Nursing Message: Addressing Nursing Identity and Respect in Society

This assignment presents a registered nurse's reflections on the nursing profession, emphasizing the importance of professional identity and social respect. The nurse's message centers on the value of dignity, hard work, and the crucial role nurses play in patient care. The assignment details the nurse's realization of the differences between good and 'not good' nurses, highlighting the need for pride and consistent practice. The nurse plans to share this message through a public speech, targeting a diverse audience to raise awareness and advocate for equity, identity, and respect for the nursing profession. The assignment includes the nurse's learning experience, and the references used to support the message.

RUNNING HEAD: NURSING
NURSING
Name of Student
Name of University
Author note

1NURSING
Response to question 4:
My message is ‘Working with dignity and hard work makes both the profession and
the professional valuable and important, imparting its own meaning to the care of humanity.
We, nurses through our daily work, manage the illness and worries of the patient and their
families in a very dedicated manner.’
Response to question 5:
Deciding on my message
I had been a registered nurse working in the intensive care unit for last five years.
Being a registered nurse, I had been growing with my experiences and over time – I have
understood or rather realized the differences between a good nurse and ‘not a good’ nurse.
According to me, that I have realized, a good nurse is someone who has accepted his or her
profession with pride and completeness and practices her professional abilities and duties on
a regular basis, with dignity and esteem (Chênevert, Jourdain & Vandenberghe, 2016). We,
nurses, have to work in compliance with the patient care policies on a regular basis and as
nurses, given the nature of their profession have to care for the patients, most the times while
the patient is at the hospital (Buunk & Schaufeli, 2017). Although the nurses spent a lot of
time in the hospital caring for the patients and in fact, most of the time in contact with the
patients, caring for the major problems to the little worries well (Caza & Creary, 2016). But
still, we the nurses who provide an important service globally but still we are asked a lot of
questions regarding our profession and why are practicing in a profession which is only
secondary to the doctors and the medical profession (Nam & Lee, 2016). While it is
important to raise voice against the social misconceptions (Sabatino et al., 2016). It is also
important for the society and the world to know the true work of a nurse and how difficult it
is to become an actual ‘good’ nurse (Fong, 2016). Furthermore, it is very important to reveal

2NURSING
that nursing is a profession on its own and it works in conjunction with the medical
profession and not in any sense, it is secondary to it. Hence, the concern is the identity of the
profession and the recognition of the nursing profession. I have been through various
magazines, journals and new reports which has reflected the same situation. And the over the
years in my nursing profession, I have heard the same ‘identity’ problem arising amongst the
nurses and it is a chief reason behind the disruption practices amongst the new nurses.
Empowerment of the nursing profession is a huge boost to the nurse’s career and in his or her
becoming of a good nurse. Hence, I decided to raise a voice for the same about nursing
profession. The theme of my message is nursing empowerment. We have decided on the
message as it is extremely important to share the importance of nursing profession with the
public, thus raising their awareness about a nurse’s work, being unique and as vital as any
other health care professions. The idea is to accomplish an esteem and dignity for all the men
and women who have chosen nursing as their profession and has chosen to care for the
patients in a very devoted manner. We want to accomplish equity, identity and respect for the
nursing profession just like any other profession or discipline striving to cure humankind in a
health care framework and beyond as well.
Deciding on How to Share My Message
I have decided to share my nursing message on a public forum through a public
speech. To spread the message about the work and the nature of the work done by a nursing
professional on a daily basis and to develop a sense of respect for the nurses in the societal
framework – a large audience with important people in the audiences (such as the societal
administrators, the ministers and the other legal bodies ) is extremely important and more
than everything, having a future of the nation, the youngsters as in school students would be
extremely important in terms of the message about the identity and integrity of nursing
profession to the future generations. A public speech made in a school or college auditorium

