Personal Nursing Philosophy
Nursing for me is all about taking care of every patient and always using the knowledge that I have respectfully and honestly to deliver the best care to patients. As A nurse I consider my responsibility to offer spiritual, physical and emotional help to patients and their relatives irrespective of the environment. I associate myself with the theorist Jean Watson who argues that the responsibility of nurses is to take care of values, needs and experiences of the patient. Following Watson’s theory as my guide, I will address some of the key concepts of my nursing philosophy and how I relate my nursing philosophy to the nursing profession.
Nursing in the modern day has been affected by the technological developments like machinery, which are getting adopted in the health care system. Watson argues that curing a disease is not achieving health, a patient’s disease may be treated but they may not really get healed because they carry emotional burden (Ngonzalo, 2016). Healthcare should incorporate caring in its concepts, the only way caring is achieved is through responsiveness between the patients and the nurses. My personal nurse philosophy is basically branded by kind-hearted and ethnically sensitive care to all patients and their family members. As a nurse, I always find it essential for me to be an advocate, provider, teacher and also a leader to the patient, because this is what helps ensure that I deliver the highest quality care. Nursing in my understanding, is all about empathy and appreciating people at all life situations. My belief is that a professional nurse needs to be personally committed to enduring training through formal schooling and real life experience in order to gain more knowledge in the nursing field.
My nursing philosophy categorizes the nursing field into four paradigms as described by Watson in her theory. The paradigms include; people, surroundings, nursing and health. Watson defines human beings or people as valued persons that should be cared for, valued, cherished, understood and helped. Health as Watson defines it is a great level of general physical, psychological and societal running in the existence of efforts that guarantee that diseases do not prevail (Ngonzalo, 2016). Health is an active state which exists on the scope of wellness to sickness, this normally shift in response to environmental aspects. Health is basically just about the quality of life, when am working at the hospital, I always encounter patients who have trauma experiences from suffering from multiple chronic diseases. These are people who suffer every day and all they hope for is to get well and regain their health so that they can have quality life.
The environment or surroundings is defined in the idea that nurses are professional that exist in every kind of society and so a caring approach is conveyed from one age group to the other, by the philosophy of the nursing vocation (Tang et al., 2019). This has hence worked as a unique way of helping the nursing profession to always cope coping with its environment. I believe that care is all about dealing with the whole patient, not just dealing with the health issue that patient is dealing with. I believe that the best way to take care of patients is to look past the patient and deliberate on the setting in which they live in. People are members of a much larger society that has different traits and features that influence the patients greatly. It is hence important to understand that patients cannot be separated from their environments because they work hand in hand.
Watson considers all-inclusive health care to be essential to the caring practice in the discipline of nursing. Nursing is a humanoid discipline of people and their well-being experiences which are dealt with by experts, scientific and moral human connections (Ngonzalo, 2016). I believe that nursing is all about getting involved with the individual patients, understanding and taking care of their needs both physical and emotional. As a professional nurse, I encounter various situations that require my ability to understand and take care of patients’ situations no matter how difficult it may be without bias.
Nursing is a process that utilizes all-inclusive, patient fixated and problem solving approach when it comes to dealing with patients and their relatives (Ngonzalo, 2016). Every patient has different needs and they thus require different action plans. It is always important to have care planned in respect to the needs of the patient which is why it is important to use the nursing process. The nursing process is an effective way to help cater for the specific needs of the patients. The first step in the nursing process in delivering health care is through assessment, where patient data is collected and analysed to understand their needs (Bliss et al., 2017).
Nursing diagnosis is the second step and it is where a clinical judgement is made to understand the response of the patient to their health needs. Diagnosis is important as it helps to reflect on the effects of a health problem in regard to nutrition, psychological effects and conflicts with family (Bliss et al., 2017). The third step is where quantifiable and attainable short term and long tern objectives are established depending on the assessment and diagnosis. The other step is implementation; this is where nursing care is realized in reference to the care proposal. At this stage, it is always important to ensure that there will be continuity of care for the patient during the time that they are hospitalized and whey they are ready to be discharged. The last step is evaluation, and his is where the status of the patient and the efficiency of the care provided by nurses is constantly assessed. The care design is always altered as required to ensure effective care is offered to the patient (Bliss et al., 2017).
