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Compassion and Caring in Nursing - Summary and commentary of an editorial in the Journal of Professional Nursing
Nursing, according to an editorial in the Journal of Professional Nursing (Volume 23, Issue 5, September-October 2007, Pages 247-248) is a caring profession. A good nurse it says is one who is compassionate and caring. Ellen Olshansky who penned this piece goes on to ask some pertinent questions like what specifically defines compassion and caring, what does it look like and why does it matter that nurses are able to describe these concepts? This is a short but worthy editorial certainly worth the trouble you may need to go through to get your hands on it to read it in full.
In the midst of all the chaos in the health system, and the fixing it needs Olshansky reminds us that nurses should never lose sight of the day to day patient interactions that take place. “It is the human interactions that reflect the compassion and caring in nursing.” But if these values of compassion and caring are to be taught to nursing students, and in turn nurses need to able to articulate these aspects of their professional roles to others, she adds that nurses need to be able to describe clearly these values rather than refer to them as “something nurses to”. In short Olshansky advocates the teaching and learning of caring as a professional value and not leave it to chance or that it is an innate characteristic of good nurses.
She strong believes it is important for nurses to articulate what compassion and caring are because then “we will truly claim them as dimensions of our professional practice rather than having them viewed by others as simply a character trait of nursing, which, unfortunately, tends to marginalize these dimensions of our professional practice. We need to clearly describe to others what we mean by caring and convey that caring is part of our professional role, something that is taught and learned and valued in nursing curricula, that is, something that is core to the nursing profession.”
Nursing Olshansky added that nursing is often described as an art and a science. What worries her is only the science component is viewed as part of the ‘profession’ by others. The art component she says is deemed as something external or marginal to the profession.
To enhance the values of compassion and caring into nursing she advocates building on the excellent work of her nursing colleagues who devoted their careers to “exploring caring and convey to the “outside world” that the human caring aspects of the nursing profession are key to helping to improve human health and well-being and these aspects are systematically taught to nursing students and to new nurses in their orientations for their new positions. Through our strong professional nursing roles, with caring and compassion as key among these roles, we will contribute to constantly improving the health care system and, as a result, the health of individuals.”
It is admirable that nurses like Olshansky have stood up and be counted in advocating for compassion and caring in nursing. However, the onus for compassion in healthcare needs to be acknowledged, adopted, and practiced by all healthcare workers and professionals no matter what their rank and roles are.
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