Guest Post By: Nina Mosely
Travel nursing is a career that continually allows you to learn new things, move to new places and advance your position. That is why so many nurses with bachelor-level degrees choose to pursue an advanced master’s degree from a school like the University of Southern California and its USC nursing program. Beyond that, however, nurses could also learn how to become increasingly aware of social, physical, and environmental factors that patients are dealing with. In doing so, these medical professionals could improve the services that they offer their patients. Check out the information below to learn more.
Social, Physical and Environmental Factors:
Social Factors
Understanding the social environment from which a patient comes is a great way to personalize your care to their needs. This sociological knowledge could help a nurse improve the quality of the care provided because this information could offer an important insight into what a patient has gone through and how they actually experience society and the world around them. Plus, an individual’s social environment could have also played a role in the type of care that they received in the past. Ultimately, seeing things from the patient’s perspective could help a nurse boost the level of care provided to people from a wide range of social backgrounds.
Physical Factors
The physical factors of illness are certainly front and center when it comes to treating patients. But, if nurses went a step further and took a more holistic approach to health and healing, they could improve their services. Most nurses will not think to apply a holistic method to their treatment of patients, so if you are a nurse who wants to improve the way you work, consider learning about this approach. You may be surprised by what you can discover about a patient and their needs when you take a step back and view the whole body as a complete system.
Environmental Factors
Medical professionals should not discount the effects that the environment could have when it comes to illnesses and injuries. From poor water quality to pollution, a dirty environment could cause a patient to become ill, and it could even prevent them from getting the care they need to get better. But the unfortunate truth is that the various environmental factors that could contribute to illness are ignored or overlooked when nurses and doctors evaluate patients. On the other hand, with an understanding of the many environmental factors that could adversely affect health, a nurse could dramatically improve the quality of care that a patient receives.
As you can see, there are several ways nurses could improve the quality of care they provide. By understanding every patient’s social, physical, and environmental factors, you could help them in new ways that are more personalized and filled with understanding and empathy. So, if you are a nurse who wishes to improve their services and boost their ability to help others, this is a good place to start.
