When making a decision to become a professional nurse, every practitioner-to-be should realize the scope of the responsibility. Besides providing patients with high-quality care, nurses have to understand the constant need for improvement and value reconsideration in order to ensure professional competence in the future. Hence, the notion of professional accountability is considered to be one of the central aspects of nursing expertise. According to professionals, the concept of professional accountability in nursing stands for the process of having full responsibility for one’s actions both to oneself and others (Davis, 2017). Hence, it is important to define how professional accountability may be demonstrated in various aspects of nursing.
First, such an idea of responsibility is crucial for the overall nursing process. For example, when observing the patient after the operation, it is necessary to follow the professional standards outlined in the general instructions. However, since every treatment pattern has some slight deviations from an accepted scenario, it is the nurse’s primary responsibility to take appropriate action and account for its implications for both the patient and medical practice in general.
Another important aspect to consider in terms of professional accountability is clinical expertise that generally stands for the process of mastering the symbiosis of both theoretical and practical knowledge. In clinical expertise, nurses are to make sure they learn both practical and empirical skills in order to make rightful decisions. For instance, when treating patients with severe side conditions such as diabetes, nurses acknowledge professional responsibility only when combining their experience with the theoretical fundamentals of diabetes’ compatibility with other treatment patterns.
Finally, when speaking of evidence-based practice, it is of paramount importance for the nurses to draw conclusions from their previous experience in order to ensure professionalism and competence in the future. For example, when accepting the responsibility for maltreatment, it is not the penalty that matters the most but the experience (Sherman & Cohn, 2019). By learning the potential outcomes, nurses account for becoming better professionals every day.
References
Davis, C. (2017). The importance of professional accountability. Nursing Made Incredibly Easy!, 15(6), 4. Web.
Sherman, R. O., & Cohn, T. M. (2019). Promoting professional accountability and ownership. Web.