My personal nursing philosophy is based on compassion and care. I believe that in the nursing profession, compassion and care are two important elements that help effective health care to prevail. As a nurse, it is always important to understand that one is not only taking care of the physical health of the patient, they are also caring for their emotional needs (Holopainen et al., 2019). I work in the surgical floor where I get to interact with different types of patients, suffering from various conditions. I sometimes have to take care of patients that are chronically ill and they require a lot of emotional care to help them cope with their conditions. Most of these patients spend most of their time at the hospital and so they become like family, they perceive me as not only their care provider but also their friend.
Most of the time is spent having social conversations with in addition to providing medical needs. Having these social interactions with these patients helps in meeting their emotional needs, this has positive effects on their recovery. Patients with chronic ailments are more affected emotionally and this affects their physical health because they lose hope in life (Tang et al., 2019) It is important as a nurse to offer emotionally support to patients and their families who suffer just as much as the patients. When a nurse has good relations with the patient’s family, they are able to understand some factors that could be affecting treatment and wellbeing of the patient (Holopainen et al., 2019). The nurse is in this case able to teach the patient and their relatives on the best care methods to help improve recovery for the patient. Good relations between the nurse and the patients ensure effective care is offered which helps improve the patient’s health condition and reduce frequent hospital visits for the patient.
Watson’s theory may not be effective in a health care unit where the ratio of the nurses to the patients is low. A nurse caring for many patients at the same time may not have time to initiate personal relations with the patients because of the workload. To cultivate a special connection with a patient, a nurse is required to spend adequate time with the patient. A nurse taking care of multiple patients at once may not have the time to spare for all the patients to learn about their personal lives as the theory requires. Another situation where the theory may be ineffective is for the patients that are unconscious. These are patients that cannot communicate, and so the nurses are only able to offer medical help without any emotional implications.
Nursing is a discipline that continues to progress and in order to support this progress, engagement of the nurses need to be increased. Nurses are health care providers but they also need to be more involved in the life of the patient in order for proper health care to be provided. Effective health care is only possible if the emotional needs of the patient are taken care of. My personal nursing philosophy is to ensure that I provide all inclusive care and this means considering the external factors that could affect recovery of a patient. Taking time to understand the patients and how their lives at home are like can greatly help understand some of the best health care strategies that can work for the patient. Engaging the patients, help them to open up and it becomes much easier to understand some of the underlying issues that they are facing which is affecting their health conditions. Effective health care can only be effectively demonstrated and practiced interpersonally. Effective caring does not only promote health but also individual and family growth.
References
Bliss, S., Baltzly, D., Bull, R., Dalton, L., & Jones, J. (2017). A role for virtue in unifying the
“knowledge” and “caring” discourses in nursing theory. Nursing Inquiry, 24(4), n/a-`` N.PAG. https://doi.org/10.1111/nin.12191
Holopainen, G., Nyström, L., & Kasén, A. (2019). The caring encounter in nursing. Nursing
Ethics, 26(1), 7–16. https://doi.org/10.1177/0969733016687161
Ngonzalo, A. (2016, May 10). Jean Watson's Theory of Human Caring. Retrieved from
https://nurseslabs.com/jean-watsons-philosophy-theory-transpersonal-caring/
Tang, F. W. K., Ling, G. C. C., Lai, A. S. F., Chair, S. Y., & So, W. K. W. (2019). Four Es of
caring in contemporary nursing: Exploring novice to experienced nurses. Nursing & Health Sciences, 21(1), 85–92. https://doi.org/10.1111/nhs.12561
