The role of advanced practice in nursing Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

The role of advanced practice in nursing - Essay Example Scholarly articles shall be utilized in order to attain a comprehensive discussion of this subject matter. Personal nursing experiences shall also be integrated into this paper in order to help substantiate the discussion. This paper is being undertaken in order to undertake a thorough evaluation of advanced practice nurse and its crucial role in the health care practice. Advanced practice nurses are defined or described in a variety of ways. The Nursing Scope and Standards of Nursing define advanced practice nurses as those â€Å"having advanced specialized clinical knowledge and skills through master’s or doctoral education that prepares for specialization, expansion, and advancement of practice† (as cited by Jansen & Zwygart-Stauffacher, 2010, p. 5). In this case, specializing refers to the act of concentrating or focusing one’s practice into a part of the greater nursing practice. Specializing in maternal and child care may be one of the areas of advanced practice nursing. It is focused on the care given to the pregnant mother, and subsequently her delivery and child care. It focuses on what the mother and child evidently needs and how the nurse can alleviate such needs. Advanced nursing practice includes the expansion of skills and knowledge – beyond that which is normally covered by nursing practice, sometimes even overlapping the usual boundaries of medical practice (Jansen & Zwygart-Stauffacher, 2010). In the practical setting, this may include the advancement of nursing practice into radiology or diagnostics. Traditionally, the reading and interpreting laboratory and radiography results was the province of radiologists and diagnosticians; but now, some fields of advanced practice nursing now include radiology nursing and diagnostics. This strongly represents the advances in the nursing practice, where the nursing care has gone beyond independent