When Is It The Right Time To Advocate For A Patient?
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04/23/13
When is it the right time to advocate for a patient?
Modern nursing is complex, ever changing, and multi focused. Since the time of Florence Nightingale the goal of nursing has remained unchanged. Mainly to provide a safe and caring environment that promotes patient health and wellbeing. Effective use of an interpersonal tool, such as advocacy, enhances the care giving environment. Nightingale used advocacy early and often in the development of modern nursing. By reading her many letters and publications that have survived, it is possible to identify her professional goals and techniques. Specifically, Nightingale valued egalitarian human rights …show more content…
and developed leadership principles and practices that provide useful advocacy techniques for nurses practicing in the 21st century. Whether finding a potential medicine error, helping the health care team hear patient voices, or shaping policy by speaking from experience, advocating for patients comes naturally to nurses. Many nurses give this advocate role little thought, but tend to just look out for their patients as their natural job. For instance, reminds a surgeon that he needs to change the antibiotics for a patient pre op with allergies to that medicine, the nurse just knows to do so. Not everyone appreciates the nurses who step forward on a patients behalf, and not all nurses step forward for their patients. Then there are those nurses who step up at the wrong time or take their role a little too far. There are a few examples I will share to show these different types of nurses and their situations to advocate for their patients. Silva #2
The poem “The Discus Thrower” by Richard Selzer is a good example of a patient that did not have a good advocate for him. In “The Discus Thrower”, Selzer describes his experience of observing an old blind man who does not have his legs. “In spite of everything, he remains impressive, as though he were a sailor standing athwart a slanting deck”. That’s how Selzer describes the mans mood. Although he is legless, he demands for shoes every day, and his only enjoyment in life is an everyday ritual of throwing his plate of eggs at a wall at breakfast time. One day the nurse tells the doctor that he is nasty and that’s why his family doesn’t come to visit him and that’s why he had no get well cards in his room. This situation is where you see the nurse not being a good advocate for the patient. Instead of seeing why the man is so angry and always throws his plate, she just assumed that he is a mean old man. This nurse was not a good advocate for her patient or she just did not care. There are many nurses like this one, but a better approach would be to become friends with the patient and ask him why he is throwing the plate every day. At the end of the poem the reader learns that when the man was younger he was a discus thrower. So to put the pieces together the reader understands that the old man was getting his only enjoyment out of life throwing the plate as if it was a discus. This story brings up the question on why don’t we advocate for the patients that need it the most? There are plenty of situations where the patient just needs someone to talk to and be there for them, but the nurses that are responsible for this job don’t do it. There is another poem that shows a good patient advocate.
Silva#3
This Poem “Nursing Home” by Ed Gailing, is about his experience in a nursing home while he was ninety years old.
“this morning when I got up they had to change the bed sheets again because I had wet myself during the night like a baby who can’t control his bowls,” here is a quote from Gailings poem, it shows the reader how he feels about himself having to be in the nursing home. Like a little baby, that needs to be taken care of. He goes on to say how his nurse takes care of him and she is very nice and doesn’t mind doing the things for him. That she use to have to take care of her father when he was old and sick. This is an example of a good advocate for a nurse to be. The whole point of a nurse being an advocate for a patient is to be there at the time they need it. So the question is when is the right time to advocate for a patient?. It’s the right time when the patient is angry. It’s the right time when a patient is sad. It’s the right time when someone else is looking down on a patient. It is the right time when there is a mistake that will happen to the patient. Basically there is never a wrong time to advocate for a patient. What some people don’t understand is why sometimes nothing is said. Another story to show examples why people don’t say anything is “Why Don’t We Complain?” by William F. Buckley, JR. This story is about all different reasons why people don’t complain about things that really bother them in life. The reason why we don 't complain is very basic and fundamental. It is because of our culture, tradition, and heritage to not complain. It isn 't polite, it is considered rude. We are raised to behave ourselves, and when we were growing up, if we don 't behave we are
punished.
Silva#4
This could be the same reason why sometimes nurses don’t step forward for their patients. The way we were raised is a perfect example of why sometimes we don’t say anything. It is just the way some of us were raised from a child. So the truth of the matter is you have to want to be a good advocate for a patient, and then there is no wrong time to advocate.
Works Cited
“NURSING HOME” by Ed Gailing
“The Discus Thrwoer” by Richard Selzer
Potter and Perry, Fundamentals of Nursing 7th Edition
William F. Buckley, Jr., Why Don’t We Complain?
