Watson also characterizes nursing as a healing art and science dedicate to the pursuit of harmonious and sacred relationships (George, 2011). Her theory of human caring was first published in 1979 from the vision of theorist Florence Nightingale. “Watson stated that the original intent of her work was to serve as worldwide or ethic by which nursing could explore and understand its tradition and purpose in caring and healing” (George, 2011, p. 455). As a contributing theorist of the developmental model, her human caring theory approach came from Carl Roger’s phenomenological psychology and physiology. She was also influence by several philosophers such as Whitehead, Kirkegaard, and deChardin from a philosophical aspect.
At present, Dr. Watson is a distinguished nursing professor at the same university. Dr. Watson’s PhD is in Educational Psychology and Counseling with a research focused on human caring and loss. She presented her theory in her first book “Nursing: The Philosophy and Science of Caring.” Her theory focuses on the ethical and moral aspects of nursing care. Her definition of caring emphasizes communication, empathy, having sufficient knowledge and clinical skills (Alligood, 2010). Dr. Watson believes that caring is central to nursing and can be effective if practiced interpersonally.
I believe that the focus of nursing is evidenced based clinical practice. I provide care for patients of all ages and backgrounds and use a holistic approach based on the patient’s emotional, physical, spiritual, social, and psychological needs. My vision for myself as a nurse is to complete my Bachelor Degree and then hopefully transfer within the VA system to a Case Management position. To live out my philosophy of nursing, every day I must remember this about the following: 1. My patients can expect to receive excellent care and be treated with respect and compassion.
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
It is also important to know where and how theories can best apply to current nursing practice. Compare and Analyze a Common Core Concept A common core concept among Virginia Henderson’s need theory and Dorothea Orem’s self-care deficit nursing theory is nursing. Both theorists use the nursing concept in their theory to define the role of nursing. Henderson defines nursing as the unique function of a nurse to help a person sick or well in the performance of activities contributing to health or its recovery that the person would perform unaided if he or she had the necessary strength, will, or knowledge. Nursing can also consist of assisting an individual to a peaceful death.
Critique of Virginia Henderson: Need Theory Many theorists have come up with conceptual models that tried to define and explain nursing, one of which is by Virginia Henderson (1966). In this model, she stated that “the unique function of the nurse is to assist the individual, sick or well, in performance of those activities contributing to health or its recovery (or peaceful death) that he/she would perform unaided if he/she had the necessary strength, will or knowledge. And to do this in such a way as to help him/her gain independence as rapidly as possible” (Henderson, 1966). This paper presents an analysis and evaluation of Henderson’s nursing theory using Fawcett`s framework of analysis and evaluation of conceptual models of nursing (2000). The person as defined in Henderson’s model is all encompassing; it applies to the sick, the well and the dying.
All nurses have a professional responsibility to promote the use of evidence-based nursing practice through effective leadership and management. Introduction This assignment is intended on exploring Evidence based practice and its relations to research paradigms that are used throughout the healthcare profession. Exploring the difference between leadership and management styles in relation to evidence based practice and policy implementation. Evidence based practice; Evidence based practice (EBP) is defined as a conscious use of the best current evidence when making decisions about an individual patients care (Sacket et al, 1997). Nursing research is a systematic inquiry designed to build knowledge on an important issue for nurses, with the aim of developing nursing education, practice and administration (Beck and Polit, 2006).
The aim of this assignment is to develop a deeper understanding of client centered-care by exploring its meaning, misconceptions, significance, how it relates to professional caring and how it will influence and affect my practice as a future registered nurse. This will be done by exploring a clinical scenario that I recently encountered during one of my clinical days. As mention above the concept I chose is client centered care because it is an important framework for conceptualizing health care. So what is client centered care? According to the Registered Nurses Association of Ontario Best Practice Guidelines (RNAO BPG), the client is viewed as a whole person; therefore, client-centered care involves advocacy, empowerment and respect for the client’s autonomy, voice, self- determination and participation in decision-making.
For example, a nurse knowing his or her scope of practice and being able to back it up with evidence based practices while maintaining professionalism is the cornerstone of holding a baccalaureate education in today’s healthcare. I was involved in a situation at work where I was in charge, and a nurse received an order to change a patient’s epidural pump settings. I felt this was beyond our scope of practice and did some research on the subject. According to Association of Women’s Health, Obstetric and Neonatal Nurses (AWHONN, 1997) and the Office of the Professions (Practice Alerts and Guidelines # 18) this is beyond a registered nurse’s scope of practice. I spoke with the nurse and anesthesia care provider, provided the facts and evidence, and maintained a professional attitude, and we were able to come to a professional understanding.
Fairman (2011) claims that she used the visit as the unit of analysis because it is known to be “flexible” and exemplifies “how nurses’ clinical practice changes over time and location” (p. 190). Fairman shares personal stories from nurse practitioners to demonstrate how nurses and physicians learned to work collaboratively by first establishing trust. Those personal stories show progressive gain of independence. By collaboratively working with physicians, nurse practitioner