A clinical nurse has a large role to play in patient care. There are many different kinds of nurses. For a lay person, a nurse is a nurse and it is someone who takes care of patients. This is actually not true because there are various kinds of categories and the clinical nurse is the person who is mainly involved in patient care. The other kinds of nurses are those who are involved in education of the new nurses who are studying a nursing course. The other group of nurses are those who are involved in the research and these nurses are called as research nurses.
The clinical nurse seems to have a lot of role to play in patient care activities. She is involved in various kinds of patients. There are some clinical nurse who specialize in some kind of patient care activities and others take care of all kinds of patients. It is very important for the nurse to be effective in taking care of the patient as she spends a lot more time that any other healthcare professional at the side of the bed.
Some of the various roles and responsibilities of a clinical nurse are listed here.
1. Medication to patient:
The clinical nurse is entrusted with the responsibility of presenting all the medication to the patients who need them. There may be various kinds of medications that each patient needs. The nurse has to be careful in giving the right kind of medication to the patient. Any wrong medication will lead to various problems to the person.
2. Support:
The nurse is also the person who will be able to support the person all through the illness or the time of admission in the hospital. Every health professional will only be spending a short time with the affected person. The nurse is at the bed side at all times and so plays a very important role in the psychological support to the patient.
3. Identification of complications:
Though physicians will be monitoring the patient at most of the times, there are times when the physician may be busy with other kinds of patient care activities and the emergency or complication in a patient may be missed. As soon as the nurse identifies the presence of some kind of complication, the status of the person has to be informed to the physician and the physician will take care of the problem.
4. Liaise between other care givers:
The patient will have relatives and other visitors ho may be visiting the person. The clinical nurse has to liaise with these people and inform them of the patient status as and when needed. The clinical nurse is the person who will also inform the relatives of the needs of the patient so that they are met by them. This is an important role that no one else will be able to play.
5. Daily care to the patient:
The clinical nurse is the one who will also be attending to the daily care to the affected person. There are many instances when the patient will have a lot of needs and be dependent on the people around him, so the clinical nurse is the one who will either facilitation of these needs or ensure that she helps the patient to get all the help that is required.
There are a lot of roles and responsibilities that a clinical nurse has and she is one of the main components of the team that helps in patient care activities.
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