Coming into nursing, my primary focus was on the classic pillars of nursing; working on a medical-surgical floor, starting IV infusions, monitoring many patients at a time, and so on. When starting this class, I initially wondered to myself if I would end up using the information given in class as a future nurse. I knew that there were nurse researchers who primarily focus on nursing research and do not generally do anything with patients, but I was unsure if that was the route I wanted to take. However, evidence seemed too important to have so few nurses working on just research.
This class brought to my attention that not just nurse researchers, but any nurses, can conduct evidence-based research. I also noticed, as I worked in my hospital, that the nurses have a bulletin board where they can put questions about nursing practice and other nurses can freely answer the questions, or make teams to conduct evidence-based practice. I found this interesting, and it made me understand how evidence-based practice is applicable anywhere you go.
Nurses contribute to ethical conduct of research and implementation of research findings by deciding to learn more about a topic and, if applicable, bring the evidence to the person in charge of the floor/unit to see if it may be implemented. As stated earlier, nursing research is everywhere and can take place in any unit. Nursing can be ever-improving if evidence-based research is conducted often and positive changes are made to better patient care.
