The Importance of Nursing Research

Nurses General Nursing

Published

Specializes in Too many to list.

Beyond The Bedside: Nurses Improve Patients' Lives Through Research

The sentence in the quote below really says it all. How many of us that have

been working for years, fall into this category? We all know nurses like this.

I would like to believe that most nurses are interested in new data and new

research that can impact patient education and care, and improve our

professional lives and safety.

Many of us have worked in the same specialty area for years, and we can

become stagnant in our thinking, and bored with our work. If the excitement

about what we do every day is gone, and it becomes just a way to make a

living, reaching out for new learning experiences and taking in new information

is a safe way to jump start our creativity and keep us on our toes.

Basic nursing research is always valuable, and pays off sometimes in unexpected

ways.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1999/12/991224090416.htm

"If you have not taught students how to be independent learners, you have not taught them how to be more updated than they are the day they graduate. They're essentially frozen in time," says Jeanne Grace, Ph.D., RN-C., associate professor of clinical nursing.

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As a lifelong learner it baffles me when I meet people who never seek out new information or skills to expand their worldview. The mind is like any other living organism. It requires nutrition and experiences to grow. Professionals seek new experiences and ways to learn how to do things better.

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Specializes in Level II & III NICU, Mother-Baby Unit.

I agree with you. Maybe it is because one of my nursing instructors informed us at the beginning of our nursing program, in no uncertain terms, the following paraphrased bombshell. "If you don't plan on continuing learning and staying up to date with the changes that occur every month in the healthcare field and your specialty area, then you need to very seriously reconsider nursing as your chosen profession. It is your responsibility to continue to learn and grow as a nurse for the benefit of your patients. It is part of what is necessary for you to be a good teacher of information to your patients as well as being one of the most important ways you can be a patient advocate."

I truly took the information to heart and am very thankful I did all those many years ago. I am a member of my nursing specialty organizations and subscribe to a few general nursing journals as well. I have studied and received my specialty certification as well, and I spend a good deal of time reading and keeping myself up to date with the new knowledge as best as I can. All I can do is my best so that when I lay my head down to sleep at night I feel I have truly done the absolute best I could for the patients and families as well as coworkers I have come in contact with.

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Specializes in Community Health, Med-Surg, Home Health.

I cannot see how anyone can do this, whether they are nurses or not. I take great pride in expanding my knowledge. I have only been an LPN since 2006, but, I take time to get books and publications that are reader friendly (most nursing publications are), look at television shows about different diseases and of course, I hang out here every chance I get.

Each day has been a learning experience for me, even if it was a negative one. It has made me into a stronger nurse and I build confidence each day. I have a friend that graduated from the same college I attended a year after me, and I am totally disgusted with the fact that she has not picked up a book to fine tune her knowledge.

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Right before we graduated from dental hygiene school, the program director told us:

"Just remember that your dental hygiene license is a license to learn. Passing all your classes and all your boards has merely proven that you have the minimum knowledge necessary to provide safe care. Now, the real learning can begin."

That always stuck with me, and it is so true. While my 2 years of school was tough, REALLY tough....I admittedly learned more in my first 2 weeks of fulltime work than I did in the whole 2 years....and I still continue to learn more by subsribing to journals, being part of my professional associations, going to all the CE I can manage (which blows my required 12 hours a year out of the water)...

To think of a dental hygienist, or nurse, or doctor continuing to operate at the knowledge level of a new grad for their entire career is frightening isn't it?

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