• >is a helping profession
• >is service-oriented to maintain health and well-
being of people.
• >is an art and a science.
• NURSE – originated from a Latin word NUTRIX, to
nourish.

10.
• Characteristics of Nursing:
• Nursing is caring.
• Nursing involves close personal contact with the recipient of care.
• Nursing is concerned with services that take humans into account
as physiological, psychological, and sociological organisms.
• Nursing is committed to promoting individual, family, community,
and national health goals in its best manner possible.
• Nursing is committed to personalized services for all persons
without regard to color, creed, social or economic status.
• Nursing is committed to involvement in ethical, legal, and political
issues in the delivery of health care.

11.
Philosophy
•The study of the fundamental nature of
knowledge, reality, and existence, especially
when considered as an academic discipline.
•A theory or attitude that acts as a guiding
principle for behavior.

12.
The philosophy that guides Careful Nursing is
framed by three principles:
• The nature and inherent dignity of the human person
• Infinite Transcendent Reality in life processes
• Health as human flourishing

13.
The nature and inherent dignity of the human
person
• Although the terms human being and human person are often used
interchangeably, the term human person is used in Careful Nursing
because the meaning of person encompasses more fully the nature of
human life.
• Taken the natural unity of ourselves and our patients as persons, there
are four important points about who we are:
• as persons we are, in our deepest reality, spiritually oriented, related to all other
persons; and have inherent dignity and worth
• as substances we are unitary beings
• as individuals we are each distinctive
• as rational beings we have a highly developed potential to think and reason

14.
Infinite Transcendent Reality in life processes
• Broadly speaking, Infinite Transcendent Reality in life processes is the
source of the spiritual being in human persons and the source of the
spiritual in nursing.
• The words used in the term Infinite Transcendent Reality reflects its
characteristics as we perceive them. Infinite means something that is
limitless and exists everywhere but is beyond our ordinary, measurable
experience.
• Transcendent means something timeless and divine. Both words,
Infinite and Transcendent, refer to a being outside our objective, finite
world. At the same time, this is a reality for us in our inward lives.
• Reality means 'that which is there' and includes our experience.

15.
Health as human flourishing
• Health as human flourishing has been defined as: 'the
person's unitary experience of personal dignity, harmony,
relative autonomy, contentedness and sense of purpose in life
includes the ability, or potential, to experience a personal
relationship with an infinite transcendent reality through
inner reflection, contemplation, meditation or prayer; and to
express this experience in loving relationships with others
and in seeking to fulfil a perceived purpose in life .the ability
to accept with equanimity influences and circumstances
which are seemingly unjust but may be very difficult to alter"

16.
Philosophy of nursing
• Nursing is viewed as both an art and a science, reflecting
upon the concepts of the nursing metaparadigm. Nursing is
an applied discipline which expresses itself in practice, and
has its foundation rooted in scientific/empirical knowledge,
theory, and research. Nursing is also expressed as a caring,
therapeutic and teaching discipline.
• The goal of nursing is optimum client wellness, and the
maximum level of functioning. The nursing interventions are
evidence-based and stem from their core knowledge. The
professional nurse must appreciate the role of informatics-
both acquisitions of knowledge, as well as, timely electronic
record keeping.

17.
Philosophy of nursing
• Theoretical and empirical knowledge from nursing, biological, social
sciences, and the humanities are synthesized in utilization of the
nursing process (an evidence-based series of activities employed by the
nurse in an on-going effort toward achieving desired outcomes for
humans, environment and health). The steps of the nursing process
include assessment, nursing diagnosis, planning, implementation, and
evaluation.
• The therapeutic component of nursing is realized by providing health
care or knowledge of health care practices to enhance one’s level of
wellness. The teaching component of nursing includes providing
information to make health care decisions, acquire skills, and to change
behavior. When it is not possible to promote wellness, nursing seeks to
enable individuals to adjust to illness and/or relieve suffering.

18.
Philosophy of nursing
• When it is not possible to promote a healthy life, nursing seeks to
enable individuals to adjust to the loss and a peaceful death. The nurse
must assume a leadership role as she/he designs nursing systems to
meet their patient’s overt and covert health care needs. The nurse
must collaborate with the multi-disciplinary health care teams which
are an innate part of professionalism. The nurse must also understand
the role of health care policy as it relates to patient care as well as
having an appreciation for the health care needs from a global
perspective.

