Extraordinary Nurses Abound

Would you recognize an extraordinary nurse if you saw one? If you narrowed down to one nurse who truly shaped your practice and exemplifies nursing as you see it, who would it be? What core qualities do you associate with this person? How does this individual exemplify compassionate care and excellence in practice?

Asking ourselves these questions ultimately keep us grounded to provide patient care in a way that speaks to the true intent of nursing care. 

Caring for the caregivers is significant and not a task taken lightly. At North Kansas City Hospital, we celebrate and recognize nursing professionals who exemplify and promote an extraordinary level of care and clinical excellence through the Daisy Foundation. The Daisy Foundation is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to recognizing extraordinary clinical nursing care and clinical research focusing on Idiopathic Thrombocytopenic Purpura, referred to as ITP. Core values found in nurses who provide extraordinary patient care consist of compassion, accountability, reverence, intuition, clinical skill, decisiveness, involvement, persistence, care and integrity. 

Compassion is a profound human emotion prompted by the pain of others. More vigorous than empathy, the feeling commonly gives rise to an active desire to alleviate another's suffering. It’s often the key component in what manifests in the social context as altruism. In ethical terms the principle of compassion, “Do to others as you would have done to you,” applies. The nurse’s practice relates to the patient as a dependent, vulnerable person. Nursing acknowledges the fundamental features of human existence: vulnerability, dependency, fragility and morality. 

Accountability, as it relates to nursing, is the acknowledgment and assumption of responsibility for actions and decisions including practice within the scope of the nursing profession. It also encompasses the obligation to report, explain and to be answerable for results of care. Professional accountability runs a close parallel to personal accountability. Both allow the nurse to move away from the mindset of things happening “to” her without her consent or influence. She embraces her role so that her practice involves things that happen “because” of her not “to” her. 

Reverence in this case does not mean “one held in reverence,” but instead describes the nurse’s regard for the patient’s wishes. The extraordinary nurse remembers that each patient, regardless of circumstances, possesses intrinsic value and should be treated with dignity and respect.

Intuition in nursing enhances clinical judgment, effective decision-making and can typically avert crisis. It can be a useful tool in developing and disseminating best practices. Experience-based nursing practice is key to development of research questions that relate to evidence-based practice. Intuition occurs in response to knowledge and plays an important role in clinical decision-making. 

The essence and spirit of developing clinical skills in nursing has not changed over the years. Do you recall how nervous you were the first time you had to test off in skills lab on hand washing or how about inserting an indwelling catheter in that half-manikin? In hindsight, learning those clinical skills to the letter seems so funny, but learning in this context means doing the right thing over and over until it’s a habit. When evidence changes and we need to re-write those habits, the extraordinary nurse works diligently to use the nursing process to incorporate the evidence into her clinical practice. Nurses understand it’s not only the ability to be clinically skillful but to engender the habit of skill development and mentor other nurses in the same vain. 

The extraordinary nurse has the ability to make quality decisions and does so with determination and a resolute character (decisive and involved). This nurse is determined to seek evidence in practice and apply it to all aspects of patient care. The extraordinary nurse is not simply present, but is proactively involved in, and takes pleasure in providing collaborative patient care. 

Persistence pervades our profession. Persistence is the ability to maintain action regardless of your feelings. Extraordinary nurses press on even when they want to quit. Motivation is not what produces results; It’s the persistent actions taken, even when not highly motivated, that continually accumulate results. The extraordinary nurse persists even when she’s not motivated to do so and expects excellent results regardless of the circumstances. This nurse also knows when giving up is the prudent thing to do. When care is not in line with the patient’s goals, or the treatment is not producing the desired results, continuing to put forth effort rather than something more fruitful seems, well, fruitless. 

Doctor Jean Watson dedicates her life to human caring research. According to her texts, the “basic idea is that all around us is made up of energy and everyone emits some energy. The nurse emits a much higher frequency of caring energy than the energy of a sick patient that converges into a conscious healing process thus, tapping on the inner healing field of the patient. Once the inner field is touched, the healing process begins”. The extraordinary nurse knows her role in patient care extends beyond that of clinical skill but moves towards the energy expended to affect the healing process. 

Finally, integrity is intrinsic to the very being of the nurse. Integrity of the clinical nurse is closely aligned with ethical decision making, humility, consistency and fairness. Integrity speaks to the nurse’s ethical commitment to provide care in a way that is consistent with all of the aforementioned qualities. 

So, have you envisioned that nurse who helped shape your practice? Reflect upon which of the above qualities are at the core of that individual and what is specific to that nurse. Celebrating what extraordinary nurses do is the beginning of developing more extraordinary nurses. Wouldn’t it be a shame to not jump on that bandwagon when it approached? Don’t let excellence slip you by. Applause to all of the extraordinary nurses and congratulations to those of us who are daily affected by the care you provide.

Shannon Tucker, RN, MSN, MHSA, NE-BC is the manager of the Magnet program at North Kansas City Hospital.

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