Nursing and the Profession

Nursing is a profession that sets itself apart from the others through its positive caring

approach. The four main duties of nurses are to promote health, prevent illnesses and disease, help

patients cope with illness until full restoration of health is achieved and finally, to minimize or

alleviate suffering. The ICN Code of Ethics sets distinct parameters for nurses to use as a guideline

while on duty. As such, Nurses and the Profession make up one part of the Code of Ethics. The

main components are outlined and explained under the sub-heading Nurses and Profession.

The Nurse Is Active In Developing A Core of Research-Based Professional Knowledge That

Supports Evidence-Based Practice

All nurses must participate in the advancement of the profession through knowledge

development evaluation, dissemination and application to practice. Knowledge development relies

chiefly though not exclusively upon research and scholarly inquiry. Nurses engage in scholarly

inquiry in order to expand the body of knowledge that forms and advances the theory and practice

of the discipline in all its spheres.

Nurse researchers test existing and generate new nursing knowledge. Nursing knowledge

draws from and contributes to corresponding sciences and humanities. Nurse researchers may

involve human participants in their research as individuals, families, groups, communities or

populations. In such cases, nurses research conforms to national and international ethical

standards for the conduct of research employing human participants. Community consultation can

help to ensure enhanced protection, enhanced benefits, legitimacy and shared responsibility from

members of communities during all phases of the research process.

 Nurses take care to ensure that research is soundly constructed significant worthwhile and

in conformity with ethical standards including review by an institutional review board prior to

initiation. Dissemination of research findings regardless of results is an essential part of respect

for the participants. Knowledge development also occurs through the process of scholarly inquiry,

clinical and educational innovation, and inter-professional collaboration. Dissemination of

research findings is fundamental to ongoing disciplinary discourse and knowledge development.

The Nurse Assumes The Major Role In Determining And Implementing Acceptable Standards Of

Clinical Nursing Practice, Management, Research And Education.

Practice standards must be developed by nurses and grounded in nursings ethical

commitments and developing body of knowledge. These standards must also reflect nursings

responsibility to society. Nursing identifies its own scope of practice as informed, specified or

directed by state and law and regulation and by relevant societal values.

Nurse executives establish, maintain, and promote conditions of employment that enable

nurses to practice according to accepted standards. Professional autonomy and self-regulation are

necessary for implementing nursing standards and guidelines and for assuring quality care.

Nurse educators promote and maintain optimal standards of education and practice in every

setting where learning occur. Academic educators must also seek to ensure that all their graduates

possess the knowledge, skills and moral dispositions that are essential to nursing.

The Nurse Is Active In Developing And Sustaining A Core Of Professional Values.

Nursing is a caring profession. Caring encompasses empathy for and connection with people.

Teaching and role-modeling caring is a nursing curriculum challenge. Caring is best demonstrated
by a nurse's ability to embody the five core values of professional nursing. Core nursing values

essential to baccalaureate education include human dignity, integrity, autonomy, altruism, and

social justice. The caring professional nurse integrates these values in clinical practice. Strategies

for integrating and teaching core values are outlined and outcomes of value-based nursing

education are described. Carefully integrated values education ensures that the legacy of caring

behavior embodied by nurses is strengthened for the future nursing workforce.

The Nurse Contributes To An Ethical Organizational Environment And Challenges Unethical

Practices And Settings.

Ethical values offer a framework for behavior assessment, and nursing values influence

nurses goals, strategies, and actions. Nurses are also responsible for upholding the dignity of the

profession which can be accomplished through abiding by the ethical standards. Another important

role of the nurse is the nurse takes up membership in the professional organization. Therefore, the

professional nurse is required to act within the limits of the code of ethics at all times in order to

set the profession apart from all others and to better serve the public with optimum nursing care.

The Nurse, Acting Through The Professional Organization, Participates In Creating Positive

Practice Environment And Maintaining Safe, Equitable Social And Economic Working

Conditions In Nursing.

One significant trait of nursing care is the regard for human rights, which safeguards that the

care provided is deferential and impartial to a persons age, skin colour, creed, race, culture,

disability or illness, gender, sexual orientation, nationality, political stance, or social status. Nurses

work in an environment that is constantly changing to provide the best possible care for patients.

They are continuously learning about the latest technology and medication as well as considering
the evidence that their nursing practice is based upon. Nurses spend more face-to-face time with a

patient compared to doctors; therefore, nurses are particularly skilled at interacting with patients,

putting them at ease, and assisting them in their recovery and aiding in patient education. It is often

said that physicians cure, and nurses care.

They are advocates and health educators for patients, families and communities. When

providing direct patient care, they observe, assess and record patient symptoms, reactions and

progress. Nurses collaborate with physicians in the performance of treatments and examinations,

the administration of medications and the provision of direct patient care in convalescence and

rehabilitation.

The Nurse Practices To Sustain And Protect The Natural Environment And Is Aware Of Its

Consequences On Health.

The role of nurses in controlling the influence of environmental factors (air and water

quality, food, sanitation, cleanliness, chemicals, pesticides, waste products) on health was

recognized in the early years of the nursing profession by such leaders as Florence Nightingale

and Lillian Wald. Florence Nightingale, in her Notes on Nursing, expressed as the first rule of

nursing, Keep the air within as pure as the air without.

Nurses have been leaders in advocating for and implementing environmental principles into

their professional roles and practices, not only to help eliminate the problem, but to use precaution

when science is not yet able to fully establish the cause and effect relationship.
References

Badzek, L. (2017). Code of Ethics for Nurses with Interpretive Statements Nursingworld.org. Available at:
http://nursingworld.org/DocumentVault/Ethics-1/Code-of-Ethics-for-Nurses.html?css=print [Accessed
28 Oct. 2017].

Fahrenwald, N., Bassett, S., Tschetter, L., Carson, P., White, L. and Winterboer, V. (2017). Teaching Core
Nursing Values. [online] Professional Nursing. Available at:
http://www.professionalnursing.org/article/S8755-7223(04)00172-3/fulltext [Accessed 28 Oct. 2017].