There is no escaping the reality that, in an increasingly globalized world, healthcare challenges become all the more enormous. Societies and nations are interacting in unprecedented ways, and this translates to healthcare issues and resources becoming international concerns. The importance of this is clear when it is understood that, in plain terms, the well-being of its people is a society’s greatest focus. That certain nations enjoy advantages denied to others, then, creates a universal and ethical imperative. On one level, all humanity is obligated to assist when populations are in danger; health is the ultimate “bottom line” in moral terms, and this demands from all populations a perception of the health of others as critical. On another and more pragmatic level, global interaction relies on each society as enabled to fully engage with the others, and this cannot exist when suffering is present and may be addressed. In a very real sense, we live in a world today in which ethical responsibility is greatly expanded, and those of us fortunate enough to live in more advanced nations must attend to the needs of those lacking real healthcare. This is itself both the price and the privilege of life in a global arena.
The question the arises: how can nations work to share and support healthcare apart from their own societies? It is excellent that we have today technology greatly enhancing healthcare, and sharing this is a crucial element in a united effort to address existing needs. Connected to technology is of course knowledge as well; as medical science evolves, information is provided on a universal level, which in turn promotes developing nations in enhancing their own healthcare. Science, technology, and communication then combine to offer valuable instruments in bringing improved care to all, and humanity is then fulfilling its most important obligation to itself. At the same time, however, healthcare is an inherently complex field, and even the most valuable information may not apply in situations where there is no organization or human commitment to its provision on a wide scale. Then, there is the inescapable reality that different cultures have different needs, as well as ideologies going to specific ways in which care should be implemented. In a word, human factors invariably complicate the essential responsibility of sharing and enhancing healthcare globally, and ignoring these realities is as damaging as disregarding healthcare itself. Understanding and a correct motivation to help are excellent things, but cultural knowledge and awareness are equally critical. With these elements, there must be as well a committed and guiding force capable of translating knowledge into active care, and in all cultural and global circumstances.
Use your promo and get a custom paper on
"How Can Nursing Address And Improve Global Healthcare Needs?".
In my estimation, this circumstance virtually points to nursing as the most valuable resource within the entire, global healthcare scenario. Because nurses exist in ways “in between” the worlds of physicians and the public, they are perfectly positioned to best enhance universal care. To begin with, nurses have skills and varieties of knowledge unique to the profession. We are educated and trained in all aspects of health in physical – and often psychological – terms, and we make sure that our education continues as we work with doctors, patients, and whole communities. We invariably learn all the time, and in ways both academic and based on practical experience. Then, we are equipped as well with a greater understanding of what care means to people. Physicians typically create a more distanced impression or relationship, the existence of deeply committed doctors notwithstanding. They are usually removed from the realities of the patient’s life, and this is not a criticism; it is appropriate that doctors, focused and skilled in specific forms of care, should be limited in how they interact with patients, if not limited by virtue of the demands on their expertise.
The nurse, however, connects. The nurse is the trained liaison between doctor and patient, and consequently more in touch with patient needs apart from actual treatment. We come to know the patients, their lives, their families, and their larger communities. This provides nursing with a skill traditionally present and all the more important today, that of comprehending the entirety of patient’s world, and knowing how so many cultural and social variables play into health itself for that patient. It cannot be emphasized strongly enough, in fact, that what has so long defined the nurse – the role of caregiver and nurturing presence – is what so powerfully equips the nurse to understand needs other members of the medical community may miss. Linked to the people, the nurse is then linked to the world. With greater understanding of one culture’s relationship with healthcare, there is the greater potential for understanding culture in a wider arena.
Ultimately, then, nursing may address and improve healthcare on a global level simply by expanding what it has always so significantly achieved, the process of merging technical care with the realities of patient and community existence. We have a perspective no doctor may possess, as well as one denied to any administrator of healthcare. As the world becomes even more connected, then, it is this awareness we must employ, and which must be recognized as the critical advantage it is. No matter the culture, people turn to nurses with a trust and a faith based on the traditional role as caring and committed. Certainly, nurses go beyond pragmatic treatment and often guide physicians into care more appropriate for certain patients. All that is necessary for nurses to assist in global healthcare, then, is the recognition of what we have always done as inestimably valuable in international terms. We have consistently served as the “mediators” between the human being and the actual care and, empowered with more authority to affirm what we determine as important in different societies, we may establish a global network within, and greatly serving, international care. In essence, all that is really necessary for nurses to have a positive impact on global health care is the acceptance, and from nations and medical organizations alike, of what we do every day in our careers. This will then create and encourage the opportunity to expand our awareness and commitment into wider scopes of effort, and establish the humane and universal community of nurses elevating healthcare for all.
