CNA Training – Certified Nursing Assistant

Every nurse has to come up with their own nursing philosophy, and this will develop over time. If you are new to nursing you might be looking for some guidance in terms of what your philosophy should be. For a little help, you should consider how nursing will impact society, your environment, the recipient of the nursing care, as well as the interaction between society, people, and the environment.

Wondering what society really is? Society is a group of people with common interests.  A nursing society evolves with each circumstance. For instance, in a pediatrician’s office the society is made up of nurses that work together to provide the best possible care to the children in the office. A nurse has the ability to impact everyone in a positive or negative light in this little society. The goal should be to send everyone away with as positive an experience as possible. Bringing something positive to the nursing society should be part of the philosophy of every nurse because it makes for a better working environment.

An ideal nursing philosophy should also take health into consideration.  Health and wellness is all about who a person is. If you make this a part of your philosophy you will find that you take pride in ensuring that your patients are as healthy as possible, so they can be who they want to be in the moment. This is a gift that a nurse can give to patients, affecting the greater society in a positive light. 

Nursing should be viewed as an opportunity to give back to society.  When you view nursing as a gift that you can give to others, it will become a delight to complete each task. While things can become mundane, when you view it as something that not everyone can do and something that can actually give back to society and impact the way others are able to interact within their social circles, the job will be something you look forward to doing.  Keeping your nursing philosophy positive like this will allow you to really enjoy your job and touch the lives of all of the people that you care for over the years.

As far as our society has come in terms of gender discrimination, it is still alive and well.  This can be seen in many instances when you look at the perceptions surrounding men in nursing.  The fact of the matter is that there are still gender barriers that exist in the wider scope of nursing professions.  Much of the problem now is that there are simply not that many men involved in nursing, in fact in 2004 less than 6% of nurses were male.

In the United States nursing needs to be advertised as a career option for men.  The fact of the matter is that in 2004 there was a vacancy rate in the nursing industry of 8.1% and by 2020 it is estimated that there will be a nursing shortage of over one million nurses.  The nursing shortage is going to become more and more of a problem as the baby boomer generation ages.

Why is there a shortage?  Much of the shortage is due to the fact that there is a declining interest in nursing by women.  Over the last 30 years women have been branching out more and more in terms of their career choices.  This means that they are not looking at the traditional options as much, such as nursing.  Since women are looking away from nursing and men are not being attracted to nursing at all, the shortage is explained.

In a study conducted by Kimball and O’Neil in 2002 it was identified that the nursing population needs to more closely reflect the diversity of the population in the United states.  In 2004 more than 88% of the registered nurses were while, so only about 11% of nurses can identify with minority groups and genders.  If the nursing population matched the population of the United States there would be a lot more male nurses since only about 5.7% of the nursing population is male but 49% of the population is male.

The problem is, according to Johnson and Johnson, is that only one in ten men would even stop to consider nursing a career choice.  Those who are interested or who will seriously consider nursing are usually older and looking for a second career.  There is a lack of knowledge in relation to why men are entering nursing at lower rates despite recruitment efforts.  Studies have been used to understand the perceptions surrounding men in nursing today.

The result of the studies has been enlightening, as the study revealed that men are seen in a slightly more negative in the nursing role than women.  The problem is that many men don’t understand that they can get several different levels of nursing education, to advance their career while women seem to understand this much more.  More men believe that if they work as a nurse they can only work in a hospital, and fewer men than women see nursing as a financially rewarding career.  This shows that men are simply not educated enough about what nursing can offer them.  Because men are not knowledgeable about what is offered, they are not as common in the nursing position, so they are not as well received.  Making efforts to educate men and women about the benefits of nursing may help to recruit more men to help decrease the estimated nursing shortage in the near future.