Paper Sample on Evolution of Healthcare: Roles of Medical Professionals and Healthcare Policies

Journal 1

The sociology of nurses and midwives in the modern health care system has improved over time. The growth is translated on improved health care and reduced mortality rates, which have been achieved through a close working relationship between key players in the healthcare system. As a result, nurses have played an essential role in modernizing the health care system. However, from the study, it is evident this has not always been the case as nurses were considered helpers during the WW2 period. They were performing minor duties like feeding and comforting injured soldiers (Yelling, 2010). Besides, insufficient nursing schools offer challenges for countries in stumping the right role for nurses during this period.

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To some extent being a nurse was seen as a form of prostitution as people didn't understand how a woman would take care of a stranger she barely knows. In 1874, the first official program for nursing was implemented at the universal and marine hospital in St. Catherine’s Ontario (Helmstadter 2006). During this period, a job description was formulated though I find it primitive to some extent; it formed the basis of modern nursing as more duties were assigned.

Today, nurses are an essential professionals for examination since their professionalization course has been highly reliant on doctors and centered on maintenance principles. Therefore, it is crucial to analyze ways in which these practitioners embrace their recent environments while upholding their traditional competence (Cavahlo 2014). Besides, the unique setting has been achieved through the introduction of higher education for nurses, which also offers managerial skills; this equips them and thus provides them a more comprehensive range of opportunities away from taking care of the patients.

It’s anticipated that the nurses' roles will continue to evolve as with time and to increase their skill levels, which will enable them assume more critical responsibilities in the future. Besides, numerous healthcare facilities are being operated like commercial corporations, with a larger focus on operational efficacy, quality care, and productivity (Jamali, 2010). Therefore, staff such as nursing practitioners should not only conduct their essential duties, but also collaborate or cooperate with the executives in high ranks positions with operation-related duties rather than care. All this can be achieved by improving the healthcare education system and ensuring that there is a more elaborate role for the society on how nurses and midwives should be improved to offer the best services.

From the study, it’s evident that there will be a change in the ideology that nursing should be pursued by a specific gender (Helmstadter, 2006). The change will help achieve gender equality as advocated for an inclusive gender balance; more respect will also be expressed towards this type of practice. Regarding sexism, the concept will be eliminated by forming laws and more strong labor unions that will be able to protect the fundamental right of a nurse practitioner. Through sociology, nurses and midwives understand society's policies and have to work under moral norms and beliefs even if the guidelines do not serve the community at best.

Journal 2

The idea to study medical issues or illness helps individuals to understand how medical sociology has evolved today (Bauman & May 2014). The medical approach to competence and self-governing actions as a reflection to all professions' always-transitioning relative to society. Besides, it is fabricated for allowing medicine to embrace the emerging demands in communities while dealing with issues emanating from doctors' performance and attitudes. Thus, it's important to note that a professional rank is not an intrinsic right, but it's something established by society (Bauman & May 2014). Besides, there should be a certain level of mutual benefit for both medical professionals and the community. The maintenance of status relies on the public perception that experts are reliable and can provide a beneficial healthcare system in society. To remain trustworthy, they have to meet all obligations expected by the community in question. Thus, it evident that the aspect of expertise ought to be incorporated in all stages of the medical course or program, as part of a plan to reform societal anticipations.

Recent studies show the importance of the doctor-nurse relationship in the working environment in building and nurturing the medical professionalism. As a result, effective collaborations between these two groups has become one of the most crucial aspects in medical competence. The collaboration achieves a more elaborate working experience where the patient is more likely to benefit (Cavahlo 2014). In the previous years, the doctors tended to downgrade the clinical training that most nurses undergo over years, and perceive them as having only the basic knowledge on how to take care of the patient. However, collaborating and engaging their opinion on regarding how the patient is reacting to the choice of medical interventions will most likely improve patient health and satisfaction.

