Hello class!

We are going to transition into the fourth sphere of political action; government. There are 3 primary roles for nurses within this sphere which include nurse-citizen, nurse-activist, and nurse-politician. As I have stated before, all 4 spheres overlap and work together; therefore, these nursing roles are also applicable in other spheres. The nurse-citizen fulfills a very fundamental role focusing more on personal responsibilities, the nurse-activist takes a more politically charged role, and the nurse-politician is the most politically active, typically holding a governmental/organizational position or office (Hughes, 2012; Mason, Leavitt, & Chaffee, 2007).

Here are a few pictures and cartoons depicting the issues nurses are concerned about and how they hope lobbying and presenting ideas for change to lawmakers can improve these issues.

Voting for health care and nursing issues:

Address the nursing shortage:

Address nurse to patient ratios:














Lack of access to care due to cost:


















For this blog, I want you to post a function a nurse can perform within each role. For example, a nurse-citizen has the responsibility to vote.  As you will see the nurse-activist assumes all the functions of a nurse-citizen, but then preforms additional functions as well.  Likewise, a nurse-politician encompasses the roles of a nurse-citizen and nurse-activist, and then preform additional duties exclusive to their role. Please do not post that a nurse-politician votes as this falls into the nurse-citizen area. Do not limit yourself to the text book, be creative and write something different than your peers!

*** Starting next week we will be looking at PL 111- 148 known as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act or Obamacare. We will look at the nursing provisions within the law as well as the affects national health insurance will have on nursing and health care. Make sure you review the assigned readings as this will help you not only in your discussion posts, but also here in the blog.

                                 References

Hughes, F. (2012, June 19). Relationship between

     leadership, policy, and politics [PowerPoint slides].

     Retrieved from http://www.slideserve.com/tod/

     relationship-between-leadership-policy-and-politics

Mason, D. J., Leavitt, J. K., & Chaffee, M., W. (2007).

     Policy and politics in nursing and health care (5th

     ed.). St. Louis, MO: Elsevier Saunders.