The Teaching-Learning Experience Essay -- Health Care, Nursing

There are many factors in society that have both a direct and indirect influence on the competencies that our student nurses and colleagues need to attain to provide competent evidenced based care. Nursing has a social duty to ensure positive patient care outcomes and contribute to society through knowledge based care. The first step that this author think that we must do as nurse educators in order to have a role in this duty is assess the society for changes that are occurring that we must prepare our students to effectively deal with from a knowledge based standpoint with fellow humans as the main focus (McCurry, Revell & Roy 2010). We as nurse educators and nurses must question existing care practices, try out innovative measures and participate in research for the common good of our society and patients (McCurry et al. 2010) After analyzing society for changes that have occurred in the last five years the following are the two changes that this author thinks should affect o ur profession’s educational experiences of nursing students as well as practicing registered nurses including: obesity and smoking cessation. If anyone in society was to read a newspaper, article or watch the television then they would be likely to hear or see someone talking about the epidemic of obesity whether directly or indirectly. There is a lot of focus on reducing obesity or preventing obesity through keeping weight under control to avoid chronic preventable diseases (Poon & Tarrant). Obesity is a medical condition where there is excess accumulation of body fat that has the potential to cause adverse health effects and diseases including: diabetes, renal insufficiency, osteoarthritis, sleep apnea and certain cancers (Poon & Tarrant 2009... ...ludes: stress reduction, breathing techniques, and nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) if needed by the patient. Nurses have a sworn duty and obligation to promote the good of society in practice and we as nurse educators have that same responsibility. We must fulfill this responsibility by assess for societal changes that are occurring and which we need to include in our content matter when educating student nurses or fellow colleagues to ensure positive patient care outcomes. After assess the societal changes that have occurred in the last five years it is in this authors opinion there has been a focus and refocus on reducing obesity and smoking. It is great to see that the organization for this author’s practical experience has included these changes on their agenda for providers of health care which will promote the greater good of society as a whole.