Nursing History, Interpersonal Skills, and Professionalism Essay

This essay delves into the history of nursing, tracing its development from ancient times to the present day, highlighting the evolving roles of nurses in contemporary society. It explores the fundamental interpersonal skills crucial for competent nursing, emphasizing their application in holistic patient care. The essay also examines government policy drivers related to compassionate care delivery, analyzing their impact on healthcare practices. Furthermore, it reviews the concepts of compassion and their practical application in caring for service users, alongside an assessment of professionalism, professional regulation, and accountability within the nursing field. The essay draws upon various scholarly sources to support its arguments and provide a comprehensive overview of the key aspects of nursing practice and its historical context.

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Introduction
History of nursing communicates about profession development from 1850s. It cuts
across the ancient times when the sick used to be taken care in the places of worship and temple
and also the services were extended to those patients who were at their homes and could not

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make it to the temples. In the early Christian era, the role of nursing was taken by those women
who settled in the church. These women had no idea or the training services on nursing but what
they experienced taught them valuable skills. They began to use herbs and also folk drugs. Some
women became physicians in that era until 19th century.
Role of Nurses
Many changes have occurred in health care and due to high technology; the role of
professional nurses is still evolving. Nurses provide quality care and record fundamental signs in
dispensing medicine and in so doing; they take positions of higher responsibility (Randle, 2016,
p. 32). Nurses advocate for health promotion, educate the patients and the public on ways to
prevent injuries and illnesses (Andrist & Andrist, 2014, p. 33). They provide care and assist
patients to cure diseases; they also provide support and participate in rehabilitation.
Technology has improved healthcare in that new machines and applications has enabled
them to treat patients with ease (Peter, 2015, p. 22)Since medicine has become personal and this
requires nurses to instruct patients about medical applications that enhance traditional care (Dock
& Stewart, 2016, p. 54). Nurses have collaborated with the health care team to carry out
treatments and procedures thus manage patient care (Maggs, 2016, p. 23). For successful patient
outcomes, nurses ensure consistent and harmonized care to the sick.
Health care should address patients’ needs may it be mental, cultural or spiritual.
Increasing variety in a growing population of patients requires nurses to demonstrate sensitivity
and cultural awareness (Maggs, 2016, p. 31). Nurses use some research to deliver care. They do
so by gathering and analyzing data so as to facilitate patients’ care.

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Interpersonal Skills and Principles of Competent Nursing
Patients with multiple or complicated conditions need specialists so that they can choose
for them the appropriate medical specialization (Lewis, 2015, p. 34). Nurses can clearly and
without doubt address complications related to diseases diabetes, heart problems, and other
diseases.
Nurses also provide an assessment of peoples’ health. Patients’ observation skills and
awareness allow doctors to make better diagnoses and promote better treatments (Donahue,
2015, p. 24). Many lives have been saved because an attentive nurse checks signs at early stages
to prevent a crisis of attacks like cardiac arrest.
Nursing is one of the most stressful careers and it needs a hard collection of interpersonal
skills to grip the responsibilities of dealing with patient and other various medical affairs
(Nutting & Dock, 2015, p. 34). Nurses cope with emergencies and also human suffering.
Regardless of what is done to lessen the suffering and raise health standards nothing can be done
to control the inevitable.
Nurses possess a skill of patience which is tested when a patient demands to be given
information about something yet the nurse has no idea about it or the information may not be
available at that moment, this holds the nurse to be calm and maintain silent and not to react to
the order of the information (Lewis, 2015, p. 56). Nurses use applications of technical skills in
any given medical situation.

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Nurses reports to the doctor giving the information which is accurate so as to sort or
know the immediate solution and invent new ways of protecting them (Lewis, 2015, p. 32). They
have high communication skills both spoken and written so as to enable them to take effective
information and hence pass it to the necessary parties.
Principles of nursing elaborate what everybody should expect from the field nursing. It
describes the safety and effective nursing, aspects of character and progress of good care (Dock
& Stewart, 2016, p. 34). Both nursing and whole staff give medication with a lot of care and
dignity since they understand their personal needs, they show compassion and sympathy and
give a lot of care to show them a sense of appreciation and equality.
They take responsibility on carrying out actions as agreed with families, parents those
who take care to those parents and in a means that sorts all the requirements of the professional
organs of the law (Maggs, 2016, p. 17). The staff also provides security In places where the
patients are receiving their health care.
Nurses and nursing staff promote communication through accessing, recording and reporting in
the treatments and providing care to their patients (Andrist & Andrist, 2014, p. 31). They handle
information and deal with grievances effectively and they carefully report those things that are
concerned about.
Government policy drivers and reports in relation to compassionate care and delivery
Government policies have been put in place to promote health care. These involve people in
decision making about care and treatments (Maggs, 2016, p. 49). They make informed choices
by giving people information about healthcare services (Maggs, 2016, p. 27). The government
provides quality services by educating the staff on care and health matters. The government

