ANALYSIS OF NURSES' RESPONSES TO GENERAL PRACTICES AND ATTRIBUTES OF CLINICAL NURSES
Rehabilitation Nursing is composed of a variety of skills, and practices (Hoeman, 2002). Further, rehabilitation nurses should demonstrate certain attributes that operate to maximize their clinical practice (Alexander, Hiduke & Stevens, 1999). This project involved conducting an interview with a rehabilitation nurse (PG) working at the Rehabilitation unit in the Southern Arizona VA Health Care System. Several questions were asked of this nurse, each of which provided him with an opportunity to comment on various practices and attributes of his experience as a rehabilitation nurse. The purpose of this paper is to compare and analyze PG's responses with what the literature indicates to be the general practices and attributes expected of competent and successful clinical nurses.
In terms of characterizing the interviewed nurse's responses in relation to practices and attributes of clinical nurses, several points can be made. First, the interviewed nurse, PG, has definite clinical interests (e.g., likes surgical nursing and working with wounds) but he does not appear to have a set of clear goals in terms of his advancement in the profession; at least this was not expressed in terms of discussing his transfers and changes in the field. This can be contrasted with the literature on the attributes and practices of clinical nurses which repeatedly has shown that having strong and clear goals is an important part of success in nursing.
For example, Weckerly (1998) reports that a good nurse is directed both toward the goals associated with clinical practice and toward goals associated with career advancement. Such a nurse sets reasonable goals and works hard to attain them. It should be noted that this is something which rehabilitation nursing and general clinical nursing both have in common. Indeed, Hoeman (2002) states that rehabilitation nursing...