Introduction
The world is rapidly developing and the urge to improve education and practice in several fields is calling for attention. Cumulative and comprehensive literature argues on the trends of application of knowledge gained from basic nursing education to the profession itself. About this observation, healthcare systems across the world remain one of the most indispensable armatures that most individuals rely on, and the ability of nurses to think critically, oversee nursing practice, and make an autonomous decision remains a paramount factor.
Since the past few decades, healthcare professionals have consistently debated over the context at which the gap between nursing education and the nursing profession is becoming a contentious issue (Fulmer et al., 2011). Substantial evidence from prior studies is on the rise regarding nurses’ educational knowledge and the rapidly changing nursing profession. Researchers have constantly argued that the current nursing education is becoming ineffective considering the unswervingly varying nursing profession. Based on such arguments, this study examines if there is an existing gap between nursing education and practice.
The nightingale Influence
Greater changes in nursing education began as early as the 1800 century when the famous Florence Nightingale decided to structure the nurse training into in-hospital training in the 1860s with the most influential nurse training school being the Florence Nightingale School (Ousey, 2011). From this moment, nurses continuously flooded the hospital-based training centers with the most favorable working site being the hospitals to take care of the sick. The training according to the founder sought to establish mechanisms through which women can independently gain substantial knowledge in the nursing profession.
The training system influenced by Florence Nightingale focused on a two-year student probation scheme where students adopted the name probationers and paid while on training. Since that moment, a clammy notion still prevails among nurse professionals that nurses should always remain equipped to oversee and exercise their duties through the hospitals as the only source of labor. However, as things keep changing, much remains anticipated with the nursing education and profession.
One of the problems where this report stresses its argument is the growing shift from communal nursing and development to hospitalized schemes that completely indicate discrepancies between nurse education and practices. Nursing is a dynamic profession that involves several multidisciplinary activities in caring for the community. Ward and Berkowitz (2005) assert, “Even before the era of the matron—that redoubtable and disciplinarian invention of the great pioneering nineteenth-century English nurse and social reformer Florence Nightingale-hospital nurses have been workhorses” (p.45).
The trend in the provision of universal community care seems to be gradually declining with several nurses interested in seeking jobs in hospitals for caring for bedridden patients. The nineteenth century and the twentieth century have experienced the greatest shift from private or community nursing to hospital nursing and care where vacancies are minimal and nurses have less autonomy over the nursing practice itself. Despite Nightingale’s intellectual aspirations being enormous, the successive misinformed regimes of nursing remain professionally limited.
Nursing Practice, Research, and Development
Research has continuously portrayed a substantial difference between educational research instigated during the training process and the entire aspect of research and development. For any nurse to become professionally competent in the contemporarily challenging nursing profession, comprehensive researching skills are necessary to evaluate how to models skills and apply necessary research findings to clinical practices.
According to Ward and Berkowitz (2005), research assists nurses to identify current issues rising within the nursing practice, determining possible solutions to avert critical nursing profession matters, and enhancing knowledge in the entire healthcare profession. Trends in the research practice have remained constant, but the levels to which the results of research in nursing practice remain significant have been questionable. However, Squires et al. (2011) argue, “despite increasing quantities of, and more convenient access to, clinically relevant research, the slow and haphazard uptake or failure to adopt such evidence persists” (p.14). Nurses have therefore seemed incompetent to the ever-changing nursing practice that seems more diverse and modified to meet the dynamics of the current patient care.
Licensing/registration of nurses
Under the nursing practices in the United Kingdom and even other European nations, one becomes renowned as a nurse after undergoing a nursing registration process immediately or after graduating from nursing school (Squires et al., 2011). Initially, nurses did not always have to go through the nurse registration process and this aspect changed dramatically after the introduction of the Nurses Registration Act of 1919 that resulted from General Nursing Council strategies of setting up nurse registers. Since the beginning of 1921, the nursing profession witnessed drastic changes in the registration of both male and female nurses with subsidiary errors appearing in different ways (Ousey, 2011).
