How Is Nursing Different Than Medicine?
The largest single difference between nursing and medicine is the role of advocate the nursing profession assumes for its patients. It is often believed the difference between these two categories is the education and level of intense training, but that is incorrect. While the education and intense training is vastly different, the advocacy of the patient is what makes sets apart nursing from medicine. During the Clinton administration and health care reform at that time, Rosemarie Rizzo Parse heard the murmur from nurses all across the country that many “valued nursing as a unique discipline, separate from medicine” (1993). Despite the 16 years since that quote, the sentiment remains the same. Nursing is a unique discipline, advocacy for the patient being one of the most obvious features.
Nurse as Advocate
Advocacy is a natural role for the nursing profession as the nurses not only spend considerable amount of time with the patients, they are assigned to specific patients focusing on their care. This is a part of the training and structure of the nursing program. Consider the origins of the term nursing it is from the word nutria, which means to nurture (Breier-Mackie 2006). Individuals in society who aptly fill the nurturing role are mothers. Mothers are known to foster growth, education and protection for their children when the children are not able to do so for themselves (Breier-Mackie 2006). There is very little difference between what a mother typically does and what is expected of nurses. Nurses often find themselves in a role of educator, protector and encouraging growth. This growth is not necessarily the physical growing process as much as physical, emotional and mental growth. When a patient is receiving care from a nurse, the nurse is taking care of the physical needs. The nurse is also educating the patient on what could have contributed to the illness or injury, what can be done to avoid reoccurrence, reassures the patient about the course of treatment and answers questions the patient has regarding any aspect of their care.
The nurse is also available to reassure, calm down and offer support that the world of medicine is not inclined to offer. No matter how many patients are waiting, no matter how crunched the time is nurses are able to make this connection where medicine is not.
Educational Differences
A nurse does not receive the same level of education and training that medicine requires. When medicine is studied it is much more difficult and demanding than nursing. Not only is the depth of the subjects significantly different, the style of teaching the information is also different. The age of the student of medicine is much younger and immature than the typical student of nursing. Medicine students have typically been straight out of high school to college to medical school. Nursing students are often older with a variety of backgrounds and previous careers (Breier-Mackie 2006).
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