Nursing as a practice and proffession

In the grand scheme of things, I am still a fairly “new” nurse. In 2001, I started working at Children’s MercyHospitals and Clinics as a graduate nurse. During this short time, I’ve experienced many changes in our organization. Some changes included leadership, practice, and, most notably, technology.

At times changes occur at a pace that’s difficult to keep up with, especially with regards to technology. At Children’s Mercy, last year we transitioned to an electronic clinical information system. I observed that our more mature nurses struggled with the transition while our younger nurses mastered the new system with little effort. Regardless of how easily one adapted, the transition required a great deal of time and energy. Being inundated with technology, challenges nurses to remember the art and essence of nursing.

The challenge then becomes balancing all of these changes and embracing technology while keeping our bedside care empathetic, compassionate and tailored to each patient’s needs. After all, isn’t that why we all became nurses in the first place, to take care of people?

I see nursing as having two very distinct but equally important pieces: the practice and the profession. Practice encompasses the science, the skills and the assessment. The professional component, on the other hand, embodies patient and peer relationships, bedside manner, education of both ourselves and our future nurses, the image of nursing and nursing professionalism.

At Children’s Mercy, we are addressing the challenge of keeping professionalism and the art of nursing in the forefront through the development of the Nursing Professional Excellence Council (NPEC), which I had the honor of chairing in its first year. Although a Nursing Practice Council was well established, it was identified that we lacked a place for nurses to discuss professionalism topics. The mission of the council is to enhance nursing professionalism by supplying a venue for the discussion and education of professional expectations of nursing.  The council utilizes a shared governance model to ensure that every nurse in the group feels that his or her voice is important and valued.

We adopted the American Nurses Association’s Code of Ethics for Nurses to guide our education, discussions and expectations of professional behavior. The group has also worked closely with our Family Advisory Board through open discussions as a way to remind ourselves that nursing goes well beyond the tasks, documentation and technology. This year we’ve selected a nursing model, the Quality Caring Model by Joanne Duffy, to guide our care delivery. Over the next year, NPEC will champion this model and assist in its implementation to the nursing department. The model helps to illustrate that nursing is a unique profession with caring at its core.

Our hope is that NPEC is assisting the nursing staff at Children’s Mercy to be better equipped, to balance and embrace changes, while keeping the art and essence of nursing in the forefront. I definitely think we are on the right track. 

Devin Bowers RN, MSN, serves as the nurse manager of the In-Patient Float Pool and Internal Transport at Children's Mercy Hospitals and Clinics.

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