editorial Nursing Specialty Practice Organizations

Medicine and nursing were practiced in America for many years before national organizations for the professions were formed. In 1847, 227 years after the pilgrims landed, the American Medical Association was founded, followed by the American Nurses Association in 1896. Each decade, new medical and nursing specialty practice organizations appeared-in 19 13, The American College of Surgeons; in 1915, The American College of Physicians; 1930, The American Academy of Pediatrics; 195 1, The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists; 1952, The National League for Nursing . . . Nurse Anesthetists, Nurse Midwives, Industrial Nurses, Neurologic Nurses, Urologic Nurses, Emergency Room Nurses, Critical Care Nurses, Obstetric, Gynecologic and and Neonatal Nurses-to mention a few. In recent years more and more nursing specialty practice groups are being organized.

Why are the nursing specialty practice organizations on the increase? Why should we have these organizations? Why have a special association for obstetric, gynecologic and neonatal nurses, for example? Isn’t nursing enough of a speciality? Isn’t one national nurses association sufficient to fulfill the organizational needs of all nurses? Isn’t it fragmentary to have specialty practice groups in nursing? By joining the specialty practice organizations, nurses are answering “NO.” These groups form because they are needed. The need is felt by enough people at the same time to generate the action necessary to organize. All are established to uniquely enhance and promote the practice of medicine and nursing and to improve patient care and health care delivery.

Today’s nurse desires to set her own professional goals and to have a voice in creating guidelines within her special area of nursing practice. By belonging to, and participating in, the specialty organization for her area of nursing practice, she can accomplish her professional goals.

Nursing specialty practice organizations like NAACOG can improve practice and patient care by stimulating members to continue learning new and better methods of patient care. With an organized approach, with common interests and a unified common purpose, a specialty practice organization can provide intellectual stimulation, provide for sharing of ideas and generally advance the specialty.

Specialty practice organizations foster excellence in specialty practice when they provide purposeful programs and promote study for all nurses by offering continuing education and self-assessment examinations and educational publications. The results can be increased complexity of clinical performance, based on increased depth of knowledge, which allows the specialty nurse to assume an expanded role as a contributing member of the health team.

Peer recognition and review is possible within specialty practice organizations. Research can be encouraged, standards and policies set for the nursing specialty. The organizations promote dialogue among members, provide for better communication and stronger liaison with physicians and allied health

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workers and allow members to have a voice in the health care profession. When a democratic structure with realistic dues for the members is developed, the practicing nurse is inclined to participate.

Nursing organizational patterns of the past may have been good, but we have outgrown them. One association no longer can provide all of the specialized services and benefits needed by specialty nurse practitioners today. W e must allow speciality nursing groups to develop organizations which can serve today’s nurses with their diverse specialty needs. W e live in a time when changes are occurring rapidly-morals, life styles, professional roles, job descriptions-and we would be foolhardy to think nursing organizational structures can remain untouched by change. It is time for the established general nursing organizations to stop, look and listen to specialty practice groups in nursing. W e are not splinter groups, rebels without a cause, but rather: nurses organizing to approach specialty areas of nursing through new avenues in line with the trends and needs of today.

Specialty practice groups are necessary, yet nursing needs one strong voice on many issues. Therefore, the specialties in nursing must communicate with each other about many issues of mutual interest. The nursing community must recognize, define and encourage specialty practice organizations. This will require changes in established patterns and relationships, but we must put aside personal feelings and reactionary attitudes and work toward the ultimate goal of improving all nursing practice and providing better patient care. The necessary dialogue among the many nursing groups is beginning. Both the American Nurses Association and the Association of Critical Care Nurses have planned meetings at which representatives of nursing specialty practice organizations will meet to discuss and explore areas of mutual interest and discuss how all nursing organizations can interrelate and communicate. NAACOG representatives look forward to participating in these meetings.

NAACOG was founded to promote obstetric, gynecologic and neonatal nursing education and practice, to promote the specialty and to cooperate with physicians in the specialty to improve the delivery of health care to women.

Just one of the specialty practice groups emerging on the nursing scene, NAACOG is a four-year-old association. Our specialty is obstetric, gynecologic and neonatal nursing and our Association brought together and united practitioners of the same nursing specialty. W e are nurses who share special qualities and characteristics, who share a special interest in our professional work and study. W e are classified together and gather together because of common interests. NAACOG is new. I t is strong. It is committed. It will move forward. NAACOG is growing in membership, activities and membership benefits and programs. NAACOG is a good example of how well a specialty practice organization in nursing can work.

g + h L p n y EDITOR

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