Advocacy in Nursing: A Leader's Role in Palliative Care for Patients

This essay explores the role of nursing leadership in advocacy, drawing from personal experiences and professional values. It discusses the importance of nurses acting as advocates, particularly in palliative care settings, where they can bridge the communication gap between physicians and patients and provide comprehensive support to marginalized individuals and their families. The author reflects on the values that drive advocacy, such as providing non-judgmental, patient-centered care, and envisions a future role as a nurse leader working to improve palliative care access for underserved communities, ensuring patients receive the understanding and support needed to make informed decisions about their health.

Running head: NURSING ASSIGNMENT
Nursing assignment
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author Note:

Question 1
Nursing leadership has a long history of advocacy and as a result, I too have come across
playing the role of a nurse advocate. As an advocate, I came in contact with the palliative care I
saw the varying needs of the marginalized and the ignored patients and cannot be cured. I also
saw how the patients are suffering due to the age limiting illness and this was indefensible and
unjust. Thus, I took the approach of the symptom and the pain management this became the
foundation of the palliative care and hospice. I explained to the patients about the suffering and
the complexity and provided them with the spiritual, psychological and emotional support for the
terminally ill patients as well as his or her family.
Question 2
The reason for the advocacy is that the physicians sometimes act as the gate of the
information that breakout the bad or the good news to the patients. It is, however, important to
note that the physicians are always in a hurry and are thus not sensitive to the patients and their
families. Thus, nurses as an advocate can play the role of translator and the communicator of the
information and the feelings. The nurse leaders act as an advocate and explain to the patients
about what the doctor has said during the consultation so that the patient can understand their
feelings (Porter-O'Grady, 2018).
Questions 3
The professional values play a major role in deciding the role of advocacy. The main
motive is to provide the non-judgemental care to the patients with taking into account the
disability, financial status, lifestyle choices, spiritual beliefs and race. The main philosophy is
that the nurses have the responsibility to the general public and to provide the patient-centred
care, holistic, and safe care (Davoodvand, Abbaszadeh & Ahmadi, 2016). I always feel that it is

my duty to not to consider the patients as medical conditions and room numbers but to consider
them as the individuals that deserve and require the individualized care and attention. I
personally feel that the professional values are in accordance with my thinking and the way I act
in a clinical setting and during the care delivery.
Question 4
As the future role of a nurse leader, I have the desire to work with the patients and the families
that are suffering from the terminal ill conditions. A large number of the confusions associated
with the palliative care demands nursing leadership and advocacy. I would like to work for the
Palliative care hospitals in the US and especially with the communities that are marginalized and
ignored. The prime actions that I would like to accomplish are to provide palliative care to the
marginalized patients. With this, I would like to advocate for the marginalized patients so that
they can lead a healthy life and will be able to make decisions based on proper understanding.

Reference
Davoodvand, S., Abbaszadeh, A., & Ahmadi, F. (2016). Patient advocacy from the clinical
nurses' viewpoint: a qualitative study. Journal of medical ethics and history of medicine,
9.
Porter-O'Grady, T. (2018). Leadership Advocacy: Bringing Nursing to the Homeless and
Underserved. Nursing administration quarterly, 42(2), 115-122.