Qualities of a Nurse: Traits That Define Excellence in Health Care

A registered nurse (RN) requires a comprehensive skill set, including performing blood draws, operating medical equipment, and managing medications. In addition to those hard skills, nurses need soft skills and specific personal characteristics to help them succeed in caring for patients. Some key qualities of nurses include empathy, emotional resilience, and adaptability.

While some nursing students might already possess many essential nurse characteristics, empathy and other traits are qualities that can be developed. At Pacific Lutheran University (PLU), our Accelerated Bachelor of Science in Nursing (ABSN) program teaches future nurses to conduct themselves as ethical, caring professionals. We deliver a values-based education that emphasizes scientific knowledge alongside humanistic theory.

If you are considering a job change to nursing, consider the specific qualities of a good registered nurse and why they are essential to patient care. Then, discover how you can develop and strengthen those characteristics.

Why Are Some Qualities Important for Registered Nurses to Have?

Certain personal characteristics can help registered nurses become more effective and efficient in their responsibilities. For example, empathy builds personal connections with patients, helping them feel more comfortable with their clinicians. This improves the quality of patient care, as patients are more likely to be engaged participants in their treatment when they have good rapport with their provider.

Similarly, other nurse traits support good working relationships with fellow nurses and other providers. Working well with others is crucial for delivering collaborative care and maintaining a positive work culture.

Essential Qualities of a Good Nurse

While there are many important nurse characteristics, the following qualities are among the most essential to cultivate:

Empathetic and Compassionate

Empathy and compassion are often used together or interchangeably, but they have different meanings. Empathy refers to the ability to see things from someone else’s perspective and understand their experience, while compassion is the desire and willingness to help others. Empathy often fuels compassion.

How can you demonstrate empathy and compassion in your nursing practice? If you find yourself frustrated with a patient’s behavior, stop and put yourself in the patient’s shoes. Perhaps the patient is feeling overwhelmed by the hospital environment or their health condition.

Empathy is understanding what your patient is going through. You might spend a few minutes chatting the next time you check on the patient. Let them know you understand that the hospital setting can be overwhelming and validate their feelings.

Eager to Be a Lifelong Learner

Nursing science is continually evolving as research adds new knowledge to the field. Nurses must remain committed to learning and professional development throughout their careers to advance their goals and contribute to better patient care.

Adaptable and Flexible

Adaptability and flexibility are key traits of a good nurse. Since a patient’s condition can change at any time, nurses must continually juggle shifting priorities, often adding new tasks to their to-do list, and step in to handle urgent patient care situations.

Detail-Oriented

Attention to detail is one of the most essential qualities of a nurse. Nurses must care for multiple patients at once in a fast-paced environment. It may be tempting to rush through tasks like charting, but giving each task the attention it deserves is vital for reducing errors.

Collaborative

Besides certain specialties like home health nursing, nurses rarely work alone. Even home health nurses often work as part of a multidisciplinary team overseeing a patient’s care at home. Nurses need to maintain a collaborative mindset when working with other professionals.

Respectful of Others

Nurses work with diverse patient and provider populations. They frequently interact with and care for people from all walks of life and backgrounds; therefore, they must always be respectful of others.

The Impact of These Qualities on Nursing Practice

To understand the impact of the qualities of a nurse on nursing practice, it is helpful to review the primary mission and goals of a nurse, which are to:

• Deliver quality patient care while respecting the dignity and autonomy of the patient.
• Reduce the risk of health care errors.
• Elevate standards of patient safety.
• Provide an improved patient experience that enhances patient engagement.

Nurses also strive for professional growth, good teamwork, job satisfaction, and a positive workplace culture.

The qualities of a good nurse support all these goals, positively impacting nursing practice for both patients and nurses. For example, maintaining a commitment to lifelong learning supports continued professional growth, while emotional resilience contributes to job satisfaction and a positive work culture. Similarly, being detail-oriented reduces the risk of health care errors, and empathy improves patient experience and engagement.

Develop Your Nursing Qualities at Pacific Lutheran University

Pacific Lutheran invites you to begin your journey into nursing with our ABSN program. In our accelerated nursing program, you can set a foundation for lifelong learning and professional development and foster your nursing skills with the help of dedicated faculty and peers. If you have completed a non-nursing bachelor’s degree or at least 60 college credits, you may be eligible to apply. Through our program, you can earn your BSN in as few as 16 months and be ready to take the NCLEX.

Contact an admissions representative today and take the first step toward a nursing career.