NURS 3100 Week 6: Powerful Caring Leads to Social Change
Caring and power work together synergistically. They enable nurses to care more effectively for their patients. A caring and empowered nurse is more effective than either a disempowered nurse who cares or an empowered nurse who does not care.
In Sherman Alexie’s contemporary fiction book The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, a line reads, “If you care about something enough, it’s going to make you cry. But you have to use it. Use your tears. Use your pain. Use your fear. Get mad…”.
Emotions, including those described in Alexie’s book, are unavoidable in certain situations. However, they may be either an impediment to solutions or a tool to facilitate solutions. If a nurse cares enough about a situation to experience emotions, he or she has two choices: to be paralyzed by the emotions, or to be empowered by them.
The empowered nurse will set his or her mind on finding an effective solution to the problem at hand. Which choice do you make in navigating through emotionally charged issues that arise in the course of caring for your patients?
Caring and power are ACTION words! Use them together to find effective solutions. Changes in health care delivery systems around the world have intensified nurses’ roles and responsibilities in clinical, administrative, educational, and/or research practice/s. Despite the challenges, nurses are best able to exhibit their caring practices by making powerful, conscious contributions to health care solutions, thereby empowering nursing.
As a student at Walden University, you are part of an academic community whose mission is to “Provide a diverse community of career professionals with the opportunity to transform themselves as scholar-practitioners so that they can effect positive social change.” Walden University defines positive social change as a deliberate process of creating and applying ideas, strategies, and actions to promote the worth, dignity, and development of individuals, communities, organizations, institutions, cultures, and societies. Positive social change results in improved human and social conditions.
During this final week of the course, think about how your nursing practice has been influenced by issues and trends discussed over the past 5 weeks. How do you envision your future contribution to the profession? Consider how your own nursing practice can expand, from your role as an observer to that of a participant in shaping the future of nursing, improving the profession, and enhancing the quality of the health care that nursing delivers.
Learning Objectives
Students will:
Analyze strategies related to advocating for patients and effecting positive social change in health care
Analyze the impact of nurses on shaping the future of the profession
Develop a personal education success plan
Develop solutions related to quality indicators in a clinical nursing environment
Reflect on personal and professional strengths and needs NURS 3100 3101: Issues and Trends in Nursing