Online Module One

Assessment task 3
Module one looked at the specific rights and responsibilities of the registered nurse in a specialty
clinical area, including from the perspective of keeping the nurse and her/his patients/clients
physically and emotionally safe. It also raised the issue of legal responsibilities and identified
issues specific to the specialty area
For your assessment: write a 350 word paragraph on an issue of safety or of legal responsibility that
you explored in some depth, ensuring it is specifically related to the specialty area.
This paragraph should be clearly labeled and with module 2 & 3 written components placed in single
document and uploaded in the relevant dropbox in assessment block

Online Module One
Roles and Responsibiity
The roles and the responsibility (scope of practice) of the registered nurse are defined by the Nursing
& Midwifery Board of Australia (NMBA) in consultation with industry and other governing nursing bodies.
The NNMBA also have definitions pertaining to nurse practitioners and advanced practice nurses.

The following will help you establish a basis for your reflection and enable you to complete the
activity
http://www.nursingmidwiferyboard.gov.au/document/default.aspx?record=WD13%2F10753&dbid=AP&chksum=ke
%2FhMxMHGxnQev5BI%2B0ueQ%3D%3D
Shields (2013) discusses the role of the nurse in a reflective personal essay that makes for
interesting reading on how nursing is viewed and where Australian nursing fits in the global scene. It
makes for a good introduction to the elective and to the module. Please read this article: Shields, L.
(2013). A personal essay on the role of the nurse. Contemporary Nurse: A Journal for the Australian
Nursing Profession, 43(2), 213-218
http://ezproxy.acu.edu.au/login?url=https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?
direct=true&db=ccm&AN=2012257501&site=ehost-live
Having read the above articles it is time to explore what you know and understand about the role of
the specialty nurse within your clinical practice area. consider what you already know is relation to
the NMBA standards of practice for registered nurses. If all registered nurses need to meet these
standards then what more is expected of someone with specialty experience?

To explore the role of the specialist nurse in the area of your elected specialty:
• Find the job description for a clinical nurse in your specialty area and read it.
• Identify the characteristics of the role that is beyond the generic description of the role of
a registered nurse, that is, identify what makes the person a specialist in the area.
• Speak to one of the clinical nurses and ask him/her how they acquired the knowledge and skills
that makes a specialist in the area. You might ask them about what facilitators and barriers they dealt
with in the course of developing their specialty knowledge.
• Write down some key messages you learned from these conversations.
Physical and emotional safety
Staying safe physically is important and discussed frequently. Nurses are very aware of issues such as
manual handling competencies and workplace health and safety issues, but perhaps not as aware of
emotional safety issues. We will explore both in this section, but place it in the local context, by
examining the environment you are working in.

To get you thinking, here is a link to a book chapter on Personal Safety for Nurses (Trinkoff et al.,
2008), in Hughes(2008) Patient Safety and Quality: an Evidence-Based Handbook for Nurses, AHPRO
publication from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, on safety. Admittedly it is from an
American perspective, but useful nonetheless,:
http://archive.ahrq.gov/professionals/clinicians-
providers/resources/nursing/resources/nurseshdbk/TrinkoffA_PSN.pdf
The next reading is an systematic review looking at stress in the Australian nursing workforce. Lim,
J., Bogossian, F., & Ahern, K. (2010). Stress and coping in Australian nurses: a systematic review.
International Nursing Review, 57(1), 22-31. doi:10.1111/j.1466-7657.2009.00765.x
http://ezproxy.acu.edu.au/login?url=https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?
direct=true&db=ccm&AN=2010556606&site=ehost-live

As a way of exploring safety issues in your specialty area:
• Take some time to talk to the staff in your chosen specialty and ask them what safety issue,
whether physical or emotional, concerns them the most.
• Ask them to identify some of the stressors in their current environment
• Find one primary research article that examines this issue, read it and document a brief
summary of the findings.
• In your summary mention one strategy identified from your reading that will help you to keep
yourself safe from this risk.
Roles and Responsibiity
The roles and the responsibility (scope of practice) of the registered nurse are defined by the Nursing
& Midwifery Board of Australia (NMBA) in consultation with industry and other governing nursing bodies.
The NNMBA also have definitions pertaining to nurse practitioners and advanced practice nurses.

The following will help you establish a basis for your reflection and enable you to complete the
activity
http://www.nursingmidwiferyboard.gov.au/document/default.aspx?record=WD13%2F10753&dbid=AP&chksum=ke
%2FhMxMHGxnQev5BI%2B0ueQ%3D%3D
Shields (2013) discusses the role of the nurse in a reflective personal essay that makes for
interesting reading on how nursing is viewed and where Australian nursing fits in the global scene. It
makes for a good introduction to the elective and to the module. Please read this article: Shields, L.
(2013). A personal essay on the role of the nurse. Contemporary Nurse: A Journal for the Australian
Nursing Profession, 43(2), 213-218
http://ezproxy.acu.edu.au/login?url=https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?
direct=true&db=ccm&AN=2012257501&site=ehost-live
Having read the above articles it is time to explore what you know and understand about the role of
the specialty nurse within your clinical practice area. consider what you already know is relation to
the NMBA standards of practice for registered nurses. If all registered nurses need to meet these
standards then what more is expected of someone with specialty experience?

To explore the role of the specialist nurse in the area of your elected specialty:
• Find the job description for a clinical nurse in your specialty area and read it.
• Identify the characteristics of the role that is beyond the generic description of the role of
a registered nurse, that is, identify what makes the person a specialist in the area.
• Speak to one of the clinical nurses and ask him/her how they acquired the knowledge and skills
that makes a specialist in the area. You might ask them about what facilitators and barriers they dealt
with in the course of developing their specialty knowledge.
• Write down some key messages you learned from these conversations.
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