19.
Four basic concept that affect and determine
nursing practice
• (1) Human being
• (2) Environment
• (3) Health
• (4) Nursing

20.
Human being
• The human being is a uniform whole
• The uniform whole of human being
• Physiological
• Psychological
• Social
• Spiritual
• Cultural

21.
Human being
• The scope of human being in nursing
• (1) Individual
• (2) Family
• (3) Community
• (4) Society
• Basic goal of human being:
• To maintain the balance of organism
• Balance among subsystems of an organism
• Balance between organism and its environment (internal
environment and external environment)

22.
Human being
•Basic need of human being
• Physiological need
• Social need
• Affective need
• Cognitive need
• Spiritual need

23.
Environment
• Roy’s definition of environment: the summation of all
factors that surround and affect the behaviors and
development of individual or collectivity.
• Henderson’s definition of environment: a general
name of all external factors that affect the life and
development of organism.

24.
Environment
• Classification of environment
• (1) Internal environment: the environment in the organism
• (2) External environment
• 1) Natural environment
• (a) Physical environment: air, water, sunlight, soil
• (b) Biological environment: animal, plant, microorganism

25.
Environment
• 2) Humanistic-social environment
• (a) the number of population
• (b) cultural education
• (c) interpersonal relationship
• (d) scientific management
• (e) medical care services system
• 3) Therapeutic environment
• It is an environment that created by professionals aimed to fit the recovery
of clients’ physiological and psychological health

26.
Environment
• Relationship among environment, human being and
health
• (1) Human being and its environment are interdependent
and interacted
• (2) Human being’s health is closely linked with the
environment

27.
Health
• WHO--- The World Health Organization:
• “A state of complete physical, mental and social well-being,
and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.”
(holistic view of health)
• Factors that affect health
• 1) Biological factors:
• (a)Pathogenic microorganism
• (b) Biologic-heredity factor
• (c) Other factors: age, sex, growth and development

28.
Health
• 2) Environmental factors
• (a) Natural environment: air pollution, climate, water pollution, soil
pollution, radiation, noise.
• (b) Social environment:
• a) political and economic system in the society
• b) social and cultural system
• 3) Life style:
• 4) Psychological factors
• Psychological factors→emotion, feelings → Physiological function

29.
Nursing
• The nursing science is an independent applying
science that synthesizes natural and social science.
• Nursing is a profession that helps human being and
serves for health of human being
• Nursing can assist individual to meet the basic needs
of human being and enforce the ability of self-care.

30.
Concept of nursing
• The tasks of nursing are:
• (a) to promote health
• (b) to prevent disease
• (c) to help ill-person to healing (to assist healing)
• (d) to assist the dying patient to pass away with quietude, peace, and dignity.
(to ease suffering)
• 5) The client is a holistic human being, including suffering person and
healthy person.

31.
Concept of nursing
• 6) The working place is not only in the hospital, but also in family,
community and whole society.
• 7) Nursing is not only a science, but also an art.
• 8) The nursing science attaches importance to human being’s living
environment and the interrelation between human being and its
environment.
• 9) The nursing science is a gradually perfect and developing science.

32.
Nature and scope of nursing practice
• Nurses contribute to health care within a multidisciplinary
team. They are individually accountable for their actions and
practise within a statutory regulatory framework established
to protect the public and assure the quality of nursing
services.
• The role of the nurse is constantly changing and developing.
This means that nurses may add new functions to their work.
When deciding to do so, nurses must be sure that patients
will benefit and that they are competent for the new role.

33.
Nature and scope of nursing practice
• Nursing is a service which:
• Helps individuals, families and communities to achieve and
maintain good health
• Supports, assists and cares for people during illness or
when their health is threatened
• Enhances people's ability to cope with the effects of illness
and disability
• Ensures, as far as possible, that death is dignified and free
from pain.

34.
Nature and scope of nursing practice
• Nursing achieves these goals by applying knowledge and skills gained
through education and training, updated and tested by research. It is
the combination of professional knowledge and skills, with the desire
to care for others, which provides the base of nursing. Nursing practice
includes:
• Assessing people's health, their health problems and the resources they
have to cope with them; deciding what nursing help is needed and
referring them to other sources of expertise when necessary
• Planning, giving and evaluating programmes of skilled nursing care

35.
Nature and scope of nursing practice
• Teaching individuals, families and communities about healthy lifestyles.
This involves helping them gain the knowledge and skills to control
their own health
• Teaching and enabling people to attain, maintain or recover their
independence
• Acting as the patient’s advocate and communicating the patient’s needs
to others
• Co-ordinating care where other health care workers are involved
• Maintaining an environment conducive to health or recovery.

36.
Nature and scope of nursing practice
• Nursing is concerned, in particular, with:
• Situations in which people’s ability to maintain the normal activities
of life, such as breathing, feeding, elimination, mobility, rest, sleep
and personal cleanliness may be impaired
• Alleviating pain and discomfort
• Assessing physical and emotional responses to illness, trauma,
treatment and disability. These responses may include anxiety, loss,
loneliness and bereavement.
• Managing disordered intellectual responses, learning difficulties and
mental illness.

