Aspects of the Nursing Profession

Oermann defines socialization as a social process of interaction in which a given individual acquires the knowledge, skills and values needed to function as a member of society. Socialization occurs both in childhood and adulthood.

One component of adult socialization concerns career; this component is often referred to as an individual's professional socialization. It is this component that can be applied to the nursing profession.

Professional socialization, according to Oermann, refers to the process of social interactions in which one learns the roles and values associated with a given profession. Applied to nursing, it can be stated that the nurse undergoes a series of social interactions that leads to the development of the knowledge and skills associated with the practice. Moreover, the nurse internalizes norms and values set for the profession, integrating these into his/her own personal code of conduct. There is also an amplification of the construct of "self" that occurs whereby the self now comes to include one's role as a nurse.

As to those agencies, institutions, and situations most contributive to the socialization of nurses, Oermann reports that these tend to be: (1) those educational institutions where nurses learn knowledge and skills associated with the profession (be these knowledge/skills associated with an undergraduate or graduate degree); and (2) those work settings such as cli

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at they allow for the sharing of insights and understandings between nurses. Moreover, each pattern provides unique and distinct understandings or education thereby expanding upon the general knowledge nurses attain. However, the patterns could be problematic in that some nurses tend to over-emphasize one pattern of knowing more that others. For example, a nurse might be inclined to accept any information presented in scientific journals but downplays esthetics as a source of real nursing knowledge. This process of over-emphasizing one pattern of knowing can operate to limit and distort the nurse's professional perspective due to imbalance. A change that could be implemented here would be to assist the nurse in learning how to critically examine and interpret the information he/she receives from any pattern of knowing against the whole of what is known; such a change would reduce or eliminate the distortion in perspective caused by non-critical acceptance of one source of knowing and thereby broaden the nurse's general knowledge and perspective. Discuss the characteristics of the adult learner and how they relate to an adult RN returning to school for a BSN. Ferrell states that adult learners are self-directed, u
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Some common words found in the essay are:
RN Perry's, BSN Ferrell, Policy Statement, , Betty Neuman's, System's Model, Nursing Theory, Florence Nightingale, critical thinking, knowledge skills, nursing process, health care, practice nursing, nursing practice, professional socialization, objectives goals, adult learners, stage thinking, clients' health care, social policy statement, Social Policy, specialized knowledge skills, acute care setting, characteristics adult learners,
Approximate Word count = 2389
Approximate Pages = 10 (250 words per page)

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