Breese 1

Kaitlyn Breese

Prof. Tim Waggoner

ENG 1201

May 2, 2021

How Do Nurses Have an Impact on a Patient's Life or Hospital Experience?

Being in the hospital sick, unsure of what is wrong with you can be one of the scariest

times of your life, especially when you are a child. While in the hospital, children count on their

nurses to cheer them up, play with them, and comfort them. They are there for them to help when

they do not understand why they are there and why they are sick. Without nurses, children would

feel completely alone during their time in a hospital. Not only children, but parents also count on

the nurses to take care of their children and make them feel as comfortable as possible. For this

literature review, I will be conducting research on how pediatric nurses have an impact on their

patients, both positive and negative. Pediatric nurses have a very positive and important impact

on a patient's life or hospital experience due to the critical role they play in caring for patients

medically and personally.

Nurses care for patients medically by giving medicine, recording medical history and

symptoms, monitoring health, performing various tests, and educating patients. Nurses do so

much more than just medical tasks. In the healthcare field, nurses have some of the biggest

hearts. They are there for their patients during their hardest times, they are there to cheer them up

after receiving bad news, they comfort them when they are down or frustrated, and they are also

a friend. In the hospital, people may feel alone at times, and nurses are there to make sure they

never feel that way. Nursing has a very long history and is arguably one of the most important

professions in the healthcare field.

 Breese 2

Nursing is one of the most diverse careers in the healthcare field. There are various

settings and professions one can work in. With that being said, nursing comes with a lot of

history. Taking care of patients started in homes and were taken care of by friends and relatives.

This lasted until the nineteenth century when industrialization changed and hospitals became

popular. An article written by Penn Nursing explains that “Hospitals began to proliferate to serve

those who were without the resources to provide their own care, and as hospitals increased in

numbers so did the demand for caregivers who would be able to deliver thoughtful care to the

patients in them” (Whelan 2017). Nursing education began once individuals realized how

important good nursing care to patients was. The first nursing course was In 1798 when

Valentine Seaman, a New York physician, organized lectures for nurses who cared for maternity

patients. From then, nursing education became more popular, professional, and difficult. The

career of nursing has publicly demonstrated its strong ability to change to the different healthcare

needs. Nursing remains a very popular career choice and is a highly respected profession that

attracts large numbers of new recruits to its ranks (Whelan 2017). Nursing continues to be a very

popular and respected career, and nurses continue to serve others.

Looking specifically into pediatric nursing, in 1802, the first pediatric hospital opened for

children. This hospital was called Hospital des Enfants Malades, which was located in Paris. The

opening of the first pediatric hospital then led to the opening of many others around the world.

After the first pediatric hospital was opened, many other pediatric hospitals began to open all

around the world.he first pediatric hospital in the United States was opened in Philadelphia in

1855. From the Middle Ages to Modern History pediatric hospitals and pediatric care grew and

improved tremendously. Today, pediatrics is certified by the American Pediatric Society, which

allows pediatricians and pediatric nurses to study and practice certain pediatric specialties. The
 Breese 3

credible source used in this paragraph gives useful information on the history of nursing. This

source targets an audience that is seeking to gather knowledge on the history of pediatric

hospitals.

It is a tough road to becoming a nurse. Students can either earn an associate's degree or a

bachelor's degree, and a bachelor's degree is preferred when hospitals are looking at people to

hire. Although nursing school is only four years long, the four years are very difficult and

strenuous. Students have to take classes such as human anatomy and physiology, microbiology,

chemistry, pharmacology, statistics, a language, English, fundamental nursing classes, and other

required courses. Along with classes, students are also required to complete clinical hours.

Students will be given a hospital where they will then go to for a twelve-hour shift and shadow a

nurse and perform basic tasks. During their clinical, students are given an inside look as to what

it is like to be a nurse. They witness the struggles nurses have to deal with daily, but experiencing

those will only make them stronger.

Since nursing is such a diverse profession, there are many different routes you can take

once you have graduated with your four year bachelor of science in nursing degree. One can

work in a school, hospital, nursing home, nurse-midwife, or be a travel nurse, one can also go

back to school after their four years of undergraduate and become a nurse practitioner, get a

masters in nursing, or become a nurse anesthetist. The amount of schooling and training required

to become a nurse is another reason how nurses dedicate and sacrifice so much so they can take

care of others.

