Patient/Family Centered Nursing Care Study on Gastroenteritis

Abstract

The Nursing profession today has gone through evolutions to reach where it is now today. Nursing was not taught in the past, until the 1800's where it became an organized practice. In 1854, Nightingale had the opportunity to test her beliefs during the Britain’s Crimean War. The British Government asked Nightingale to take a small group of nurses to the military hospital at Scutari. Nightingale within days of arrival reorganized the hospital, scrubbing the walls for sanitation, windows opened for ventilation, nourishing food was prepared and served with medications and treatments administered efficiently. Death rates plummeted in weeks, with the graceful public knowing of the work done by the ‘’Lady with the Lamp’, who made night rounds giving comfort to the sick and wounded. Nightingale pushed for reform of hospital sanitation methods and invented methods of graphing statistical data. Nightingale’s work led to drastic changes in army medical care, the establishment of army Medical School and medical records, and ignited the growth of nursing as an organized profession. For these contributions, Nightingale is widely accepted as the founder of nursing. The nursing profession gained a lot of recognition and support from civilians during this time, as they realized the essential asset to medical care that nurses truly are. In the early 1900's, nursing education was received primarily from hospitals rather than colleges or universities. The training of nurses in diploma program, licensing of nurses, specialization of hospitals, diagnosis, and advanced degree programs, scientific and technological development are been offered today. This therefore has effectively improved upon the quality of health care delivered by the use of the nursing process. The nursing process is a series of organized steps designed by nurses to ensure a planned and quality of patient care. This helps to assess patient needs and to also derive various means of intervening. It provides an organized framework for the practice of nursing and the knowledge, judgments, and actions that nurses bring to patient care. The process requires effective thinking, activity and affective skills and abilities of the nurse. The patient and family care study is a comprehensive and extensive description of the entire nursing care rendered to a patient and the family during and after hospitalization period. This is to meet the physical, emotional, psychological, spiritual and social economic needs of the patient and her family within a specific period of time. This care study, forms part of the assessment of the final year student in the awarding of License to practice as a professional Registered General Nurse. The patient and family care study helps widen the scope of knowledge of the student nurse, helping the student nurse to put his theoretical knowledge and skills acquired through training together to give a comprehensive nursing care to patient and family. The patient and family care study also enhances the interpersonal relationship of the student nurse as he constantly communicates with the patient, relatives, friends and other health care team in the various units of the hospital in order to provide a comprehensive care for the patient. For the purpose of confidentiality and security reasons, my patient’s identity will be disclosed; A.H will be used to represent my patient’s name throughout the script. I also admonish students and readers to always try to read prefaces which are a way of expanding our scope of knowledge and understanding.