Identify the Role of Nurse in Palliative Care in Patients with Advanced Lung Cancer and How the Best Practice Can Be Implemented?

1378 Words6 Pages
Nurses are in a unique position where they are able to act as the only healthcare professional available 24 hours to the patients. According to Virginia Henderson (1997), nursing is the activity which contributes to better health or recovery of a patient or to a peaceful death. This definition by Virginia coincides very much with the definition of palliative care by WHO (2009). The definition by WHO (2009) mentions that palliation includes activities than minimise patient sufferings through a variety of care modalities. This piece of work mainly focuses on the role of a nurse in palliative care of patients with advanced lung cancer. The hospital where the author worked was a national comprehensive centre for the treatment, education and prevention of cancer. This hospital can be considered as one of the leading cancer research centres both nationally and internationally. This institute pioneers not only in chemotherapy and radiation therapy as a part of treatment but also in surgical interventions as well. This centre incorporated a multidisciplinary and a structural approach for the total cancer care programme. The main programmes involved are early detection, health management, rehabilitation, pain relief and terminal care. During the practise as an oncology nurse in the mentioned cancer research centre the author came across many patients with severe chronic pain resulting from metastatic cancer. Some of the patients were at the end of their life and on orders of not to be resuscitated. It was particularly overwhelming to work with such patients as the author at times felt emotional. But on reflection, the author feels that our personal life experiences must be kept outside the work environment and such feelings should not be mixed as this may affect the care. Hence, the author has made up his mind to assess pain in a better way and also to use non pharmacological

More about Identify the Role of Nurse in Palliative Care in Patients with Advanced Lung Cancer and How the Best Practice Can Be Implemented?

Open Document