Transforming Nursing Education Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Transforming Nursing Education - Assignment Example Rideout (2000) argues that to educate means to instill intellectual, moral and social instructions in pupils; to train or instruct purposely. Thus, nursing education in the current century must embrace a model of education which integrates moral reasoning and ethical values with technical expertise. Competitive nursing education should produce graduate nurses that are able to ask and seek to answer the questions that these challenges pose for their patients, their communities, their profession and their own lives (Rideout, 2000). Such a model will adequately prepare graduates to face their challenges head on, put their knowledge into action to enable their patients and communities to move to health and healing, and enable the profession to grow and mature. The profession of nursing in the United States is at a significant moment. In fact, the last national nursing study took place almost forty years ago, and profound changes have occurred since then. The profession has realized chang es in science, technology and patient activism. Consequently, these changes have a massive impact on nursing education. Moreover, the responsibilities of nurses continue to expand. Nurses now do most bedside monitoring, make almost all home visits, assist and teach ageing patients to manage multiple chronic illnesses, and deliver much of everyday primary care (Benner et al, 2009). Nurses ensure patient safety while handling a wide array of intrusive technologies where the margin of error is exceptionally narrow, and they do so in increasingly complex, hazardous environments. Currently, nurses administer care in widely diverse settings. These include acute hospital bedside care, ambulatory settings, school and community nursing care centers and nursing care homes for the elderly and technologically dependent patients. Nursing education should prepare nurses so that they can practice safely, accurately, and compassionately in spite of the challenges posed by rapid changes in the U.S h ealthcare system. When they enter into practice, they should show flexibility in adapting to any site of practice which might range from the less complex school nursing to extensive nursing care in sophisticated hospital departments. To practice safely and effectively, today’s nurses’ must be in command of nursing knowledge and science; from normal pathological physiology, to genomics, pharmacology, biochemical implications of laboratory medicine for patents’ therapies, the physiology of respiration in the lungs, cellular transport of oxygen in critical patients and so on. Furthermore, they need to understand the human experience of illness and the usual growth and development. Nurses often receive invitations to perform highly skilled technical, scientific and rational work. Thus, they have to utilize various skills drawn from nursing science, natural physics, biological sciences; not to forget the social sciences and humanities. Current healthcare institutions encounter numerous challenges when training professional nurses and medical practitioners. Therefore, a competent nurse poses an exceptional command of extensive skills and knowledge and shows deep commitment to each patient’s best interests. Because no simple characterization of Registered Nurse (RN) roles is possible, nursing education faces immense challenges in preparing its students. Both the costs and tasks of preparing all round