International Nursing Schools
Definition: Nurse
A nurse is a health care professional who is engaged in the practice of
nursing. Nurses are responsible—along with other health care
professionals—for the treatment, safety, and recovery of acutely or
chronically ill or injured people, health maintenance of the healthy,
and treatment of life-threatening emergencies in a wide range of health
care settings. Nurses may also be involved in medical and nursing
research and perform a wide range of non-clinical functions necessary
to the delivery of health care.
Nursing education, regulation, roles, and titles vary in different
countries, but in general reflect an increasing level of responsibility
and status.
Overview
Nurses develop and implement a plan of care and work collaboratively
with the patient, the patient's family, and other health care professionals
and para-professionals. Nurses help coordinate the patient care performed
by other members of a health care team such as physical therapists,
medical practitioners, social workers, and dietitians. Nurses frequently
act as patient advocate.
The nursing career structure varies considerably throughout the world.
Typically there are several distinct levels of nursing practitioner
distinguished by increasing education, responsibility, and skills. The
major distinction is between task-based nursing and professional
nursing. Nurses throughout the world are increasingly employed as
advanced practice nurses, such as clinical nurse specialists and nurse
practitioners, who diagnose health problems and prescribe medications
and other therapies. At the top of the educational ladder is the
doctoral-prepared nurse. Nurses may gain a PhD or another doctoral
degree, specializing in research, clinical nursing, and so forth. These
nurses practice nursing, teach nursing, and carry out nursing research.
As the science and art of nursing has advanced, so has the demand for
doctoral-prepared nurses.
In various parts of the world, the educational background for nurses
varies widely. In some parts of eastern Europe, nurses are high school
graduates with twelve to eighteen months of training. In contrast, Chile
requires any registered nurse to have at least a bachelor's degree.
Nurses are the largest group of providers in the health care system--there
are over two million registered nurses in the United States of America
(U.S.) alone, comprising about 13% of the fifteen million workers in the
health care and social assistance category tracked by the U.S. Department
of Labor.
Nursing is one of the most female-dominated occupations but the number
of males entering the profession is increasing. For example, in the U.S.,
only 5.4% of the registered nurse population was male in 2000, but that
percent represented a 226% increase in two decades.
Government regulates the profession of nursing to protect the public.
Excerpt from "Nurse." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia.
24 Oct 2006, 14:40 UTC. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 27 Oct 2006
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Nurse&oldid=83429684
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