Nursing is a holistic, broad-based career that focuses on caring and promoting good health. I believe that nursing is scholarly practice which involves various aspects in order for individuals to reach their highest health status. In addition, nursing does not only stop at treating a single client but as I stated earlier it is a broad-based career, there for it reaches various aspects, such as family and communities. It is important to reach all the aspects of nursing to ensure the best practice that every individual deserves. Literature Review One of the aspects of nursing is the community and an individual’s family.
Personal Philosophy of Nursing My philosophy of nursing affects directly from Florence Nightingale’s anecdote and her contribution to nursing in her life. In order to clarify what is the philosophy of nursing, I read many famous works of prominent philosophers. Thanks to her nursing thought, I obtained my own beliefs and values. Nurses should care not only about how to finish orders from doctors or how to satisfy advisors, but they should put the patients on the first place. In addition, nurses should consider how to make a big difference for patients when patients are receiving treatment.
She believes in the relationship between love, caring and peace. According to Watson Caring Institute, 2012, “The caring model or theory can also be considered a philosophical and moral/ethical foundation for professional nursing and part of the central focus for nursing at the disciplinary level,” (The Implications of Caring Theory). Morally nurses are expected to protect human dignity. Ethically nurses are to provide competent and safe care to the best of their ability for the well-being of the patient. Nurses are to apply their personal values and treat each patient as an individual and not judge them based upon their differences.
Watson’s model can best be described in terms of the nursing metaparadigm. When describing nursing, Watson proclaims that caring is the “moral ideal” (1988, p.54). She explains that contact between two human beings can help the ill discover new knowledge that will assist with recovery and promote harmony. The nurse is involved in a partnership with the patient in the caring process in which the goal is intersubjectivity. Watson explains that because nursing is a human science, there are important moral, spiritual and metaphysical components and we can use our spirits to relate to others (Watson, 1988).
Hence, nurses have the responsibility to advocate patients and help them out. Nurses engaged in professional activities should have the manner that protects patients’ autonomy in order to advocate for patients. According to Mahlin’s article, “Individual Patient Advocacy, Collective Responsibility and Activism Within Professional Nursing Associations”, “Patient autonomy is an essential part of patient advocacy” (Mahlin, 2010). Every patient has the right to choose whether to be involved in planning their health plan or not, because patients have autonomy to make the decision. As nurses, we should seek available resources to help patients to formulate decisions to utilize their rights and achieve their expectations if they confront a dilemma or they have inadequate health knowledge.
One theorist who followed in her footsteps and adopted her philosophy regarding nurse caring behaviors is Jean Watson. Watson developed her Human Science and Human Care Theory in the late 1970s, which she developed in an attempt to prove that nurses have a common goal in treating the patient from a scientific and philosophical perspective. Caring for the person is an integral part of Watson’s theory. Watson believes that people learn to be human from one another and by learning from what other people have discovered about themselves (Watson, 1985). In her theory, Watson describe human beings as “a valued person and of him
Introduction Nursing from Nightingale era to the present world has merged as one of the noblest profession, with distinct advancement in nursing research, practices and education. These added enhancements are incorporated by nursing philosophies and theorys that contribute to nursing. Nursing theory is a foundation to any nursing program. It assists as a framework for the practising nurse to learn and apply into the nursing profession, to achieve positive outcomes in practice and client response. Definations and correlation between asumptions and relationships are evolved from the nursing models to provide a systematic approach in the delivery of patient care via describing, explaning, predicting and prescribing (Mckeena, 1997).
She was able to combine the various concepts into nursing as a science of human concerns. Assumptions, Concepts, and Relationships Watson recognized that spiritual and ethical proportions are major elements of the caring process. She proposed that caring and love are common and inexplicable. She believed that health professionals make social, moral, and scientific contributions to mankind and that the caring ideal of nursing can affect human development (McEwen & Wills, 2014). This is crucial today’s society to sustain Care in nursing practice.
APNs can facilitate the ability to practice both the art and science of nursing and reduce the chasm between theory and practice by using nursing theory as a foundation. According to Chism, nursing theory is made up of ideas brought together by associated expressions that characterize, clarify, and foretell phenomenon that are in accordance with nursing viewpoints (Chism, 2013). Nursing theory helps to identify what should shape the foundation of practice by clearly describing nursing. It is essential the APN use nursing theory in evidence-based practice, to provide better patient care, improve communication between nurses, and as a guide for nursing research and education. In addition, because the main champion of nursing, caring, cannot be quantified, it is crucial to have a theory to examine and spell out what the APN does.
Theory Analysis Paper It is my personal philosophy of nursing is that nurses are responsible for providing competent, compassionate, patient-centered care. My personal philosophy of nursing has been affected by both my individual value system developed as a child and by my knowledge of the nursing profession itself including formal nursing education and Code of Ethics. It is difficult to say which one had the greater impact on my personal nursing philosophy, but I am very confident that it was my individual values that lead me to enter a profession like nursing. My life-long personal beliefs and values that lead me to nursing and affect my nursing philosophy include, kindness, honesty, security, family, accountability, lifelong learning, and God as the guiding force in my life. .This belief system aligns well with a nursing profession that I define as a profession that provides compassionate care and promotion of healing for ill and injured individuals, education and advocacy for clients and families, collaboration of care with other professionals for optimal outcomes, and health promotion and prevention for well individuals.