MESSAGE FROM THE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Abstract

First allow me to welcome all of you to the New Year. We here at The Malaysian Journal of Nursing appreciate all of your help and support in making us Malaysia's premier source for nursing information.We want to make sure that Malaysia has a local outlet for our profession and that we stay competitive internationally. As we already know, the face of nursing today is evolving ever rapidly. In this change we have seen a shift in the role of nurses. It used to be that nurses performed secondary tasks to carry out doctors orders and provide greater patient comfort and care. Now it seems that nurses are being asked to assume a larger role in the healthcare industry.

While this is good for the reputation of nurses in Malaysia it presents a new type of problem: A decrease in patient care due to increased shift hours, on the job stress, and general indifference towards the job. Since us as nurses now have these roles, our ability to consistently perform well is under scrutiny. This is a major concern today, that nurses who underperform now have a greater negative impact on overall patient care.

As you will see in a few of our articles in this issue there is no definitive cure for all of these ailments. It seems that only with a strong nursing community that the difficulties that we are facing can be addressed. This is something that could be helpful to everyone, nurses for nurses. What this means is that every nurse should try and look out for their fellow colleagues; in doing so we can improve our own lives and the lives of our patients as well. As we strive to prevent, what Dev Raheja calls "second victims" we'll create a happier and healthier workforce.

With this kind of effort we can remind ourselves as to why we got into nursing in the first place, to help improve people's lives. In what better way can we serve that purpose than by looking after those of us who are stumbling in their lives because of work. This is what we should focus on as a cohesive community, the fact that we can change the way people live, in general, for the better. If every nurse can help to change one person then we'll all be living in a better world!