Free Custom «Nurse to Physician Relationships» Essay Paper

The main health professionals in hospitals consist of nurses and physicians. While physicians perform the technical roles such as surgery, nurses play a highly critical role in ensuring that patients are well taken care of, and that they recover their health status (Fagin & Garelick, 2004). As a result, they need to be handled with respect in order to give them a feeling of satisfaction as they carry out their daily activities. If nurses are exposed to too much stress, they are likely to deliver that stress to their patients, which may lead to negative results. The most experienced factor that can probably expose nurses to stress is nurses’ shortage in many hospitals. This means that nurses will be overloaded with work, thus work under stress and strain. In fact, this factor has spread to the provision of services in many hospitals, cancelling surgeries (Rosenstein, 2007). In addition, it has lead to the decreased patient satisfaction, patient care quality and even in other cases the safety of the patients has been compromised.

The satisfaction of nurses should be on the fore front when discussing reforms to the health sector (Alan & Rosenstein, 2002). This factor has been overlooked over the years, something that has caused the health sector to experience a variety of problems. A survey carried out aimed at identifying the various problems nurse experience indicated that administrative tolerance caused them to perform poorly. Since physicians feel superior to the nurses, they end up misusing their power to the disadvantage of the nurses. Some physicians fail to carry out follow ups on their patients, or even treat the nurses with gender bias attitude. Nurses need to be given a favourable working environment which will boost their morale in the work place. Furthermore, physicians and hospital management need to appreciate the role carried out by nurses (Fagin & Garelick, 2004). By so doing, nurses will attain job satisfaction, and carry out their roles effectively for better results.

Nurse Relationships among peers

The hospital fraternity is made up of individuals who should work together towards the attainment of a common goal (Sayed & Sleem, 2011). Due to that nature of environment, it is essential that proper relationships should be created among all the members within the organization. Nurses have to have a healthy relationship amongst them  to work in harmony, for instance, holding up jobs for colleagues who have emergencies. For them to have healthy relationships they must hold up maximum respect for one another, as well as share responsibilities effectively. No nurse should feel superior to the other to the extent that she/he evades duty (Rosenstein, 2007). Cold relations amongst nurses may create a scenario where a patient’s care is ignored because the care giver of the patient is absent.

Unfortunately, this has not been the case in many hospitals since nurses have been found to develop cold blood towards some of their colleagues. According to Fagin & Garelick (2004), though this may be normal in any social organization, nurses are advised not to transfer their personal issues to professional matters. They have been entrusted with a critical role in which it’s the life of an individual at stake. Moreover, nurses are likely to be influenced through peer pressure to give unsatisfactory work. In such a case, they have been found to treat their patients with disrespect or even go to the extent of ignoring their patient’s needs (Hofoss, Hjortdahl & Krogstad, 2004). It is of importance that as nurses relate with their peers, they should be able to identify negative influence and abstain from it.

Impact of nurse to physician relationships on patients

In most cases, the relationship between nurses and physicians has been found to be very stressful leading to the poor treatment process of the patients. Rosenstein (2007) contends that the main cause of problems between the two parties is the apparent and actual differences in supremacy and status that exists among them. Such differences have actually gone a long way to affect the way of delivery of services to patients. Generally, the field of medicine emphasizes autonomy, role playing and expertise in one’s area of specialization, than interdependence. Though this is good, it has its own undoing as well because people who work together cannot be productive if they cannot share ideas. Alan & Rosenstein (2002) asserts that the different perspective that doctors and nurses hold towards the care of patients may result to strained relations amongst themselves, unless the two sides will adopt a collaborative agenda and work together.

Physicians and nurses work together with the same objective of restoring a patient’s health (Fagin & Garelick, 2004). Thus, it is of no doubt that teamwork in hospitals is very important, minus which many hospitals will fail to deliver quality services to their clients. Good collaboration between doctors and nurses will instil a feeling of hope within patients, as the caregivers will be full of enthusiasm on doing their work. For a successful treatment of a patient, these two sides have to share their ideas and thoughts through an open forum. This is because different individuals hold varied perspectives concerning what they think is best for the patient at hand. Consequently, collaborative teams will be developed basing on the premise that individuals have different skills, however, share a similar philosophical aim concerning patient care. Hofoss, Hjortdahl & Krogstad (2004), suggests that through teamwork and effective communication they can draw appropriate plans for treatment of the patient.

Collaboration can be said to be the process where parties with varied views come together to take part in the decision making process, with the aim of coming up with a better solution to a problem (Rosenstein, 2007). During this forum, different parties should be given equal chances to express what they feel may be the best way forward. In our scenario, the problem at hand is to come up with the best plan of caring for the patients till they recover their health. Mostly, physicians are fond of disregarding nurses’ views since they feel superior to them hence neglecting their views. It is important for physicians to know that they may have the best knowledge in their area of specialization which may not be of much help in other situations (Sayed & Sleem, 2011). That explains why each individual should be treated with maximum respect when it comes to the negotiation table of the care plan.

In conclusion, good relationships between physicians and nurses are worth investing because their positive outcomes are overwhelming (Alan & Rosenstein, 2002). They have an impact both to the collaborators as well as patients. As the professionals collaborate, they work with minimal stress hence perform their work better resulting in the better treatment of the patient. Moreover, the care givers are likely to grow in their career as they find motivation and satisfaction in carrying out their roles. Care givers will feel the worth of their efforts when they attain the well-being of their patients as they share in the joy of working together. Although doctors play a very technical role in the well-being of patients which seem to give them an advantage over the nurses, nurses should not be treated with disrespect (Hofoss, Hjortdahl & Krogstad, 2004). Instead, the exceptional contribution that nurses offer in patient care should demonstrate the importance of nurses in patient’s positive outcomes.