Why Are Nurses So Important
4 min read
Everyone knows there is a nursing shortage, but why is this a problem? Surely, if there are doctors and other healthcare professionals, is a lack of nurses all that bad? The truth is, the nursing shortage is a very negative thing, and that’s because nurses are incredibly important to the healthcare system; it’s said that nurses provide around ninety percent of all the healthcare services across the globe. Imagine if there were no nurses, and what chaos and problems would ensue.
To get a good idea about why nurses are so important, here are some of the top reasons – there are many more besides these to consider as well, of course. Read on to find out more; perhaps you’ll even decide that becoming a nurse is the right thing to do.
Table of Contents
It’s An Emotional Job
Nursing is an incredibly hard job to do for many reasons, but one of these reasons is that it can be extremely emotional. Nurses spend their day going from happiness to great sadness, depending on which patients they are helping and what their condition is. However, no matter who they are with or what their injury or illness might be – and what their prognosis is – a nurse will have to remain positive and upbeat. They will have to stay stoic and calm. This is not an easy thing to do, and not everyone can control their emotions in this way.
Of course, that’s not to say that nurses don’t feel things in the same way as everyone else, but they can deal with those emotions better and help people because of this. However, if you are a nurse, you must take some time for yourself because you don’t want to become sick or overwhelmed.
Huge Amount Of Knowledge
Nurses are incredible people. Although it is possible for them to specialize in certain areas if that is their wish – they can work with cancer patients, or children, or perhaps in the OR, for example, among many other options. The further they want to get in their career, the more beneficial additional study such as for a DNP online is going to be. If they are a general nurse, they will need to have a huge amount of information about many things. They will need to understand symptoms, pain, treatment, and medication. They will need to know what patients can and can’t eat, how to keep them comfortable, how to change dressings, and so much more.
There aren’t many jobs where one person has to know quite so much. Although nurses don’t necessarily need to learn in-depth information about these subjects, they do need to know about many different things. This takes a lot of effort and a lot of study, and it’s something that often goes under-appreciated. However, it could make the difference between life and death in some situations.
Dealing With Death
Most of the time, people want to shy away from death as much as possible. People go through life pretending it’s not inevitable, and then when it happens to a loved one, or even when someone gets close to it personally, it can be a shock. However, luckily people usually don’t have to deal with death all that often.
Nurses have to deal with death daily. They don’t have the luxury of ignoring it or pretending it doesn’t exist; they are confronted with it all the time. They aren’t allowed to be scared or sad (at least on the surface), and they must help as much as possible. Again, there are not that many people who are comfortable with this, and this is why we need nurses and why they are so important; the people who can confront death are needed to help everyone else.
Long Working Hours
Nurses work very long hours; their shifts are often at least 12 hours long, and sometimes they might have to work double that. They will be tired and have gone through a lot during their day, but no matter what, they will greet patients with a smile and be as helpful and patient with them as they were with the first person they helped at the beginning of their shift.
This is a monumental effort, and it’s something society needs to be grateful for. If every tired nurse went for a sit-down or a nap – or even just left to go home – patient care would not be at the high level it is. People would be left to fend for themselves. Therefore, another reason nurses are important is that they will go above and beyond, working harder and longer than most other people, all to help their patients (even when those patients are not as grateful as they should be).
