My Nursing Philosophy

“Philosophy encompasses belief claims about the exploration of principles based on knowledge, being, and conduct; thus, stance is a specific view held by a person or group” (Burns & Groves, 2011, p. 229). Nursing for me, is a calling and caring passion of lifelong learning that, aims to support persons holistically with health and illness situations, promote healing environments, and assist in health promotion and disease prevention. Nursing involves formal education with complex substantive content reflecting a variety of disciplines, yet integrated into an approach to health and illness situations that represents the special influence of nursing; arriving at this point in nursing education and practice reflects my personal access to obtaining
one of my lifelong goals and represents continuing education indicative of centuries of ongoing development for the profession of nursing. The purpose of this assignment is to explore the extent in which my personal philosophy closely aligns with the College of Nursing (CON) philosophy, in terms of persons, environment, health, and nursing.
Person
My personal philosophy closely aligns and supports the philosophy of the CON.
Communities, individuals, and families necessitate holistic care; therefore, holistic care encompasses evaluating and treating individuals’ mental, emotional, physical, social, spiritual, cultural, and psychological needs. In addition, holistic care is essential for all persons to achieve ultimate health and wellbeing; and, healing the whole person should be the aim of nurses (Eliopoulos, 2014). Patients’ have a right to receive individualized patient centered care, and nurses have a responsibility to be culturally competent and ensure holistic care that respects patients’ values and ethics. By remaining sensitive to each individual’s values we can execute delivery of care by treating the body, mind, and spirit to promote efficient and effective quality of
care.
Environment
“Multiple environmental systems must remain in balance to sustain life; thus, our environment consists of physical domains, and social domains” (Hood, 2014, p. 324). An environment can positively or negatively affect an individual’s life. Nurses should feel obligated to be mindful of this when delivering care to deliver positive outcomes. By knowing patients’ environments, we can coherently grasp the importance of differing methods of care. Nurses must evaluate and facilitate efforts of an individual to respond capably to the demands being experienced by his or her condition, environment, situation, and time in order to potentiate the maximum possible benefits (Schuiling & Likis, 2013). Efforts for health promotion and disease prevention necessitate environmental considerations; thus, nurses must consider the role and aspects of individuals’ environment when creating individualized plans of care.
Health
“Health is viewed as encompassing both disease and “nondisease”; therefore, health can be conceptualized as an actively continuing process that involves initiative, ability to assume responsibility for health, value judgments, and integration of the total person” (Hood, 2014, p.
182). As nurses we should promote health holistically, by focusing on our patients’ as a whole emplaning on strengths and barriers they may exist with their overall health. Focusing on the body, mind, and soul will increase the well-being of our patients’, and provide us with more optimal overall health. The essence of health care is the continuous and committed relationship between nurses and patients’; it is this connection that expedites communication and empowers patients to be involved in their health and well-being (Buttaro, Trybulski, Polgar-Bailey, & Sandberg-Cook, 2013). Building relationships provides the patient to feel control in their individual health. When a patient feels empowerment they are heightened to integrate the best practices to maintain a state of healthy well-being. This will further provide quality on an individual level of healthy
well-being.
Nursing
Promoting continuing education will enable nurses to develop a recognition of the commitment needed in our profession. Nursing is ever changing, and we need to continually be up to date with studies and technology. The desire to research and practice using evidence-based practice will help patients’ achieve and overcome diseases or illness that are developed in their lifespan. We advocate for our patients’, perform patient education, and guide them on their journey to healthy lifestyles by continually assessing, evaluating, and planning our patient care to integrate success of their care. Caring, sensitive providers understand that patients are more than the sum of their physiologic systems as this belief underlies the concept of holism; the holistic approach to a patient recognizes and incorporates the complex interactions among the biologic, psychological, sociologic, and spiritual dimensions in every encounter (Buttaro et al., 2013). Holism enables us to provide supreme quality of care, while maintaining individual respect for our patients’ values and beliefs.
Conclusion
Nurses should have a desire to possess the knowledge to encompass improved nursing care for our patients’. Incorporating caring relationships by practicing holistically, therapeutically communicating, furthering education, and advocating for our patients’ rights is imperative to deliver safe and effective quality of care. While self-reflecting, I acknowledge nursing is looked at as a thankless profession, but the gratification one feels is more powerful than words could ever speak; therefore, nursing is truly a calling to do good for all mankind.