Nursing Diagnosis- NO MORE??

ImThatGuy, BSN, RN · Apr 26, 2011

Hey guys!
I am currently in school to get my BSN. I heard from a friend that goes to NP school that we are doing away with all nursing diagnoses? She said that nurses will now use the medical diagnosis?
I would think it would be a waste of time to spend all of this time learning how to write a nursing diagnosis if it is just going to change.
I tried to research more about this and couldn't find anything. If anyone knows anything please let me know!
Thanks!

What's a waste of time is using the nursing diagnosis to begin with. The medical diagnosis is better, and is at least understood by all members of the healthcare team.

Think about this: "Hey, he's got emphysema." Everybody on "the healthcare team" has at least some understanding of that. Now comes along the nurse. "I'm not allowed to use the e-word. He actually has impaired gas exchange. Now, I'm going to go hug him." That's what nursing school does for the new grad.

Call a fish a fish. That's yet another reason why I like the emergency departments. I have still never seen nurses there use nursing diagnoses much less care plans. Nursing just tries too hard to give itself a separate identity and ends up looking like the weird kid in class.

That said, whether that's true or not I don't know, but all professions undergo change. We all learn things as students that get changed as professionals. Take my role in the blue suit, for example. Laws change every year. I have to keep up. What seem like sound tactics get proven to be deadly. The same goes for nurses. We had a teacher today talking about something she was taught to do that may now be thought of as simply stupid.

Rachey467 · Apr 26, 2011

Hey imthatguy!

I COMPLETELY agree. I find nursing diagnoses to be such a waste of time and energy. It just goes about saying the actual medical diagnosis in a round-about manner. I think the whole medical team should be on the same page with the SAME diagnosis. Thanks so much for your input :)

workingharder · Apr 26, 2011

That would be good news if true. Once someone reads the Nursing Diagnosis book it becomes obvious that these things are forced and I would guess 90% are useless, if not just silly. "Disturbed Energy Field" my foot.

That Guy, BSN, RN, EMT-B · Apr 26, 2011

It is just a way for the up tight nursing vs medical types to show differences between the professions. When we give report, you get the MD. I went through school thinking "you know when I get out of school this will all have made lots of sense and I will use this". Wrong.

Turd Ferguson · Apr 26, 2011

That would be good news if true. Once someone reads the Nursing Diagnosis book it becomes obvious that these things are forced and I would guess 90% are useless, if not just silly. "Disturbed Energy Field" my foot.

Well put

While a couple of the nursing diagnoses can be relevant and useful (well, the interventions that accompany them are useful), the majority are useless and irrelevant. Risk for impaired tissue integrity is a valid nursing diagnosis that has interventions that are useful for preventing skin breakdown, things like disturbed energy field and risk for fear are simply a waste of time.

anonymousstudent · Apr 26, 2011

I had a clinical instructor tell me that I will never use them when I leave school. Regardless of whether they are done away with or not, nobody's using them.

It seems like a ploy to give nurses more professional status or something. Who cares? Everybody knows what nurses do, we don't need a bunch of dxs (that I agree are silly many times) to validate and give legitimacy to what we are doing with our patients.

Streamline2010 · Apr 26, 2011

Nursing Diagnosis- NO MORE

Hallelujah! Thank you, Jesus!

:D:D Nurses need to be considered part of the medical team, like the doctor's eyes and ears and pair of hands. I found the whole NANDA thing demeaning and insulting, because I came from another profession (manufacturing) where everyone has a specific job to do and nobody is going to do another's job for them, thus, all parts of the team are considered important and respectable. NANDA, as I see it, is an outdated way to try to carve out some respect for the nurses.

Maybe I won't leave nursing school, after all.

elkpark · Apr 26, 2011

Hallelujah! Thank you, Jesus! :D:D Nurses need to be considered part of the medical team, like the doctor's eyes and ears and pair of hands. I found the whole NANDA thing demeaning and insulting, because I came from another profession (manufacturing) where everyone has a specific job to do and nobody is going to do another's job for them, thus, all parts of the team are considered important and respectable. NANDA, as I see it, is an outdated way to try to carve out some respect for the nurses.
Maybe I won't leave nursing school, after all.

Frankly, I find the idea of being considered "the doctor's eyes and ears and pair of hands" a whole lot more "demeaning and insulting" than using nursing dxs, which focus on my independent practice as an RN addressing nursing problems, not on being the silent handmaiden of the phsyician (as the old cliché goes).

OP, I wonder if your friend in an NP program was referring specifically to the transition to NP practice, and saying that, as an NP, you use medical dxs rather than nursing dxs? I know that in my psych CNS grad program, there was no mention of nursing dxs -- we dealt with the DSM psychiatric (medical) diagnoses, because, in the psych CNS role, that's what we were treating.

allnurses Guide · Apr 26, 2011

While choosing the "correct" nursing diagnosis becomes easier, the more you do it (in school), the sad fact is... that one diagnosis does not really tell you anything.

"Impaired Tissue Perfusion" because... hypovolemia, trauma, asphyxiation... what?

Oooooooooooh. I have to expand on that, eh? Ok, I have to relate it to something. Hmmm... but I can't say "hypovolemia". I have to describe it, because, as a nurse, I'll be too dumb to know what hypovolemia entails and what I'll need to do about it. I'll need waaaaaaaaay long, poorly constructed phrasing to guide me.

Bullocks.

I can better understand the concept of a care plan before I can ever understand the concept of the ND.

If it it looks like pneumonia and acts like pneumonia... then call it freaking "pneumonia"!!!!!

Oh yeah, but we can say "anemia", right??? Huh?

And don't try to find a precious list of current diagnoses online. You gotta buy the new book, baby! $$$$$$$$$

If I have anything wrong in this rant, correct me.

AOX4RN, MSN, RN, NP · Apr 27, 2011

I'm in a ADN program and our instructors informed us at the beginning of this quarter that nursing diagnoses are history. Didn't give us a date, however. Yay. I hate them.

Trilldayz,RN BSN · Apr 27, 2011

I'm in a ADN program and our instructors informed us at the beginning of this quarter that nursing diagnoses are history. Didn't give us a date, however. Yay. I hate them.

How cool! *so jealous!*