37.
Functions of a nurse
• Caregiver
• The caregiver role has traditionally included those
activities that assist the client physically and
psychologically while preserving the client’s dignity.
Caregiving encompasses the physical, psychosocial,
developmental, cultural and spiritual levels.

38.
• Communicator
• Communication is an integral to all nursing roles. Nurses
communicate with the client, support persons, other health
professionals, and people in the community. In the role of
communicator, nurses identify client problems and then
communicate these verbally or in writing to other members
of the health team. The quality of a nurse’s communication is
an important factor in nursing care.

39.
• Teacher
• As a teacher, the nurse helps clients learn about their
health and the health care procedures they need to
perform to restore or maintain their health. The
nurse assesses the client’s learning needs and
readiness to learn, sets specific learning goals in
conjunction with the client, enacts teaching strategies
and measures learning.

40.
• Client advocate
• Client advocate acts to protect the client. In this role
the nurse may represent the client’s needs and
wishes to other health professionals, such as relaying
the client’s wishes for information to the physician.
They also assist clients in exercising their rights and
help them speak up for themselves.

41.
• Counselor
• Counseling is a process of helping a client to
recognize and cope with stressful psychologic or
social problems, to developed improved
interpersonal relationships, and to promote personal
growth. It involves providing emotional, intellectual,
and psychologic support.

42.
•Change agent
•The nurse acts as a change agent when
assisting others, that is, clients, to make
modifications in their own behavior. Nurses
also often act to make changes in a system such
as clinical care, if it is not helping a client return
to health.

43.
• Leader
• A leader influences others to work together to
accomplish a specific goal. The leader role can be
employed at different levels; individual client, family,
groups of clients, colleagues, or the community.
Effective leadership is a learned process requiring an
understanding of the needs and goals that motivate
people, the knowledge to apply the leadership skills,
and the interpersonal skills to influence others.

44.
• Manager
• The nurse manages the nursing care of individuals, families,
and communities. The nurse-manager also delegates nursing
activities to ancillary workers and other nurses, and
supervises and evaluates their performance.
• Case manager
• Nurse case managers work with the multidisciplinary health
care team to measure the effectiveness of the case
management plan and to monitor outcomes.

45.
Qualities of a nurse
• Caring nature:
• Nurses deal with the sick and injured and their families on a daily
basis, and must be able to show thatthey truly care about the
situation.
• Empathic attitude
• Nurses must be able to put themselves in their patients’ shoes to
provide the quality care needed.
• Detail oriented
• Nurses must remember to make entries on patients’ charts and to
bring medications at the correct times.

46.
• Emotionally stable
• Nurses feel the joy of seeing a new baby born as well as the
pain of losing a long-term patient. Emotional stability is
crucial to deal with the wide range of emotions nurses
must endure.
• Adaptable
• People are unpredictable at the best of times, but become
even more so under stress, so a nurse’s typical workday
will require flexibility and adaptability.

47.
• Hardworking
• Nursing is a never ending job. It is unusual for a hospital or
medical center to be overstaffed, which of course means
more workload on each nurse in the unit.
• Quick thinker
• When a nurse notices something is not right with a patient,
they must be able to make decisions quickly and put their
plans into action instantly, because a fraction of a second
can mean the difference between life and death.

48.
• Physical endurance
• Nurses are on their feet all day, sometimes 12 or more
hours at a time, and are often required to assist patients
with activities that require physical strength.
• Good judgment
• A nurse must be able to look at a patient’s current state
and accurately assess what is needed, especially during
emergencies.

49.
• Good communication skills
• Nurses must communicate with other nurses, doctors,
patients, and patients’ families clearly.
• Responsible
• Good nurses know how to perform all of their
responsibilities with the utmost accuracy and detail. They
play a major role in assessing and treating patients’
medical conditions, and when dealing with the health of
another human being, there is little room for error, so
nurses must responsibly carry out their duties at all times.

50.
• N – Nobility, Knowledge
• U – Usefulness, Understanding
• R - Righteousness, Responsibility
• S – Simplicity, Sympathy
• E – Efficiency , Equanimity

51.
Categories of nursing personnel
• Staff nurse
• Senior staff nurse
• Nursing superintendent grade II
• Nursing superintendent grade I
• Nursing tutor/clinical instructor
• Principal, school of nursing
• Lecturer, college of nursing

52.
Categories of nursing personnel
• Assistant professor, college of nursing
• Professor, college of nursing
• Principal, college of nursing
• Senior assistant director of nursing
• Public health nurse- district family welfare bureau

53.
Thank you … 