04/23/13
When is it the right time to advocate for a patient?
Modern nursing is complex, ever changing, and multi focused. Since the time of Florence Nightingale the goal of nursing has remained unchanged. Mainly to provide a safe and caring environment that promotes patient health and wellbeing. Effective use of an interpersonal tool, such as advocacy, enhances the care giving environment. Nightingale used advocacy early and often in the development of modern nursing. By reading her many letters and publications that have survived, it is possible to identify her professional goals and techniques. Specifically, Nightingale valued egalitarian human rights …show more content…
and developed leadership principles and practices that provide useful advocacy techniques for nurses practicing in the 21st century. Whether finding a potential medicine error, helping the health care team hear patient voices, or shaping policy by speaking from experience, advocating for patients comes naturally to nurses. Many nurses give this advocate role little thought, but tend to just look out for their patients as their natural job. For instance, reminds a surgeon that he needs to change the antibiotics for a patient pre op with allergies to that medicine, the nurse just knows to do so. Not everyone appreciates the nurses who step forward on a patients behalf, and not all nurses step forward for their patients. Then there are those nurses who step up at the wrong time or take their role a little too far. There are a few examples I will share to show these different types of nurses and their situations to advocate for their patients. Silva #2
The poem “The Discus Thrower” by Richard Selzer is a good example of a patient that did not have a good advocate for him. In “The Discus Thrower”, Selzer describes his experience of observing an old blind man who does not have his legs. “In spite of everything, he remains impressive, as though he were a sailor standing athwart a slanting deck”. That’s how Selzer describes the mans mood. Although he is legless, he demands for shoes every day, and his only enjoyment in life is an everyday ritual of throwing his plate of eggs at a wall at breakfast time. One day the nurse tells the doctor that he is nasty and that’s why his family doesn’t come to visit him and that’s why he had no get well cards in his room. This situation is where you see the nurse not being a good advocate for the patient. Instead of seeing why the man is so angry and always throws his plate, she just assumed that he is a mean old man. This nurse was not a good advocate for her patient or she just did not care. There are many nurses like this one, but a better approach would be to become friends with the patient and ask him why he is throwing the plate every day. At the end of the poem the reader learns that when the man was younger he was a discus thrower. So to put the pieces together the reader understands that the old man was getting his only enjoyment out of life throwing the plate as if it was a discus. This story brings up the question on why don’t we advocate for the patients that need it the most? There are plenty of situations where the patient just needs someone to talk to and be there for them, but the nurses that are responsible for this job don’t do it. There is another poem that shows a good patient advocate.
Silva#3
This Poem “Nursing Home” by Ed Gailing, is about his experience in a nursing home while he was ninety years old.
“this morning when I got up they had to change the bed sheets again because I had wet myself during the night like a baby who can’t control his bowls,” here is a quote from Gailings poem, it shows the reader how he feels about himself having to be in the nursing home. Like a little baby, that needs to be taken care of. He goes on to say how his nurse takes care of him and she is very nice and doesn’t mind doing the things for him. That she use to have to take care of her father when he was old and sick. This is an example of a good advocate for a nurse to be. The whole point of a nurse being an advocate for a patient is to be there at the time they need it. So the question is when is the right time to advocate for a patient?. It’s the right time when the patient is angry. It’s the right time when a patient is sad. It’s the right time when someone else is looking down on a patient. It is the right time when there is a mistake that will happen to the patient. Basically there is never a wrong time to advocate for a patient. What some people don’t understand is why sometimes nothing is said. Another story to show examples why people don’t say anything is “Why Don’t We Complain?” by William F. Buckley, JR. This story is about all different reasons why people don’t complain about things that really bother them in life. The reason why we don 't complain is very basic and fundamental. It is because of our culture, tradition, and heritage to not complain. It isn 't polite, it is considered rude. We are raised to behave ourselves, and when we were growing up, if we don 't behave we are
punished.
Silva#4
This could be the same reason why sometimes nurses don’t step forward for their patients. The way we were raised is a perfect example of why sometimes we don’t say anything. It is just the way some of us were raised from a child. So the truth of the matter is you have to want to be a good advocate for a patient, and then there is no wrong time to advocate.
Works Cited
“NURSING HOME” by Ed Gailing
“The Discus Thrwoer” by Richard Selzer
Potter and Perry, Fundamentals of Nursing 7th Edition
William F. Buckley, Jr., Why Don’t We Complain?