Thinking like a veterinary nurse

In my last editorial (10.12968/vetn.2022.13.7.291) I spoke about our use of the term nurse and how our professional evolution depends on many things, not least learning from our human nursing colleagues. There is no doubt that the role of the human nursing professional evolved immensely when academics and researchers began to study what it meant to think like a nurse, how this thinking impacted patients, and how the nursing process impacts the broader healthcare sector.

Nursing theory began in the hands of nursing scholars, defining what it means to think and act like a nurse. With this assertion, the profession of nursing set itself apart from every other role in the healthcare team. The identity of nursing pivoted into that of a true professional, making it clear that nurses were not competing with physicians, nor were they simply carrying out health and hygiene tasks, they were thinking. They were reasoning. They were making clinical decisions that were no less important than those made by physicians. They were carving out a niche for themselves as essential members of the healthcare team.