Male and female registers appeared to be confusing in the registration of nurses as the profession of nursing simply shifted from community/patient caregiving to individual certification through manipulated registers. Since the invention of the nursing licensure and registration program, there have been weak curricula classrooms in developing nurse cultural practice since students struggle to reach registration requirements rather than concentrating on the nursing profession itself.
Nursing education and technology
In the contemporary world, much research seems to be indicating a vast discrepancy in the nursing school programs about the actively changing technological approaches in the nursing profession. The demands of healthcare are otherwise acutely increasing with several nurses reporting varying complexities in the infections encountered during the patient care process. Currently, the nursing profession is facing a growing number of elderly populations, which has in the recent past proved challenging due to numerous chronic diseases with more nurses expected to join the continuum of care.
However, the growing number of technically incompetent nurses is raising debates, as the world seems to be evolving technologically. Given the growing demands in the needs and complexities of the nursing practice and the reforms taking place in the nursing profession across the world, the current education programs might not seem imperative and competent to the rapidly changing healthcare system. As nurses will continue being the bedrock of to healthcare system, technology integration must remain a priority to meet the growing patient caring needs.
Literature from previously documented reports that examined the extent of technological integration into the nursing profession seems to be providing empirical data about the technological concept in nursing (Distler, 2008). Reports indicate that several technological devices that have proven imperative in improving the healthcare systems currently remain underutilized, due to the lack of properly technically trained nurses to handle the sophisticated equipment. During the shift from the school environment to the hospital setting, Registered Nurses have witnessed inadequacy of techno how in recently graduating students, hence making the delivery of hands-on experience and support difficult.
Fulmer et al. (2011) affirm, “The electronic medical record is a perfect example of technology that in the absence of regular experience is not readily navigated by classroom professor” (p.9). Students in the school settings seem to have minimal or even not completely equipped with the necessary education, training, and reliable experience in handling sophisticated technological devices that are essential in clinical technologies to handle regular care-centered activities. This scenario indicates that there exists a great disparity and non-linkage between nurse schooling and the activities undertaken in the real world of the nursing profession.
Conclusion
Substantial literature underscores the existence of a gap between nursing education and nursing practice with empirical evidence from these studies proving the same. Numerous studies have identified evidence linking the existing gap between nursing practice and education in almost three dimensions including how nurses percept the entire caring process, nursing registration and licensure process as well as classroom technology about the nursing profession. In the context of nurses’ perception over the profession, numerous nurses seem to be confining their practice to the hospital caring system that streams from initial Nightingale educational influence.
Regarding the nurse licensure and registration process, students seem overwhelmed by completing the educational curriculum to attain the registration requirements rather than closely following the codes and culture attached to the nursing profession, hence becoming incompetent in the practice itself. Finally, the rapidly growing and changing nursing profession, marred by intensifying acute health problems has forced the healthcare system to adopt sophisticated professional devices that are eminent in practice, but rarely available in the classroom setting. This move leads to the inadequacy of technically trained workers to meet the changing continuum of care.
Reference List
Distler, W. (2008). Problem-based learning: an innovative approach to teaching physical assessment in advanced practice nursing curriculum. International Journal of Nursing Education Scholarship, 5(1), 26-39.
Fulmer, T., Cathcart, E., Glassman, K., Budin, W., Naegle, M., &Van Devanter, N. (2011). The attending nurse: an evolving model for integrating nursing education and practice. The Open Nursing Journal, 5(1), 9-13.
Ousey, K. (2011). The changing face of student nurse education and training programs. Wounds UK, 7(1), 70-76.
Squires, J., Hutchinson, A., Bostrom, A., O’Rourke, M., Cobban, S., & Estabrooks, C. (2011). To what extent do nurses use research in clinical practice? A systematic review. Implementation Science, 6(21), 3-17.
Ward, C., & Berkowitz, B. (2005). Arching the flood: how to bridge the gap between nursing schools and hospitals. Health affairs, 21(5), 42-52.