Journal 3

Healthcare policies play a vital role in ensuring that medical practices improve the quality of life for people. Therefore, countries with the best healthcare services have developed plans and strategies to improve the quality of care. As a result, the United States and Canada are considered among the top countries with quality healthcare services and policies (Barua et al., 2016). In Canada, healthcare is one of the most crucial factors that are incorporated into the government budget. However, government involvement is different from centralized and decentralized governments. In countries like the United States and Canada, healthcare is left on the provinces and states (Barua et al., 2016). The government funds healthcare in the form of Medicare, and in Canada, only physicians and hospitals' services are insured through Medicare.

However, as in the United States, most of the healthcare facilities in Canada are owned by private investors and companies. As a result, the healthcare system in Canada does not represent socialized medicine. Besides, medical practitioners are operating as private businesses to earn income on a pay-for-service basis. Thus, to understand the role that healthcare policies play in a diverse society, it is essential to examine the history of healthcare in Canada. Canadian Medicare was established in the 1966 Medical Care Act (Morgan and Boothe, 2016). However, everyone in the country does not access Medicare funding. As a result, Medicare has enabled the less fortunate members of the community. History shows that escalation costs of universal health care in Canada during the late 1980s (Morgan and Boothe, 2016), prompted the government to refocus its attention from health care issues and equity to matters of cost-effectiveness and efficiency.

Implementation of policies in healthcare has numerous implications for the country and government. For instance, critics have argued that the Canada Health Act (CHA) prohibits provinces from executing substantial healthcare reforms that may improve the country's health care quality (Morgan et al., 2017). The act was established to enable the government to stop funding any province that does not comply with it. Therefore, the implementation of healthcare policies may have different implications for both the public and the federal government. According to Barua et al., (2016), broad international assessments of worldwide health care systems show that Canada is a comparatively high spender that attains only average performance.

The lessons I have learned from this is that change impacts on many aspects of society. Therefore, although Canada has implemented many reforms since the introduction of universal healthcare, the federal government incurs higher costs than the United States government. Another important lesson is that Success in healthcare is influenced not only by policies implemented but also by abundant factors, some of which are manageable while others are not (Morgan & Boothe, 2016). For instance, private institutions that offer health care services to the public play an important role in improving the country's quality of healthcare. Therefore, allowing decentralization of decision-making is the best strategy to implement significant reforms.

The theoretical models may be used to link healthcare policies society, evaluating the significance of implemented reforms and policies in the Canadian healthcare system. The theory of change considers the effects of growth or reforms implemented in social healthcare. Besides, the approach is based on its capacity to validate progress on the accomplishment of results (Taplin & Clark, 2012). Some critics have argued that the new policies implemented in Canada are so restrictive. For instance, the CHA policy prohibits the implementation of universal healthcare reforms implemented by other developed countries such as Sweden, France, and Australia (Morgan et al., 2017). Therefore, I think policy-makers should always trying to balance the quality of care, accessibility, and the costs, because too much focus on one of this element may bring undesired impacts.

References

Barua, B., Timmermans, I., Nason, I., & Esmail, N. (2016). Comparing the performance of universal health care countries, 2016. Fraser Institute.

Bauman, Z., & May, T. (2014). Thinking sociologically. John Wiley & Sons.

Carvalho, T. (2014). Changing connections between professionalism and managerialism: a case study of nursing in Portugal. Journal of Professions and Organization, 1(2), 176-190.

Helmstadter, C. (2006). Reforming hospital nursing: the experiences of Maria Machin. Nursing Inquiry, 13(4), 249-258

Morgan, S. G., & Boothe, K. (2016). Universal prescription drug coverage in Canada: Long-promised yet undelivered. In Healthcare management forum (Vol. 29, No. 6, pp. 247-254). Sage, CA: Los Angeles, CA: SAGE Publications.

Morgan, S. G., Li, W., Yau, B., & Persaud, N. (2017). Estimated effects of adding universal public coverage of an essential medicines list to existing public drug plans in Canada. CMAJ, 189(8), E295-E302.

O’Meara, P., Wingrove, G., & McKeage, M. (2018). Self-regulation and medical direction. International Journal of Health Governance.

Taplin, D.H., & Clark, H. (2012). Theory of change basis: A primer on the theory of evolution. New York: Actknowledge.

Yellin, E. (2010). Our mothers' war: American women at home and the front during World War II. Simon and Schuster.