The social role, goals, and objectives of nursing education are to train medical specialists with the best education to provide highly qualified medical care and preserve and ensure the population’s health. The development of professional education among nursing staff in the United States is designed to strengthen the scientific base of nursing practice. This is due to the fact that the number of scientific research conducted by nurses focused on nursing practice should be significantly increased.
Today, society needs proactive and independent specialists who are able to improve their personalities and activities constantly. They can adequately perform their functions, being distinguished by high receptivity, social and professional mobility, readiness for rapid updating of knowledge, expansion of the arsenal of skills and abilities, development of new areas of activity. That is why it is essential to apply various theories and models to improve the medical education of nurses.
Professional education of medical workers is a time requirement that depends on changes in such external and internal conditions of their activity, such as the growth of the volume of medical information and the speed of its updating. In addition, the emergence of a variety of highly functional medicines and high-tech methods of diagnosis, treatment, care, awareness-raising, and requests of patients themselves has an impact. Trends in nursing training are the provision of knowledge and skills based on evidence-based practice, emphasizing the safety and quality of care.
An essential aspect of education is also the use of simulating devices in the preclinical training of students. Cant and Cooper mention that “simulation-based education is recognized as a key component of pre-qualifying nursing education, with benefits to nursing students’ preparation for practice” (2017, p. 63). This method of training includes a purposeful role-playing game with a simulated patient to reproduce clinical nursing care without risk to the actual patient. Thus, novice nurses acquire the necessary skills of caring for patients.
To improve nurses’ quality of education and work, it is necessary to introduce innovative technologies, theories, and models. One of them is a cumulative system of professional development. It is a way of organizing step-by-step individual training of medical workers in order to deepen their already existing theoretical knowledge and improve the quality of practical activities. This allows realizing the individual interests and professional needs of medical specialists. Furthermore, to maintain the skill, many nurses depend on continuing education, such as medical updates and characteristics evaluations, e-learning units, webinars, training, specialization certification (Bindon, 2017). These aspects create medical professional development of nurses, which results in development and shifts.
At the present stage of the development of medical and preventive care, the requirements for the professional skills of nurses have significantly increased. High quality of work cannot be provided without deep professional knowledge, without a creative attitude to business based on good deontological training, and for this, it is necessary to improve the business skills of medical workers constantly. The main organizer of all nursing events, including those aimed at improving the skills of secondary medical workers, should be the council of nurses of the hospital.
Individuality in nursing education and patient care are also of great importance in current medical practices. Ozdemir defines individualized care as “the basis of the holistic philosophy, values and ethical codes of nursing” that includes “planning and practicing nursing care in accordance with the individual characteristics, requirements, preferences, experiences, feelings, perceptions and opinions of the individual and incorporating the individual to this process” (2019, p. 1279). However, novice nurses need support to implement this aspect of medical practice and work with patients, since in this case, the duration of clinical experience has a significant impact.
As it was mentioned, new graduate nurses can face several barriers in their practice. These barriers include the stressors of transitioning, which Duchscher described, and lack of situational awareness because of the limited empirical learning as identified by Benner (Murray et al., 2019). Benner and Duchscher’s theories explain the obtaining of specific skills and the role of the process of change that new graduate nurses go through. It is highlighted that nurse theorists acquire an essential role in forming nurse education and practice. Moreover, they help nurses understand skill acquisition and support the transition process for novice nurses.
The correct provision of medical care directly depends not only on the qualification of specialists but also on the degree of their care and involvement in the process. Hayne et al. (2020) also emphasize the impact of the considerate model for the education of medical professionals that incorporates the fundamental notions of a climate of the organization, leadership, and theories of care. Professional nursing education needs to incorporate the base importance of caring and educate graduates to ensure relationship and patient-centered care successfully.
Current researches emphasize that the clinical education unit (CEU) model is preferable to any other commonly used model. This model provides greater engagement and an improved learning environment compared with the standard assistance models (Jayasekara et al., 2018). This clinical model is a commonly used practice education model with a significant advantage that students are given the opportunity to work with experienced practitioners who have better knowledge about the routine practices and culture of the medical settings. Nevertheless, the main disadvantage of this model is that its implementation in the clinical organization can be complicated due to the busy clinicians who have limited time to meet patient care standards while educating nursing students.
In the medical practice of nurses, leadership competence is also given great importance. However, many undergraduate nurses experience complications comprehending leadership as an essential component of studying and practice. The model of developing a nurse leader is a conceptual scheme that gives a pattern to promote leadership growth within novice nursing undergraduates, encouraging their ability to assimilate skills of an effective leader and use these features in practice (Miles & Scott, 2019). Moreover, sufficient development of leadership qualities and organizational and communicative aptitudes is necessary to manage secondary medical personnel and provide medical care effectively.
Raising the level of professional qualification of employees and improving this process is one of the most critical tasks in the activities of any modern organization and country. Medical institutions are not an exception to this as nursing specialists have a crucial role in ensuring the quality of essential medical services provided to people, strengthening preventive orientation, and addressing medical and social assistance problems. To a large extent, this is caused by changes that occur in the external environment. This is due to the need for a scientifically based determination of the actual production needs for qualified personnel educated using current theories and models. A specialist, within the framework of the rapid development of technological progress, is obliged to constantly update his knowledge, acquire new skills and be aware of innovations in the field of medicine.
References
Bindon, S. L. (2017). Professional development strategies to enhance nurses’ knowledge and maintain safe practice. AORN Journal, 106(2), 99-110. Web.
Cant, R. P., & Cooper, S. J. (2017). Use of simulation-based learning in undergraduate nurse education: An umbrella systematic review. Nurse Education Today, 49, 63-71. Web.
Hayne, A. N., Schlosser, S. P., & McDaniel, G. S. (2020). A caring model for nursing education. International Journal of Nursing Education Scholarship, 17(1). Web.
Jayasekara, R., Smith, C., Hall, C., Rankin, E., Smith, M., Visvanathan, V., & Friebe, T. R. (2018). The effectiveness of clinical education models for undergraduate nursing programs: A systematic review. Nurse Education in Practice, 29, 116-126. Web.
Miles, J. M., & Scott, E. S. (2019). A new leadership development model for nursing education. Journal of Professional Nursing, 35(1), 5-11. Web.
Murray, M., Sundin, D., & Cope, V. (2019). Benner’s model and Duchscher’s theory: Providing the framework for understanding new graduate nurses’ transition to practice. Nurse Education in Practice, 34, 199-203. Web.
Ozdemir, N. G. (2019). The development of nurses’ individualized care perceptions and practices: Benner’s novice to expert model perspective. International Journal of Caring Sciences, 12(2), 1279-1285.