Nursing Practice Through the Ages: A Comparison of ADN and BSN Nursing
Nursing is the act of taking of someone else, who is otherwise incapacitated. In a medical setting, however, nursing entails a little bit more. Nurses administer clinical care to patients admitted to a healthcare facility, outpatients, and also provide home-based care for life-long conditions. There are two main types of nurses, associate nurses, and baccalaureate nurses. Since it began, the nursing profession, mainly associate and baccalaureate nursing, has transformed owing to changes in the world, in practice itself, as well as approaches in treating patients.
Nursing has evolved from an unorganized and varied beginning to a structured, caring, and determined profession. Nurses have played a vital role in caregiving through periods of war, political and economic upheaval, and pandemics. In the early years, there was little value for the profession and little knowledge to counter oppression and the existing challenges (Cherry and Jacob, 2017). The government continuously made changes to the healthcare system, all while ignoring the nursing practitioners. Nursing was predominantly taken up by women; therefore, salaries remained meager, the nurses were overworked, and there was no order. It was only when male nurses started to take up nursing jobs that wages began to rise. According to Cherry and Jacob (2017), nurses began to get state licensure at the level of associate-degree graduates, and the practice began to take professional shape. In the 21st century, nursing is a well-known profession with choices of specialization and general degrees. Although they face the same challenges, nurses formed organizations that lobbied for their grievances to the state and volunteers.
Modern health care institutions such as hospitals, nursing homes, mental hospitals, and the home care agency require nurses to function wholly and efficiently. Nurses’ training and educational background dictate their duties, responsibilities, and competencies. The evolution of nursing created a foundation for the scope of practice. The range is a reminder of the responsibilities entrusted to them, rules as well as legal issues. These scopes were set by different states according to their law and dictated the roles played by various nurses. The scope of practice, according to Dean (2020), provides a standard of practice that gives a general understanding of the responsibilities expected of all nurses. It also includes organizations that push for change in the nursing profession. It also covers the legal and ethical considerations of nursing that change significantly due to pressures of the changing world. Currently, there exist several organizations that accommodate all nurses as well as those that are specialty-focused. As the healthcare system revolutionizes, treatment of patients at doctor and nurse levels has changed as well. Baccalaureate nurses can now administer advanced treatment to patients under a doctor’s supervision and can conduct higher-level clinical care. Change is also evident in treating patients by the availability of technology that eases nursing work.
Baccalaureate nurses and associate nurses have only one thing in common; they provide clinical care to patients. Baccalaureate nurses go through a four-year degree program. Upon completion and employment, they gain competencies such as prescribe treatment, provide healthcare for the management of chronic diseases, non-acute illnesses, and preventive care (AACN, 2020). On the other hand, associate nurses only undergo two years of training and acquire competencies such as bedside clinical skills, communication skills, educating and training patients and their relatives. Associate nurses had the upper hand in the early years; it was the highest level of licensure for nurses. Their duties only covered bedside clinical skills and other technical skills. The dynamic nature of knowledge changing education levels and introducing the BSN. Role description for these nurses led to the change of the scope of practice. The scope allowed them to extend their skills as dictated by their academic competences. Consider a hysterical patient with high fever and breathing problems. An associate nurse may only help the patient to calm down, administer cold towels or cold packs to remedy the fever, and assist in breathing exercises. A BSN registered nurse, on the other hand, will assess the patient to determine the need for medication to bring down the fever and administer further intervention to ease the patient’s breathing.
Evidence-based practice is vital in nursing as one that has a significant influence on patient outcomes. This practice, when used in nursing, applies in particular for hardwiring knowledge into standard care processes. Nurses are encouraged to apply this knowledge, skills, and attitudes to offer quality care in caregiving and elicit specific results, hence its name (AACN, 2020). The evidence-based practice is also significant in its ability to foster success and hospitals that use this method, and they quickly gain ‘magnet status.’ Baccalaureate nurses specifically go through the training, and the evidence-based practice heavily influences the curriculum. BSN nurses use evidence-based practice to make changes in nursing with empirical research to justify them (Dean, 2020). The training boosts the BSN RNs knowledge and lifts their role to that of leadership. Nurses in school learn to think critically before making any diagnosis or administering treatment, and this significantly reduces medical error.
In the past, communication between nurses and other hospital staff was strenuous. Nurses were in cahoots with most of the team, possibly because of fatigue and burnout. Today, however, even though such problems still exist, nurses have learned interpersonal communication (Dean, 2020). Healthcare facilities require the flow of information from department to department so that the patient receives holistic care. Nurses are at the heart of this flow on information and need to have communication skills that allow them to communicate effectively with interdisciplinary teams. Different doctors and nurses may come in to see one patient in a day. The separate visits may result in various observations and recommendations for the patient. To ensure the patients receive appropriate care, and guarantee positive patient outcomes, nurses and doctors have to communicate with each other, discuss and settle for the best treatment for the patient.
The field of nursing has seen one of the tremendous changes over the past years. Changes in education have allowed higher education levels of nursing and changes in responsibilities dictated by a scope of practice. Nurses work together with other medical staff to provide quality care to patients according to their competencies. Associate and baccalaureate nurses, although very different in their education levels, work together to ensure the only important goal for any health facility, positive outcomes of the patients.
References.
Cherry, B., & Jacob, S. R. (2019). Contemporary nursing: issues, trends, & management. St. Louis, MO: Elsevier.
Dean, J. K. (n.d.). Practice and Competency Development. Retrieved May 4, 2020, from https://lc.gcumedia.com/nrs430v/dynamics-in-nursing-art-and-science-of-professional-practice/v1.1/#/chapter/3
Nursing Education Programs. (n.d.). Retrieved May 4, 2020, from https://www.aacnnursing.org/Nursing-Education