You may be considering a career in healthcare that also allows for your professional ambitions to develop. If you haven’t considered nursing, here’s why you should.
Nurses have one of the most integral roles in medical care, from being next to patients administering treatment to teaching the next generation of nurses. They are the closest figure to the people that need help, carrying the heaviest load of daily work and keeping the industry going forward.
Before choosing your path in healthcare, consider why are nurses so important.
They Are Incredibly Qualified
Nurses must go through a lot to become certified and start working:
- They need to do well as high school students
- They must be admitted into accredited colleges or universities
- They have to get their associate’s or bachelor’s degree
- They must complete clinic work hours
- They must pass the certification exams
- They will need to find a job
None of those steps are simple. It can be easy to overlook how qualified nurses have to be. This is especially considering that most of them go on to get advanced degreed such as msn nursing to provide better care for their patients.
Nurses, like physicians, continue their education throughout most of their careers, staying up to date on the latest medical techniques, diagnosis, and treatments. The amount of skill, training, and effort nurses put into their work is one of the main reasons they are so important in today’s healthcare systems.
Advocating for Patients
Nurses spend the most time with patients and therefore can have a clearer picture of what’s really going on. Nurses are also continuously ranked amongst the top most trusted professionals, with people reporting confidence in their ethics and morals. It is for this reason that they are so important. It makes them a great advocate for patient care and a trusted partner for a doctor to work with.
Round-the-Clock Care
While physicians make rounds every so often, it’s nurses that are actually providing constant care to people. They become the heart of the medical system as they take on the responsibility of patients’ care by:
- Correctly administering treatment
- Making sure patients get tests and exams
- Checking in on patients and monitoring them
Without competent nurses managing all those tasks, the healthcare system would not be capable of properly looking after anyone.
Educating Other Caregivers
One of the most important roles nurses have is serving as educators to other nurses and even doctors at times. As they gain experience through their work, they share a vast amount of practical knowledge and are the key to patient care. Novice nurses and doctors that enter the healthcare system are often humbled by the amount of expertise these professionals have and appreciate their presence in the first years of training.
After a while, nurses learn the best ways to deal with a difficult patient, how to administer treatments, or where the best vending machines are at the hospital — all of which is useful information for other healthcare professionals and patients.
Community Prevention
The closeness that nurses share with patients makes them the perfect vessels for community care and preventive medicine. Nurses can approach communities from a more familiar perspective, getting the information and tools for better health practices to reach them. This work can take many forms from one-on-one prevention to community-wide programs or schools visits. Nurses can spread a message that improves habits and care.
They Can Drive Change Forward
Nurses are especially powerful in numbers, and connected to patients’ needs, they have a unique position to affect change in the healthcare system. One of the most famous cases is renowned nurse Florence Nightingale and her fight to improve the sanitary conditions of patients — which she succeeded in — and is now credited for saving countless lives.
These important group of professionals can place themselves in the driving seat until they get what is needed to improve the conditions that will benefit us all.
Save Lives
It goes without saying that having qualified, devoted nurses by your side can completely change the outcome of treatments. This is the top reason for their importance: nurses save lives with their work.
One of a Kind
Now you know all the reasons why nurses are so important and why states are fighting to get more to come work for their citizens. The kind of person that enters this profession is valuable and therefore has to be hard-working and qualified.