The growing need for community nurses
Community nursing, or public health nursing, is a part of the medical field that deals with addressing medical needs within a particular community. Some form of this type of health care has been in place for many years. In some ways, the field can be a bit hard to define because it can touch a variety of different environments within a society. What often distinguishes community nurses from other practitioners is that they are specifically targeted to addressing the needs of a whole group, as opposed to focusing on individual patients in a medical setting.
Medical facilities and community boundaries
One challenge with community nursing is how to utilize the nurses' skills and abilities in the proper setting. Standard medical structures tend to put doctors and nurses all in one place, such as a hospital or medical clinic. The goal of community nursing is to place nurses in collective groups such as schools, workplaces and local neighborhoods. This provides a level of expertise in an area where there is a concentration of people so that the medical personnel can serve a whole population. A hospital or medical clinic is still a crucial part of the medical process, but in many cases there is a team of doctors and nurses treating one patient. In theory, the community nurse can reach out to a group to provide education, prevention and care.
Education
Medicine is not just about treating sickness or addressing injuries. Ideally, medicine should also include aspects of education so that some of the medical issues experienced by people and groups can hopefully be avoided. This means that community nurses can often partner with different types of practitioners and experts such as medical doctors, nutritionists and mental health professionals. The goal is to educate people on making good choices that will ideally lead to better health.
Prevention
The goal of medical education is to create a much greater level of prevention. While some diseases and other conditions are linked to genetic predispositions, other medical problems can be prevented if community members are willing to make certain lifestyle choices. The community nurse can provide a level of authority and insight. This means that members of a neighborhood or organization are provided with the right information that is backed up by experts in the medical community.
Societal problems
Throughout history, societies have faced a number of medical issues, particularly as they pertain to various diseases. This is why community nurses may be so important as society continues to move into the future. Medical experts and observers continue to forecast the development of deadly viruses that could be devastating for the entire planet. While community nurses may not be able to prevent such a catastrophe, they could play a key role in prevention and fill an additional role of care if such a situation developed. While community nurses are not the key focal point of modern medical care, they do play a vital part in helping a specific group of individuals minimize their medical needs and maintain healthy lives.
