Being an advocate

REPLY1

Marial,

I think that mentoring of new nurses is a great way to ensure that new nurses have a great role model.  What other ways do you think advocacy can be learned?

REPLY2

Being an advocate means standing up for someone in support of their cause. As a nurse, being an advocate means preserving human dignity, promoting patient equality, maintaining freedom from suffering, and ensuring that patients have the right to make decisions about their own health (“The Role of the Nurse”, 2019). Some of the situations a nurse can advocate for patients  are recommending to a physician for another option for pain medications if the current ones are not working or if the patients is unsure about the medications or treatments to choose, a nurse can give the necessary information, so they can make the best possible decision for them. Another example may be a nurse recommending to a physician that a patient might need to be upgraded to a higher level of care/unit  because the possibility of patient decompensation due to the patient is unstable.

I believe nurses during the pre licensure education are adequately prepared for patient advocacy. Nurses are taught from the beginning to never do harm and always put patient safety a priority. They are also taught to recognize possible dangers to patients and recommend or take actions for the betterment of the patients. These were taught through nursing theories and actual practice in nursing clinicals. The goal is to have the patient the best possible outcomes.