3NURSING
on an occasion of an auspicious day, attended by important members of the society and
administration is very critical to the impact the audiences with the message intended to
elevate the identity and esteem of nursing profession (Woodward, Smart & Benavides-
Vaello, 2016). For a public speech, there are certain things that are very important and these
factors influence the impact of the speech on the audiences. These factors are both technical
and behavioral as well as it test’s one’s rhetorical or persuasion skills and presentation
attributes as well. While public presentation is a test of composure and versatility in terms of
ideations, expressions and the final impact of it on the audiences – it is extremely important
that the public speech is prepared well prior to the exact and actual presentation (Chollet et
al., 2015).. The purpose of the public speech should be clear and the phrases and sentences
along with the body language and expression to be used along with the verbal part should be
clear in my mind. In the public speech, I would be focusing on the attributes of nursing and
why an individual should choose nursing. In the speech, I plan to emphasize on the longevity
of the profession and nursing being a rewarding, challenging but interesting profession. I
would also be elucidating the fact how the nurses are in demands and how there is huge
prospect for the profession in the future. I would be applying vocal cuing such tone
modulation, my body language and the right facial expressions to enhance the impact of my
verbal content. The timing of my speech delivery is extremely important as it has to be
spaced well with the pauses and gaps. Being the speaker, I would be using the right
techniques such maintaining a wide eye contact with the whole set of audience while
speaking and to follow up my spoken phrases and sentences - I would be proactively
asking questions to the audience to clear any doubts or confusion from an individual’s mind.
There can be moments where person might ask a very complex question or asks a question in
a very negative way but I need to keep calm and answer him or her politely about the truth of
the nursing profession.

4NURSING
From the assignment I have learned that it is extremely important to address the
identity of nurses on a global context and it is increasingly vital that the public should know
about the real aspects of nursing care and related intricacies in a day to day nursing scenario.
I have learned from this assignment that it is important to raise a voice for the profession’s
identity and social respect on a public forum. Nursing is not that publicized in the media and
seldom discussed as the nursing profession is deemed as being only secondary to the medical
profession which not actually the case. There are many instances where the nurses save the
person’s life and it is the nurses who are constantly in touch with the patient during most of
their period in the hospital. Hence, it is important for an experienced nursing profession like
me to address the intricacies of the social identity and social respect that hampers the identity
and work life of nurses. Hence, in the future, I will be attending more workshops and
seminars in order to render and provide my profession – the missing respect and esteem
amongst the modern societies. I would act with more personal responsibility towards the
overall growth of the profession.

5NURSING
References
Buunk, B. P., & Schaufeli, W. B. (2017). Burnout: A perspective from social comparison
theory. In Professional burnout (pp. 52-69). Routledge.
Caza, B. B., & Creary, S. (2016). 13. The construction of professional identity. Perspectives
on contemporary professional work: Challenges and experiences, 259.
Chênevert, D., Jourdain, G., & Vandenberghe, C. (2016). The role of high-involvement work
practices and professional self-image in nursing recruits’ turnover: A three-year
prospective study. International journal of nursing studies, 53, 73-84.
Chollet, M., Wörtwein, T., Morency, L. P., Shapiro, A., & Scherer, S. (2015, September).
Exploring feedback strategies to improve public speaking: an interactive virtual
audience framework. In Proceedings of the 2015 ACM International Joint
Conference on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing (pp. 1143-1154). ACM.
Dermott, E., & Pomati, M. (2016). The parenting and economising practices of lone parents:
Policy and evidence. Critical Social Policy, 36(1), 62-81.
Epstein, J. L. (2018). School, family, and community partnerships: Preparing educators and
improving schools. Routledge.
Fong, C. M. (2016). Role overload, social support, and burnout among nursing
educators. Journal of Nursing Education, 29(3), 102-108.
Nam, M. H., & Lee, M. R. (2016). The effect of emotional labor of clinical practice, self-
esteem and clinical practice satisfaction on professional identity in nursing students. J
Korean Acad Soc Nurs Educ, 22(4), 527.

6NURSING
Sabatino, L., Kangasniemi, M. K., Rocco, G., Alvaro, R., & Stievano, A. (2016). Nurses’
perceptions of professional dignity in hospital settings. Nursing ethics, 23(3), 277-
293.
Woodward, B., Smart, D., & Benavides-Vaello, S. (2016). Modifiable factors that support
political participation by nurses. Journal of Professional Nursing, 32(1), 54-61.