Nurses sacrifice so much to do what they do. They stand on their feet and run around for

twelve hours straight during their shift, they always put the patient first, and care for the patient

no matter what the circumstances may be. This job can take a toll on nurses. It can affect their
 Breese 4

mental and physical health negatively, as proven by a story mentioned earlier. For example, Most

nurses can agree that witnessing the death of a patient is one of the hardest parts of their job.

They risk so much just to have a positive impact on someone's life and to be there for them

during their worst, and possibly best times. A patient's nurse is the person they see most

frequently, and the person they develop the strongest bond with. “In a recent study of the

time-intensive care patients spent with at least one healthcare practitioner, around 86 percent of

that time was with nurses, compared to just 13 percent with physicians. In the case of overnight

hospital stays, the time spent with nurses was even greater” (Mercer 2019). Nurses serve on the

frontlines of healthcare.

Nurses are a critical part of the healthcare system, and many tasks and procedures could

not be performed without them. Nurses are there for you throughout your whole journey. They

support you when you are at your sickest, to when you are at your best and ready to be

discharged from the hospital. They are the patient's biggest cheerleader. Nurses are not only there

to support you, but they are also there to support your family or anyone else around you. Nurses'

work does not go unnoticed, and their care, kind words and thoughts, support, and many other

qualities provide for a good hospital experience and a positive impact on a patient and their

family. Nursing is a career where you learn as you go. With working many years as a nurse in a

hospital, you gain more experience. With the more experience you have, the better nurse you will

be and will be able to provide the best care possible to your patients. With experience, you are

able to be put into many different situations that prepare you better for the future. Nurses are

constantly learning and bettering themselves because they want to ensure that they will be able to

provide the best care possible and make a difference in many people's lives.
 Breese 5

While nurses have a large impact on their patients, patients also have a large impact on

their nurses, for the good and bad. Like I mentioned before, nursing is a tiring, strenuous, very

hard career. After years of being a nurse and putting others before yourself, all it takes is one

incident gone wrong to make you want to quit or make you feel like you can not do it anymore.

Rose Lane, a registered pediatric nurse shared a story about one of her patients that reminded her

of her son. She claimed that seeing her patient in such a horrible state had such a negative impact

on her and made her feel like she had to quit and could not pursue nursing any longer. “ It wasn’t

until I developed stomach ulcers and almost had a breakdown, that a friend asked why I was

putting myself through this. Just quit, she said, and so I did. But then I missed it. I didn’t hate the

work, I just found it hard to take” ( Lane 2016). This nurse did everything in her control to make

her patient feel as comfortable as possible in the hospital and took care of him as best she could,

but sometimes it is just too much for people.

Even though there are bad parts about nursing, there are very good things as well. The

relationships that are built between nurses and their patients are unbreakable and have many

positive qualities. A statistic from a research-based article and a scholarly source from the

Sinclair Library states that “Studies have shown that family-centered care results in positive

outcomes and experiences for hospitalized children and their families, improves satisfaction

among health professionals, and reduces medical costs' ' (Cho 2019). There are also different

factors that affect the quality of care that a nurse can provide. The most important factor is

experience. The profession of nursing involves caring for individuals and enursing their well

ebing. Over time, nurses’ skills develop through experience of many different situations, settings,

and patients. Nurses provide direct care to patients and are the health care provider the patient

sees most frequently, so they arguably play the most important role in patient care quality. With
 Breese 6

nursing being the largest healthcare profession, that means that they have the largest impact on

patients. With nursing shortages in hospitals, they found that there is a 45% chance that newborn

patients would be readmitted due to not having quality care because of the nursing shortage. This

article explains how in the United States, there is a lower nurse-to-patient ratio compared to other

states, which affects the quality of care and creates more stress for nurses.

There are many different factors that play into the reason why there is a nursing shortage.

