Professional Identity in Nursing: Enhancing Patient Care through Nursing Code of Conduct

Running head: PROFESSIONAL IDENTITY
PROFESSIONAL IDENTITY
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author note:

PROFESSIONAL IDENTITY1
Introduction
The study will focus on the nursing code of conduct to enhance the patient care by
delivering high quality of support and nursing care within the healthcare domain. The
registered nurse primarily focus on delivering enhanced patient care that will assist the
patient to adapt fast recovery and overcome from their illness (Davidson & Everett, 2015).
This study will focus on the registered nurse, Mary, who was working in an aged care unit.
Mary was not performing her duties adequately and was violating the ethics of nursing
practice. Her behaviour towards the patient was not appropriate with no support or care.
Hence, this study will reflect on the quality of patient care that is delivered by Mary and how
it is relevant with the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia (NMBA) standard (Nursing
and Midwifery Board of Australia, 2019). The study will also identify how the NMBA Code
of Conduct for Nurses and the Registered Nurse Standards for Practice will assist the peer
members of Mary to report her behaviour to the manager, which will help them to manage
the entire situation in a systematic way.
This study proposes to concentrate on the presentation of nursing code of conduct
and NMBA standard within the nursing practice for better patient care.
Section- A
Effective nursing practice includes the concept of delivering adequate care and
support to the patient and help them to recover from their illness or injury. Rendering to the
Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia (2019), standard 6, it is crucial for any registered
nurse to provide suitable and effective care to the patient that will enhance their health
results. In order to fulfil the aim under NMBA standard 6, the registered nurse can adapt
diverse strategies which includes evidence-based practice or patient-centred care. According
to Spector et al. (2015), the registered nurse must adapt evidence-based practice approach for

PROFESSIONAL IDENTITY2
delivering safe and effective care to the patient and also obtain high patient outcome. The
registered nurse can also adapt patient-centred care to fulfil the fundamental care requirement
of the patient that is important for their recovery and safety. This will also help the patient to
obtain positivity that will in turn upsurge their recovery and experience (Feo & Kitson, 2016).
Hence, it is evident that the nurses must adapt these strategies to yield high patient
satisfaction, but in this scenario, Mary had not adapted any of the above activities and would
spend her maximum time in the nurse’s station, which was majorly affecting the treatment of
the patient under her authority.
Majority of the patient’s under her authority were un-cared and un-treated and she
was also not abiding to the NMBA standards, which stated that she must provide a safe and
appropriate nursing practice that will help her to develop a therapeutic relationship with the
patient. Although in this case, Mary was not even attending her patients and providing
appropriate care. Mary was not changing the urine bottles or the bed sheets of the patients
and hence, she was not meeting the NMBA standards of providing evidence-based and
person-centred care to the patient with safe and high quality of care (Edmonds, Cashin &
Heartfield, 2016). In this scenario, Mary had not built any productive or therapeutic link with
the patient, she was not even attending her patients, which was therefore not beneficial for
her patient’s health condition. According to the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia
(2019), standard 2, the registered nurse must engage in developing a professional and
therapeutic relationship with the patients, which will therefore help them to achieve enhanced
patient outcome (Nagle et al., 2017). Thus, it was evident that Mary had not formed any
person-centred or therapeutic relationship with her patients.
In the provided case scenario, Mary was not involved or even interested in developing
any therapeutic or person-centred relationship with the patient. She had a negligence attitude
towards her patient as she was not even emptying the urine bottles which would have resulted