This year’s National Nurses Week theme is “Nurses: Trusted to Care”. I’m always excited to see what the year’s Nurses Week theme is and how it might relate to our specialty practice. This year is no exception. Correctional Nurses: Trusted to Care

Correctional Nurses: Trusted to Care

Trusted

For many years nurses have topped the list of professionals most trusted by the public. I think correctional nurses are highly trusted by our inmate-patients, as well. In a vulnerable environment where command and control takes precedence, nurses are often the individuals trusted with confidences. Inmates are more likely to risk showing fear or revealing concerns to a nurse in the medical unit than the officer on the housing unit. Are you trustworthy with the information shared? I don’t mean keeping secrets or protecting rule-breaking, that is unsafe and inappropriate. I mean, do you handle considerately the questions that might be asked or the fears that may be revealed? Can you be trusted to do the right thing for your patient? I think these are the difficult questions we answer every day in correctional nursing. It is this trustworthiness that gives value to our work and makes a difference in the lives of our patients.

Care

This second primary word in the annual theme is particularly challenging in the corrections specialty. How do nurses exhibit and implement care in our setting? For many nurses, care is exhibited through touch and empathy, yet these actions are neither safe nor acceptable in most correctional settings. Correctional nurses must find unique and original methods to exhibit care. Caring in correctional nursing includes many things. Here is my list for consideration.

• Treating the inmate-patient with dignity and humanity
• Taking seriously and evaluating each medical request
• Maintaining relationship boundaries which protect both the patient and the nurse
• Truly listening to the patient to seek out the underlying meaning of their request or concern
• Willing to advocate for the patient in the security system for their medical and mental health needs

What would you add to my starter list of correctional nursing evidence of caring?

Correctional Nurses: Trusted to Care- let’s make this our theme for the entire year and not just this week.  Thank you for your efforts to care for and provide care to a challenging patient population. I am honored to be counted among your ranks.

If you like this post, you might like:
Are You Thinking Clearly? Rooting Out Biases in Clinical Evaluations
You Are A Courageous Nurse!
Botulism and Prison Brew
I Found Correctional Nursing and I Love it!
Eight Ways to Improve Clinical Judgment