Advanced Practice Nurse: A Case Study

Introduction

Nurse is an important job in this century. In the early years of nursing, nurses take up simple roles to provide care and assisted the sick for their activities of daily living. As the development of healthcare industry advanced, nurse’s roles have expanded. Nursing as a career has evolved over the years. Nurses are taking up more expanded roles compared to last time. An example will be an Advanced Practice Nurse (APN). What is the role of an APN? In SNB (2014), APN is a registered nurse who possesses a great knowledge in the clinical area of practice and are trained in managing chronic medical condition. Castledine and Mcgee (1998) see APN as a holistic role, which consist of practice, education, leadership and research. They

Robinson et al. (2002) mentioned that APN with wide knowledge in disease progress, research, health promotion and prevention of major illness who are keen to share knowledge to patients will help patients to understand more about their conditions. Koh and Ang (2005) states that with comparison to the doctors, the APNs are more likely to spend extra time to educate patients on health promotion and life style changes and are proven with better compliance with treatments. Karnusammy (2006) also mention that in addition to educating the patient and nurse, the APN also actively involve with patients family and initiating discharge. Nurses will also gain more knowledge and build a positive relationship with the APNs. As the ward nurses are busy with the ward routines and does not have extra time to attend to updates and talks, it would be wonderful to have an APNs in my ward to share the latest update with

In an aesthetic and reconstructive ward, we see patients coming in for aesthetic surgery. Unlike most of the patients they would prefer non-disclosure of condition to their relatives. The APN also should not reveal patient’s personal information if it is not related to the medical care. In this case the APN would uphold the confidentiality standard by not revealing the condition without the consent of the patient.

Justice –With APN in a ward it is unlikely for an APN to see to only one patient. She needs to plan and prioritize to see to patients accordingly. Patients might be unhappy to see that the APN is constantly spending more time to see to this particular patient and feel that there is unfairness. Tonia (2004) also mentioned that justice is deemed a duty to be fair or equal to all individuals and thus there is a need to see to all patients equally.