I am a trained nurse working in one of major reference hospital in a capital city of Sabah. I have 14 years experience working as a trained perioperative nurse in operating theatre. Working through the years gives me ample experience in this field. Over this year, the workforce development in health care system has change the nursing profession and become more challenging. These changes had affected the nursing role and also their boundaries. Extending nursing role has happened in order to improve patient care. In Malaysia, registered nurses had given a credentialing to be able to undertake a wider range of clinical activity.
The National Council of State Boards of Nursing has ...view middle of the document...
Doctors and nurses now operate as equals. Doctors and nurses can negotiate with each other rather than domination. These changes are believed to be the result of development in technology, education, research evidence and workforce.
The result of this professional relationship changes give an implications to the traditional workforce boundaries. Role of boundary renegotiations are widespread due to workforce shortage. In Malaysia, unskilled worker such as assistant nurses are being upgraded by the Ministry of Health Malaysia to meet the need of professional trained nurse to work in hospital or clinics. In my workplace, that is major operating theatre, only trained registered nurse are allowed to perform a duty as a perioperative nurses, either as a scrub nurse, circulating nurse or recovery bay nurse and also an anesthesia nurse. Perioperative nursing is a specialized area of practice; only registered nurses can function in a perioperative nursing role AORN journal (2012).
According to Benner(1984) there are 5 overt level process of development skill, that is Novice, Advance Beginner, Competent , Proficient and expert. As an expert, I can understand well in performing my duty. Being an experienced nurse, I have an expert power over my junior staff, health attendant and also to junior doctor, house officer and houseman. I have strong knowledge in operation field very well and also what do’s and don’ts in operating theatre. I can share my knowledge with other professional team member. Shared power based upon non hierarchical relationships has been identified as central to effective interpersonal collaboration. The changing in workforce along with policy changes affecting the nursing profession Lane,Barlow (2011).
In operating theatre, our responsibilities as an operating theatre nurse are divided into three major positions. There are Scrub nurse, circulating nurse and recovery bay nurse. Scrub nurse will assist doctor during operation, circulating nurse or also known as runner, responsibility to perform their duty outside of the sterile field and manages all nursing care. Other than that, a runner also responsible to fetch additional equipment or item needed during operation such as sutures, swabs, supplement and so on. Recovery nurse responsibility is to monitor the patient post operation until the patient is sufficiently stable to return to ward. All off this three major position has its own boundaries. What I want to analyze in this assignment is our position as a scrub nurse. The scrub nurse works directly with the surgeon and responsible to maintain sterility throughout the operation, passes instrument, sponges or all of item that being requested by surgeon, taking back the instrument and prepare the suture. According to Mitchell, Rhona (2008) scrub nurse must make sure that all of the operation team member ‘scrubbed up’, preparing all the equipment and sterile supplies that needed,...
