Become the best nurse possible

Nursing is the sort of calling that not everyone is cut out for. It takes a great deal of patience, empathy, and intelligence in order to do the job properly as well as the abilities to work well with others and adapt instantly to a situation when you are on the job. Moreover, like most jobs in the world of healthcare, nursing isn’t something that you go to school for once and then cease learning about forever.

Rather, when you are a nurse, you should constantly be looking for ways to improve your skillset and knowledge base so that you can ultimately become the best nurse possible. Furthermore, healthcare is a field that is constantly changing and developing. This means that nurses need to be in the know about the latest updates in treatment, care, and policy in order to perform their jobs effectively.

Here are just a few ways in which you can strive to become a better nurse in your own career.

Consider All Types of Patient Care

When you are a nurse, your primary focus at all times is on delivering the best possible patient care. However, understanding what that means can be different depending on the sort of healthcare setting you work in as well as the sort of injury or illness your patient is suffering from. That being said, it can be incredibly helpful for a nurse to be able to look at cases from the perspectives of different types of care.

For instance, the topic of holistic care is one that is becoming discussed more and more in the realm of healthcare. This is a bit of a callback to years gone by when medical care was much more than simply prescribing medication to solve a problem. Rather, it is an approach to healthcare that involved looking at the body as a whole and determining what non-medicinal changes might be made or treatments might be recommended that can help to bring about an overall better state of physical wellness.

As far as nursing is concerned, the concept of treating a patient both as an individual and as a whole body can be incredibly helpful. Ultimately, as the facilitators of patient care, nurses should be able to promote the wellness of the whole in order to bring about the healing of a part. When combined with the obvious benefits of modern medical treatment, holistic care can be highly effective in bringing about better patient outcomes.

Strive to Be More Compassionate

When you made the decision to pursue nursing as a career, chances are you did so out of a desire to help people who are suffering to find healing and a better quality of life. These goals are compassion driven and really the cornerstone of nursing as a profession. 

However, after years of working in the field, it is easy to become jaded and start to lose your sense of compassion as things that you see when working as a nurse started to become commonplace. However, losing your sense of compassion can be detrimental to your ability to act as an effective nurse. Moreover, it can very well make your job less enjoyable for you in the long run.

All nurses must make a concerted effort to hold onto their compassionate side. One of the best ways that you can work to do this is to also develop your ability to be empathetic. You need to bear in mind every single day that while the healthcare setting is your place of work, the patient you are working with right now may have never been in a hospital or other specific type of healthcare environment before. 

This is likely giving them a sense of anxiety that you as their nurse can either make better or worse. Try to see the situation as that patient sees it and approach them with the kind of patience and understanding that they need from you as their nurse.

Develop Your Skills

Every nurse must be in possession of a particular type of skillset. Furthermore, they must be able to develop additional skills as their career progresses in order to adapt to the ever-changing field of healthcare. While you will need to complete a certain number of continuing education credits in order to maintain your license, you should also look for opportunities to hone important skills so that you can be the most effective nurse possible. Such skills include, but are not limited to, critical thinking, communication, and adaptability.