Advancement In Nursing - Montes-Sierra

Jorge, Montes-Sierra

Lee High School

Senior Capstone RD

Mr. Cahoon

March 31st, 2020

EQ: Essential Question: How has the career of a registered nurse changed over time?
 Montes-Sierra 1

Advancement In Nursing

A person’s health is always the number one priority. Whenever somebody’s health is

compromised or at risk, they’re usually taken, cared, & healed by a doctor. Yet the doctors are

not the first people you meet when going to the hospital. The first line of defense are known as,

“Registered Nurses” or RNs for short. A registered nurse is a qualified health professional who

helps evaluate and treat patients as best as possible. ​Registered nurses frequently and

effectively treat patients in a job field that is constantly changing is aspects such as their

settings, responsibilities, and patient care.

Sickness, diseases, and viruses have been around for as long as we know. That being

said, a nurse’s setting has changed drastically over time. Back then, a nurse’s setting would

consist of being in one’s home or many would serve in the battlefield. It was rare for people to

go to the hospital due to the fact that nurses would usually be the ones assisting people in their

homes. As the medical field grew, early nursing programs that nurses started working inside

hospitals as employees who obtained medical knowledge (RanardChelsy, 2018) and began

working in hospitals amongst other health professionals. Registered nurses have now spread to

various settings in the medical field such as hospitals, physicians’ offices, home health care

services, assisted living facilities, correctional facilities, schools and the military. In other words,

this profession has become much more respected due the needed amount of knowledge to pursue

this career. A nurse’s skillset has evolved to many more things as to just having to be a liability,

registered nurses are now a major necessity in the medical field. As time has progressed,
 Montes-Sierra 2

advancement is seen clearly. As a result, respectable pay, experience, respect has been given to

registered nurses.

In any study, responsibility comes into play. As the medical field continues to advance,

the responsibilities of a registered nurse begin to progress too. Their skill sets expand after many

years of advancement in the medical field. Nurses used to consist of being common caretakers.

They were taught basic health care skills as well as hospital etiquette (Kahr, 2019). Basically,

nurses were meant to lend out in extra hand to a person who was in need of medical assistance.

They were not trained to perform effectively in high stake scenarios that would help cure or treat

a patient. Now, registered nurses have more critical responsibilities in front of them. They are

continuously monitoring and evaluating patients, as well as coordinating with multiple specialists

to ensure that their patients are properly helped (gmercyu, 2020). RNs are trained to act and

effectively treat a person on many different occasions, their abilities can range vastly as they

serve in many different environments. This goes to show how much change can be seen in the

medical field. Registered nurses constantly need to be adapting to this ever changing profession.

The thought of a patient's pain and tolerance wasn’t always something that a nurse would

take into consideration back in the day. As stated before, nurses were not well trained as they did

not see it as a profession. They made do with anything they could not regarding certain aspects

such as the patients care and well being, but more focused on curing the matter at hand. The

culture for patient care used to be a very demoralizing experience for many patients where

medical professionals weren’t as concerned for their dignity or enduring painful medical

procedures (Akhtar, 2020). Nowadays, hospitals focus primarily on the patient’s satisfaction and

well being. Apart from medically helping the patients, nurses evaluate the patients state of mind,
 Montes-Sierra 3

feeling, and satisfaction and use their analysis to treat the patient accordingly. RNs tend to act on

two types of patient care, direct and indirect. Direct patient care refers to activities that “assist the

patient in meeting their basic needs.” Indirect patient care refers to activities that “focus on

maintaining the environment in which nursing care is delivered and only incidentally involves

direct patient care” (Yorke, 2016). The change in the medical field to change from compromising

a person’s well being to treat someone accordingly shows tremendous advancement in this

career.

The career path of a registered nurse has blossomed into a beauty of a profession. It has

advanced so much from when it first rose in the mid 1800s. Fifty years ago, doctors still treated

nurses as assistants, and nurses had just a "rudimentary" understanding of scientific medical care.

Now, nursing makes up the largest workforce in healthcare they're on the frontlines risking their

lives to help others in medical need (Akhtar, 2020). Time and time again, registered nurses

manage to show how effectively they are able to work to treat patients that have changing

settings, responsibilities, and patient care due to the constantly advancing medical field.
 Montes-Sierra 4

Works Cited

Akhtar, A. (2020, April 7). THEN AND NOW: Here's how being a nurse has changed in the last

50 years. Retrieved April 27, 2020, from

https://www.businessinsider.com/how-being-a-nurse-has-changed-2019-4

Kahr, S. (2019, October 2). Changes and Challenges: How nursing has changed over the past 50

years. Retrieved April 26, 2020, from

https://transparency.kununu.com/how-nursing-has-changed-over-the-past-50-years/

RanardChelsy, C. (2019, March 1). How Nursing Has Changed Over Time. Retrieved from

https://minoritynurse.com/how-nursing-has-changed-over-time/

What Do Nurses Do? (2020). Retrieved April 26, 2020, from

https://www.gmercyu.edu/academics/learn/what-do-nurses-do

Yorke, Diane (2016, May 3) Patient Care: What is it? Retrieved April 25, 2020 from

https://www.longdom.org/open-access/patient-care-what-is-it-.pdf