The nation is aging and growing older, meaning more patient care is needed by nurses. At the

same time, more individuals have health insurance due to the Affordable Care Act and Medicaid

expansion, resulting in an increase in patients seeking primary care (Hackmann 2017). This

article does a great job explaining just how significant the nursing shortage is and proves that

nurses have a much more substantial impact on patient care than you would think. The image

below is a visual comparing the supply and demand of nurses currently compared to 2030. This

visual provides evidence that currency we do not have enough nurses , and in almost every state

listed, the supply does not meet the demand. This explains why it is so important that we need

more nurses. As you can see in 2030, the numbers for supply are much higher than the numbers

for demand, which demonstrates a step in the right direction and eliminating the nursing

shortage. Without the adequate number of nurses, patient care will decrease and more deaths and

illnesses will occur. I have also attahed a graph below the first visual that represents the national

supply and demand projections for nurses over the past twenty years.
 Breese 7

Bradley University, a credible source, also writes an article on how the nursing shortage

impacts patient care in many different ways. “There is a direct correlation between patient
 Breese 8

mortality (i.e., risk of death) and shortage of nurses. An increase of one full-time RN per 1,000

inpatient days contributes to a 4.3 percent decline in death of patients. Conversely, hospitals with

fewer nurses witnessed a 2–7 percent increase in mortality” (Bradley University 2018). These

statistics prove that nurses are not there only to comfort a patient and to care for them, but they

also play a big role in their health and medicine that goes unnoticed. It is believed that raising the

salary of a registered nurse can resolve the nursing shortage problem. Since a nurse's job is very

demanding, tiring, and strenuous, many do not want to work for the salary they are given. There

are certain specialties of nursing that make more than others such as travel nurses and night shift

nurses, but some question: “Do others really deserve to make more when their job is just as

mentially and physically exhausting?” With fewer nurses, the quality of patient care decreases,

which answers my research question that nurses have an enormous impact on patients and their

hospital experience.

Although most believe that nurses are the most important person when it comes to patient

care, some may disagree and believe the nursing profession is not respected. The nursing

profession also carries negative stereotypes along with it. When some people think of nursing,

they think of a woman who caters to a patient's needs and performs simple tasks. Some of the

challenges facing the nursing profession are low prestige, poor public perception, lack of

professional gratification from patients, coworkers, and families, and stressful working

conditions among (MMA 2016). Because people view nursing as a career that is not respected,

they believe that nurses do very little for patients that they are caring for.

It is also believed that doctors are far superior to nurses. Of course, doctors are more

educated, but it is a common concern that since nurses are not as educated as doctors, they play

too much of a role in patient care. Some doctors have spoken against nurses and stated that
 Breese 9

nurses are acting as doctors when they do not have the right to, stating that 11+ years of

schooling is more important and strenuous than a nursing degree. People are also concerned that

less education (only four years for a BSN degree) could lead to a significant deficiency in

diagnostic skills, resulting in misdiagnosis and inferior patient care (Soliant). Many question

whether or not nurses are as educated as they should be to be performing the different types of

medical tasks that they do. Some of these tasks include wellness checkups, counseling, physical

exams, primary care, administering medicine, providing prenatal care, providing referrals to

physicians, etc. Occasionally, nurses are not even respected by their co-workers in the healthcare

field. “Leslie, a licensed practical nurse from Florida, said the hardest part of her job is the lack

of respect and verbal/physical abuse from families, management, fellow healthcare workers”

(Akhtar 2020). The discussion for the counterargument is a very common belief but needs to

change. Many do not realize the countless hours' nurses put into work and the arduous tasks that

they are required to perform daily.

There are very many common misconceptions when it comes to nurses. When some

people think of nurses, they think of someone who treats headaches and is only there to give

patients apple juice and crackers. While they do perform some of these tasks, they also do so

much more. They give patients medicine, can save a patient who is coding by performing CPR,

they make the patient feel as comfortable as possible by helping them clean themselves and

change their clothes, they work together as a team to plan for patient care, perform tests and have

many more responsibilities. There are very common stereotypes when it comes to nurses and

they are very underestimated.

This year has arguably been the toughest for nurses. Due to COVID-19, nurses are

challenged every day and tested mentally, physically and emotionally. Nurses, along with other
 Breese 10

healthcare professionals have had to deal with situations they have never had to deal with before.

From being directly exposed to COVID-19, to telling someone they are going to have to die

alone because visitors are not allowed in the hospital, it has been mentally and emotionally

draining for nurses. During these times, nurses have shown and proven how hard they work for

their patients, how dedicated they are to their work, and that they have one of the most laborious

jobs.

