Though the changes have not contributed much in changing the public figure of nursing, nurses have gained sovereignty, accountability in addition to increasing their duties in the health care. Contemporary nursing on the other hand is exclusive as it includes not just knowledge from a specialised body, but also making use of composite level of technology, vast actions and attained skills (Auerbach et al., 2007).
This era faces nursing scarcity and therefore in order to meet the growing demand, nurses are required to continue with their contemporary roles and responsibilities. Incentives for maintenance ought to be developed in order to support these aging and experienced nurses as well as postponing their retirement. According to the Bureau of Labour Statistics the clinical health care industry is currently made up of over 2 million strong nurses. Nurses are of different types with a broad capacity of responsibility and their profession is obtained differently.
The first part will analyse the traditional roles of RNs in Australia and Internationally as well as identifying the factors leading to extensive scope of their roles and responsibilities. The second part will discuss the expanded roles and responsibilities of RNs drawn from related literature. The results of these changes to the clinical care will also be discussed. Most of these responsibilities go beyond the legal boundaries with the problems that come with compromising the safe care patients. Lorenzo et al. (2007) describes that this kind of situation may lead to a state of confusion, anxiety and conflict experienced by the registered nurses. The traditional role of RNs included accessing, planning, evaluating and implementing nursing care of the injured and the sick patients. Nurses have considerably improved on their scope of duties by offering education services as well as clinical training in contrast to that of licensed practical nurses (American Nurses Association, 2006).