Nurses need nursing advocates

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Who protects the nurses from institutions that do not follow their own policies and force nurses to break their professional code? Who is that voice for nursing? Situation is centered around doctors versus nurses..

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Specializes in Med/Surg, Ortho, ASC.

Could you give us an example?

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Specializes in ICU.

We don't really have an advocate...unless you're at a union hospital.

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Specializes in Critical Care, Education.

The organization's Chief Nursing Executive is supposed to be the primary advocate for nursing. Is s/he is not, something is definitely wrong. That's why the role has to be filled by an RN.

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Harmony2, no offence, but since neither your profile nor your previous posts mention your being a nurse or a nursing student, I hope you won't mind me asking why you are asking this question.

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Nurses protect themselves by refusing to work for organizations like that. No one "forces" nurses to "break their professional code" -- that is a choice the individual nurse makes. If organizations with poor work environments and practices weren't able to staff their facilities, they would have to change their ways -- but it seems there are always enough nurses desperate enough to be willing to put up with those kinds of work environments and go along with whatever corner-cutting and low standards are expected. I've left several jobs over the years because I wasn't willing to make the kind of professional and ethical compromises the majority of the nursing staff in a particular facility considered standard practice, and I've never regretted those choices.

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