Evolution Of Nurse Practitioner

Nurse Practitioners have crusaded through the years paving a way of professionalism for the future Nurse Practitioners. Early Nurse Practitioner’s fought adversity within our own profession despite the benefits and potential benefits of Nurse Practitioners. Kurt Lewin’s theory of change is uncannily supported when reflecting back on the evolution of Nurse Practitioner profession:
1. Unfreezing: Challenging the status quo to gain support that a change is needed.
2. Freezing: Making a change
3. Refreezing: Solidifying the change into the culture.
The American Nurses Association has assisted us by the dedication to standards, guidelines, and principles. This has allowed the nursing profession to elevate by defining the values and priorities for
registered nurses across the nation. Through this work, ANA provided direction to nurses across the nation, influence legislation, and implement a framework to objectively evaluate nursing excellence. The framework consists of: 1. Code of Ethics for Nurses: This definitive guide demonstrates how to carry out your nursing responsibilities while providing quality care and meeting your ethical obligations.

2. ANA Nursing Standards: The scope and standards of practice resources describe the art and science of nursing and the details associated with specialty nursing practice.

3. ANA Position Statements: When a hot topic arises in the industry, ANA will create an explanation, justification, or recommendation for a course of action — otherwise known as a position statement.

4.
ANA Principles for Nursing Practice: From pay to staffing, delegation to documentation, and even cutting-edge topics such as social media – ANA has principles aimed at giving you practical information for your professional practice.

This framework for professionalism in nursing began with our early roots with Florence Nightingale who set the bar rather high in regards to giving herself to others and her expectation of excellence in nursing practice. She was an inventor, a visionary, a missionary and she delivered all with a commitment to passion and love.

Nursing as a profession embodies many values inherent in those who pursue nursing careers. When nurses are asked to identify their core values, they are surprisingly consistent throughout the profession globally. They include honesty, responsibility, pursuit of new knowledge, belief in human dignity, equality of all patients and the desire to prevent and alleviate suffering.
Professionalism will be judged in your personal behaviors and how you present yourself to all those around you, and through those behaviors, you tell the world who you are. Components of your professionalism include your attitude, your appearance and your willingness to help others. Let’s explore these a
bit.
Attitude
Attitude in nursing is everything! The way you view your world and portray that view to others is everything. I am sure that you all can identify someone in your work environment with a terrible attitude that does their best to make the rest of the staff miserable.
Unfortunately, many times they are successful pulling everyone into the puddle with them. People behave like this because they are looking for attention and by sucking everyone else into their drama they get that attention and control the environment. This type of behavior is counter to the expectations of the nursing profession to focus on helping others rather than focusing on our own problems.
Personal issues need to be left at home and not taken into the work area. There are always going to be times when we face issues in our lives that threaten our positive outlook. I find it helpful to be grateful for everything I have. I believe that waking up in the morning is the best thing that can happen to me and the rest of the day becomes a gift.
I had the opportunity to meet a wonderful lady who lost her daughter to cancer recently. A tremendous lesson for her was to be grateful for every minute she had with her daughter and to convert the “have to’s” to the “get to’s.” When her daughter was depressed that she had to go for more chemotherapy, she reframed that to the fact that she “got to” go for more chemotherapy, which kept her alive for much longer.
If we begin to be grateful for what we have, our whole outlook on life changes and the way we relate to people becomes more meaningful. Be grateful because you “get to” be a nurse, you get to pick up your kids from sports, you get to go grocery shopping, you get to wake up in the morning - the list goes on and on.
Appearance
There is no way around the fact that people judge you by your personal appearance. Clean scrubs, neat hair, clean shoes and a well groomed look makes the statement that you care about yourself as a person and therefore have the capacity to care about others.
People that look sloppy may be perceived by others as unorganized, lazy, and uncaring. If you do not care about yourself, how can you truly care for others? A little attention to how you look goes a long way to display your professionalism.
Willingness to Help Others
What has amazed me in my nursing career for over 35 years is the observation that nurses do not necessarily support each other as we should.
There needs to be solidarity in our profession, and yet, what I have observed, is a more individualized approach where we, as nurses, are more worried about ourselves than the whole of the profession. This translates into your willingness to help others and to work together as a team, as well as speak positively about your profession whenever you can.
Remember, your profession is different than your job. At times we, as nurses, may tend to talk negatively about the nursing profession because we do not like where we work, and that you have control over. There is no question that nursing is a tough profession, both physically and mentally, and that with changes in the economy and the pressures of health care reform, the work environment will become even more challenging.
To survive and actually thrive in nursing, we will all need to pull together as a profession and begin by working together at the bedside and being great team players willing to support each other. Something magical happens when we give to others; wonderful things begin to come back to us in far greater ways than what we have originally
given.
My parting message to you all is that nurses are the most trusted profession in the world, have so much to give. Show the world how wonderful we are by always putting your best foot forward not only for yourself, but for all of us in this wonderful profession! You go nurse!