Throughout this essay, I have explained the history of pediatric nursing, stated my key

points of nursing, discussed common misconceptions of nurses, and in this paragraph, I will be

answering my research question. The key points of nursing that I discovered are that the nursing

staff shortage has a great impact on patients and causes a decrease in patient care, the nursing

staff shortage is mainly due to nurses feeling like they do not have a high enough salary for what

they do, patients have just as large of an impact on nurses as nurses do on their patients, nurses

build strong relationships with their patients and are their main provider for care, nursing is a

very strenuous job and requires a special person, and nurses have a very positive impact on their

patients and their patients family.

My research question is “How Do Pediatric Nurses Have an Impact on a Patient's Life or

Hospital Experience”, and to answer that question, they can make or break a patient's hospital

experience. In most cases, a patient will receive a caring, fun, enjoyable, hard-working nurse that

will make them feel comfortable during their stay. Since I only discussed positive impacts, I

would like to further explore how nurses have negative impacts on their patients. Yes, nurses are

there to treat their patients medically, but they are also there to be a friend to their patients and

make them feel like they are not alone.

 Breese 11

Works Cited

Advent Health, “The Many Ways Nurses Make a Positive Impact in Health Care.” Advent

Health, 26 February 2021,

https://www.adventhealth.com/blog/many-ways-nurses-make-a-positive-impact-health-ca

re

Akhtar, Allana, “Nurses reveal the 11 hardest parts of their job, from the death of patients to not

having time to pee during a shift.” Insider, 18 March 2020,

https://www.businessinsider.com/registered-nurses-worst-part-being-nurse-jobs-2019-5

Bernard, Brendon, ¨Canadian Nursing Shortage Shows No Sign of Easing.¨ Occupation

Spotlight, 28 November 2019,

https://www.hiringlab.org/en-ca/2019/11/28/canadian-nursing-shortage/

Bradley University, “The Nursing Shortage and How it Will Impact Patient Care.” Bradley

University, n.d,

https://onlinedegrees.bradley.edu/blog/the-nursing-shortage-and-how-it-will-impact-patie

nt-care/

Burger, Catherine, ¨ The States with the Largest Nursing Shortages. We are going to need a lot

more nurses.¨ Registered Nursing, 14 April 2021,

https://www.registerednursing.org/articles/largest-nursing-shortages/

Cain, Shelia, “What Types of Nursing Degrees Are There.” All Nursing Schools, n.d,

https://www.allnursingschools.com/how-to-get-into-nursing-school/degree-options/

Cho, Haeryun, “Levels of Partnership between Nurses and Parents of Hospitalized Children and

the Quality of Pediatric Nursing Care as Perceived by Nurses.” CHNR, January 2020,
 Breese 12

https://eds-b-ebscohost-com.sinclair.ohionet.org/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=3&sid=3d

d88875-e81e-467d-8e74-663f85be5f11%40sessionmgr103

Friedrich, Benjamin, and Martin B. Hackmann. “What Happens to Patient Care When There Are

Not Enough Nurses.” KelloggInsight, 4 April 2017,

https://insight.kellogg.northwestern.edu/article/what-happens-to-patient-care-when-there-

are-not-enough-nurses

Lane, Rose, “A Child's Tragic Story Ended my Nursing Career.” The Guardian, 18 February

2016,

https://www.theguardian.com/healthcare-network/2016/feb/18/left-nursing-forever-young

-patient-disabled

Mercer, “Why Nurses Are Important in Healthcare and You Should Become an RN.” Mercer

University, 25 September 2019,

https://absn.mercer.edu/blog/why-nurses-are-important-in-healthcare/

N/A, “Lack of Respect for Nursing Profession.” MMA Healthcare Recruitment, 2016,

https://www.mmarecruitment.com/nursing-blog/lack-of-respect-for-nursing-profession/#:

~:text=Nurses%20become%20easy%20targets%20for,are%20attracted%20by%20the%2

0profession

N/A, “Doctors vs. Nurses: A Primary Healthcare Debate.” Soliant, n.d,

https://www.soliant.com/resources/a-primary-care-debate-nurses-vs-doctors/

Pearce, Lynne, “How COVID-19 is affecting nurses’ mental health, and what to do about it.”

NursingStandard, 22 January 2021,

https://rcni.com/nursing-standard/features/how-covid-19-affecting-nurses-mental-health-a

nd-what-to-do-about-it-159456
 Breese 13

Whelan, Jean, “American Nursing: An Introduction to the Past.” Penn Nursing, 2017,

https://www.nursing.upenn.edu/nhhc/american-nursing-an-introduction-to-the-past/