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introduces individual health budgets that provide people with long term conditions and control
over health care and support the patients receive (Nolan, 2015, p. 55).
It helps staff to be more compassionate in recruiting the right staff to provide care. The
government provides the staff with the right education, training, and support to help them do
their work efficiently (Dock & Stewart, 2016, p. 33). It spends millions of money to help nurses
and midwives develop leadership skills to promote high-quality care.
The government also trains more workers to provide high-quality care by adding the
number of apprentices in social care (Nolan, 2015, p. 20). It collaborates with other bodies to
make sure NHS recruits, evaluates and educates nursing and care staff according to their values.
It also helps to implement a strategy for building the culture of care of nursing.
The government keeps patients and services users safe. They have put in place actions to
protect patients from avoidable harm (Mackintosh, 2014, p. 48). This makes it easier for nursing
and staff to report any concern about issues without the risk of suffering detriment such as
victimization.
Concepts of Compassion and Their Applications
Compassionate care is one of the basic aspects entrenched on nurses’ professional codes
of practice. Though nurses may go through difficulties and face many challenges that hinder
them from providing compassionate care (Nolan, 2015, p. 40). One of the ways of maintaining
compassionate nursing is supporting and guiding nurses to develop their capacity to be
sympathetic.

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Nurses, therefore, are encouraged to recognize their professional values so as to influence their
behavior and attitude (Donahue, 2015, p. 31). For nurses to enhance the capacity to provide
compassionate care they ought to raise their concepts and the challenges they face during their
work.
Nursing profession allows nurses to handle patients regardless of gender, color, age, race,
and background without prejudice (Lewis, 2015, p. 63). Any kind of bias affects the patients’
care and builds a negative reputation of the nursing home. Professionalism enables nurses to
maintain and keep records of patients.
Concepts of Professionalism and Accountability
Professional standards explain the competent level in every aspect of the nursing process.
The standards compare the achievable level of performance to that of a nurse’s actual
performance (Randle, 2016, p. 31). Professional standards express and preserve safe and
competent nursing practice. The standards also promote and give a guide on clinical practice
(Maggs, 2016, p. 34). They are an evaluation tool that ensures clinical proficiency and safety.
They are also used in providing a structure for escalating clinical competency and safety.
Professional standards can be utilized to identify areas of improvement in clinical
practice as well as improving the security of the patient (Andrist & Andrist, 2014, p. 39). Clinical
practice exceeds established principles to maintain respect and trust patients and the community
as a whole. Areas of nursing will have a leadership organization that generates professional
guidelines in areas of practice.

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Some government policies have been put in place in implementing health policies.
Therefore the government is allowed to delegate duties and responsibilities on the administration
to other non-government bodies (Donahue, 2015, p. 35). Professionalism ensures that the
experiences of healthcare professionals are good at evaluating the quality of work completed.
Conclusion
Nursing profession has been evolving day and night due to high technology. Many
diseases have become curable due to the invention of machines and it has promoted healthcare.
Nursing has seen the government spent more to save lives by educating specialists and nursing
staff. It is also through nursing industry that rehabilitation and care of patients have been
reached. Interpersonal skills have been deployed to enhance good health care. Government
policy drivers have been put in place to improve the health sector and if followed nursing
industry will improve.

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References
Andrist, L. & Andrist, L. C., 2014. A history of nursing ideas.. 6th ed. London: Routledge.
Dock, L. L. & Stewart, I. M., 2016. A short history of nursing. 8th ed. Chicago: Chicago.
Donahue, M. P., 2015. Nursing and care. 5th ed. New York: Navpress.
Lewis, M. A., 2015. The natural history of nursing home patients. 4th ed. New York: scholastic.
Mackintosh, C., 2014. A historical study of men in nursing. Journal of advanced nursing,, II(7),
pp. 45-49.
Maggs, C., 2016. A history of nursing: a history of caring?. 5th ed. Texas: Hachette.
Nolan, P., 2015. A history of mental health nursing. 9th ed. London: Moody.
Nutting, M. A. & Dock, L. L., 2015. History of nursing. chicago: 7th edition.
Peter, E., 2015. The history of nursing in the home. 7th ed. Chicago: Penguin.
Randle, J., 2016. Bullying in the Nursing Profession. 8th ed. CRS press: London.