Introduction
The problem of nurse role and responsibility has been debated a lot, and still, there is no definite definition of it. Nurses in the multidisciplinary team are responsible for a lot of things and perform a great many roles. Being a nurse, much work should be provided, moreover, nurses should be patient-focused, possess various skills in the health care system, act therapeutically, care about the environment and direct their intentions on people.
Main Body
The historical factors have created some sort of nursing responsibilities and roles in the health care system. The rise of medical technologies, the demise of the general directed doctors and nurses, the appearance of educated nursing specialists, and nursing’s drive for professionalization created a field for unrestricted nursing roles in the multidisciplinary team (Pearson, 2003, p. 626).
Nurses’ roles in the health care system contemplate their work in a team. Health care organizations usually face unpredictable situations, which a single person is unable to cope with, and teamwork should be implemented. To work in a team is extremely difficult without additional preparation, so some training programs were created for senior nursing staff and junior doctors with the aim educate them on how to act in situations where teamwork is necessary and where staff has to represent different roles (Hamilton-Fairiey, Hendron & Okunuga, 2009, p. 26). Dennis S. M. et al. (2008) provided the results of their experiment, stating that “evidence-based guidelines and educational meetings for health professionals improved health professional adherence to guidelines and some patient outcome” (p. S54)
One of the new roles for nurses is not the general qualification, but care about children, who were brought home from hospitals, as parents consider this is for better, bud to cure children at home needs more attention and professional interference (Markham, T. & Carney, 2008, p. 1345). The same deals with chronic disease care, when nurses have to care about chronically ill people and provide them care of different nature (Saxe et al., 2007, p. 97). The meaning is that nurses began to perform the roles of other professionals (Atwal, A. & Caldwell, 2006, p. 360). Slevin E. et al. (2008) insist that the main nurses’ role is “observing, supporting and reassuring, promoting a positive environment and forming therapeutic relationships for the people admitted” (p. 544).
The nurse’s responsibility in teamwork is not just to care about the patient and act all his/her requirements, or to follow doctors’ prescriptions, but also provide a personal opinion about curing (Jones, Mayer & McElheran, 2009, p. 15). Madsen L. T. et al. (2008) developed a new clinic, where the role of the nurse was extremely advanced to “implementation a quality-of-life protocol, providing detailed patient education, and serving as a single point of contact as patients move toward a treatment decision” (p. 35). The discussed above roles and responsibilities of the nurses proved that the nursing profession is rather important in the modern world, but the studies of Eshah N. F. and Bond A. E. (2009) are rather controversial, as they state that no special roles are implemented on nurses, and they continue to act their responsibilities (p. 133).
Conclusion
In conclusion, it should be mentioned that the changing world, the changes which occur in the medical sphere, connected with innovative technologies provide some changes in the nurses’ roles and responsibilities. The modern lifestyle of people, and the diseases they are ill with, make up the necessity to work in a team while diagnosis construction and treatment.
References
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