Nurse Practitioner: Drawbacks and Obstacles, Research Paper Example

Rural area nurses rely on transportation to access work and to access the necessary requirements to sustain employment. Even if they choose to use their own cars or use public means of transport, nurses in the rural areas commute long distances to their places of work. Moreover, within the rural areas, there is no constant distance because it varies among particular population and the population’s context. This may affect the health delivery ability of rural area nurses. Further, due to more time spent in commuting and due to the long distances travelled within the rural areas, the nurses incur a lot of expenses in transportation (Jacobsen, 2010).

There is an inadequate supply of nurses and other practitioners in the rural areas. Most nurses in the rural areas are not fully qualified, and there is understaffing in the areas. Moreover, the high population in the rural areas is challenging to nurses in their work of delivering services aimed at people with unique healthcare requirements. The inadequacy of nurse in the rural areas and the high population prevent nurses from seeking employment in the rural areas (Committee on the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Initiative on the Future of Nursing, at the Institute of Medicine, 2011).

Codes of Conduct that pose obstacles to offering quality care of patients are a challenge to nurses in the rural area. Answers to moral issues are often founded on morals that are accepted generally. These morals are privacy, independence, distributive justice and loyalty. Nurses in rural areas may be frustrated with Codes of Conduct and moral requirements of practice that are applicable to urban areas, which are less interdependent (Jacobsen, 2010). Moreover, there is a limited access resource that focuses on ethics, including committees of ethics, literature on ethics, consultants who are fully trained on ethics, and opportunities for ethics education. There is also lack of ongoing education in the field of nursing in the rural areas. This makes it hard for a nurse practitioner in the countryside to be updated on the current developments of the profession.

In the countryside, there is regular shortage of facilities that nurses require in providing their services effectively. In addition, the limited support makes nursing in the countryside a demanding and challenging job. This makes it necessary for the nurses to have a vast experience and an extensive array of knowledge. Occasionally, nurses in the rural areas need a little more creativity in handling distinctive situations (Committee on the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Initiative on the Future of Nursing, at the Institute of Medicine, 2011).

Nurses in rural areas do their work in isolation requiring them to be vibrant and display inventiveness. Isolation might be a hindrance to communication due to the fact that, patients may not be familiar with medical terms generally comprehended by patients in urban areas. Lack of recognition of rural area nurses may make the nurses lose confidence in their profession.

Employment of a nurse in the rural area may not attract higher pay. This is for the reason that the rural communities have insufficient funds to provide higher pay. The government does not provide enough support to cater for the health concerns of the communities and the nurses. The government needs to improve the facilities, opportunities for training, and education opportunities (Jacobsen, 2010). A nurse practitioner who works in the countryside might face the predicament of the lack of implementation of information technology within the healthcare field due to limited access to the technology.

References

Committee on the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Initiative on the Future of Nursing, at the Institute of Medicine, Institute of Medicine. (2011). The Future of Nursing: Leading Change, Advancing Health. National Academies Press.

Winters, C., & Jacobsen, H. (2010). Rural Nursing: Concepts, Theory and Practice. New York: Springer Publishing Co.