Professional Identity: Nursing

Running Head: NURSING 0
PROFESSIONAL IDENTITY: NURSING

NURSING 1
Introduction
Mary is a registered nurse, working in a residential aged care. Several of her colleagues
have noticed Mary’s careless behavior as a nurse. They found the aged residents have not been
rightly attended, their wet bedsheets were not changed and she was seen spending a lot of time at
her nursing station. Such kind of behavior is not acceptable as a nurse and puts Mary under the
suspicious light. Her careless behavior caused them to report to the manager. The main aim of
the case study is to judge the Mary’s conduct as a nurse according to the standards and the code
of conduct for nurses in Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia.
Section A
Application of NMBA standards to achieve Person-centered approach
Nursing and Midwifery board of Australia (NMBA) standards lays down ethical and
professional code of conduct that are to be followed by the Registered nurses to be termed as a
professional nurse (Wilson & Jaques, 2018). These professional standards regulate the practices
of registered nurses and help them in easy application of person-centered approach to patients
(Nunnery, 2015). In the case study, Mary is not meeting the NMBA standards in applying
person-centered and evidence-based care for the delivery of safe and quality care. Her careless
behavior towards her residential aged patients is evident of it. Person centered approach is about
caring for patients by making the patient’s personal needs, desires and goals the top-most priority
and curing them with the professional healthcare knowledge (Ross & Clarke, 2015). Therapeutic
relationship is an empathetic relation between the client and nurse. The components that make up
a good therapeutic relationship are trust, professional intimacy, respect, empathy, and power.
There was an absence of professional intimacy in the Mary’s professional conduct due to her
indifferent behavior towards her patient and the non-adherence to the NMBA professional

NURSING 2
standards for nurses. Her relationship with patients also lacked empathy, trust and respect that
could be seen from her behavior. For several shifts, the wet bed sheets remained unchanged, the
urine bottles were not emptied and she was found spending the large portion of her time at
nursing station. The patients under her nursing care were left unattended. The careless behavior
of Mary is also the reflection of the non-applicability of person –centered and evidence-based
approach for the delivery of safe and quality care to patients (Harper & Shinners, 2017). From a
person-centered perspective, Mary was not careful about the patient’s hygiene as she did not
change the wet bedsheets and did not provide quality care by timely emptying the filled urine
bottles. Thus, Mary did not meet the NMBA standards in applying person-centered and
evidence-based care for safe and quality care.
Person-centered and therapeutic relationships with patients
The evidence in the case study did not form the belief that she shares a person-centered
relationship with clients. Person- centered relationships is all about providing quality care to the
patients by meeting their personal needs, desires, and goals. It is concerned with providing
quality holistic treatment to patients where the nurses meet patients unclaimed needs effectively
(Harper & Maloney, 2017). Mary did not share therapeutic relations with the patients. There are
many advantages of therapeutic care that include better relations with clients, peaceful working
environment, increased productivity, and improved goodwill of healthcare department. The non-
applicability of therapeutic relations with the clients by Mary affected the working environment
in her healthcare ward. It made her co-workers to report to the managers thus creating tensions.
The good relations were not forged between the nurse and the clients as She even did not
consider herself responsible for changing wet bedsheets and emptying the filled urine bottles. If,
the patients in the Mary’s ward were provided with the quality care where there was a good