LAST week, I attended a public lecture by Professor Dr Roger Watson (yes, he’s a nurse!) in commemoration of Elsie Stephenson, the first director of Nursing Studies at the University of Edinburgh. Below are some of his ideas that I would like to share.
Four things you probably don’t know about nurses:
l Nurses have degrees;
l Nursing is the most trusted profession;
l Nurses run clinics; and,
l Nurses do research.
Nurses have degrees
I can’t remember the exact figure that was said during the talk, but more than 50 per cent of nurses in the United Kingdom have degrees. In the 1960s when the government announced that all nurses entering the workforce must be degree-educated, there was mixed reaction from the public and nurses. Some argued that degree-educated nurses would cut out some of the more deserving candidates for nursing who were compassionate and with excellent clinical expertise but without the academic qualification.
However, the argument for degree-educated nurses is backed by uncontested evidence — research shows that degree nurses have as much as 30 per cent lower patient mortality.
Dr Watson showed figures from current research where it was clear that nurses’ education was closely related to patient mortality, with a graph showing a negative linear relationship. This was accompanied by a graph on nurse-to-patient ratio where it was seen that increasing a nurse’s workload by one patient, increased a patient’s mortality risk by seven per cent.
Nursing the most trusted
profession
In a recent survey of people rating their most trusted profession, nurses rated the highest, followed closely by doctors and teachers. Lowest rated were tabloid journalists and politicians.
Nurses-run clinics
There are many nurse-led specialty clinics in the UK, run by clinical nurse specialists (degree-trained and with specialised courses) and nurse practitioners (if I'm not mistaken they have Master’s degrees and can prescribe medication). Again, we were shown figures from research which revealed that these nurse-led clinics were just as successful or, in some cases, more successful than doctor-run clinics. As it is cheaper to train nurses, this is also more cost-effective.
One study investigating the success of medical professionals retrieving foreign bodies from children's ears found that junior doctors were successful seven per cent of the time, registrars 15 per cent, but nurses succeeded more than 90 per cent of the time.
Nurses do research
They do research to better themselves, just as most of them have a nursing degree. Dr Watson is editor-in-chief of the Journal of Advanced Nursing and shared with us his intriguing research into nutrition and dementia.
I understand that most research findings are contextual — you would probably get different results if the studies mentioned here were conducted in Malaysia. But what’s important here is that we see the potential nurses have and how nurses here have a role to play in improving the healthcare system.
Questions were raised after the lecture, on the difference that degree nurses made. After all, the belief is the jobs of degree nurses don’t differ from diploma nurses. I agree with the answer of one of the professors of nursing, that it’s the critical thinking and decision-making skills of degree-educated nurses that save lives. Funds and opportunities should be made available for diploma-trained nurses to get a degree as evidence clearly shows improved quality of care.
Nurses make up the biggest workforce in healthcare and there is so much difference we can make, starting from furthering our education and keeping abreast of current research. As Dr Watson said, “no nurse should say ‘I’m just a nurse’.”
AZWA SHAMSUDDIN, Registered nurse, PPUKM (UKM Medical Centre), Cheras, Kuala Lumpur