Personal Philosophy for Professional Nursing Essay Example

the nursing profession. Others include the patients well being, the environment and lastly the nursing responsibilities. Although nursing has more than these four theories, the four are the basic metaparadigms which successfully link the patient’s health and medical health to the four interactive components.

Person Component

The main focus is directed to the person receiving care from a nurse commonly known as the patient. The connection here is between a care giver who is the nurse and the patient for the benefit of the care receiver. This kind of connection does not involve the care giver alone but also includes the patient’s family members and people affiliated to him. The patient is the person is the one who chooses people important to him with exemption of the nurse. The relationship between the patient and the caregiver is purposely to benefit the patient. The structure involves consideration of the person’s social and spiritual needs as well as the health demands. The results will be dictated by how the person interacts with both social and physical connections. With positive connections, the person is able to manage his well-being and health with power and dignity (Thome et al, 1998). Negative connections will have a negative impact on the health and progress of the person. This will translates to a negative health outcome affecting the person negatively.

Environment Component

This is basically the surrounding or the environment atmosphere the patient which has an effect to him. The environment plays a key role in determining the process of recovery of the patient. It is consisted of both internal as well as external influences and holds that the way one interacts with the surrounding has

an effect to health and wellness either positive or negative. Environment consists of both living and the non living. Living environment consist of friends, family members and other people around the patient who impose an effect to the patient.

Physical or non-living environment consist of culture, geographical location, technology, social connections and economic conditions surrounding the person. Physical environment cannot be regulated and remains the same since it’s out the patient’s power. The culture surrounding a patient cannot be changed which is the same case to geographical location. Living environment can be regulated by the patient by choosing those to be around. According to Thome (2013), the patient has the power to improve his health status through regulating environment. Some environments can affect the patient negatively thus affecting process of recovery. Environment should be maintained in order to avoid any negative effect to the patient.

Health Component

This is the component referring to the extent to which a patient can access health care and wellness. It s comprised of several dimensions which interact in a constant state of motion. This component of health and wellness integrates a person’s genetic makeup and lifespan. Physical, intellectual, spiritual well-being and emotional are all sub-components of the health component. All these sub-components are integrated to attain maximum health benefits in health care. This is an important component since it determines the well-being of a patient. Proper access to health care will have a positive impact on the health of the patient. Patients will find it difficult to respond positive to treatment in the event of poor health access.

Nursing Component

This component involves delivery of health services to the patient for optimal outcome. This

is done through a mutual relationship between the nurse and the patient in a safe environment and a caring one. This concept integrates both principles of knowledge, technology and skills in order to carry out health care delivery. According to Thome (1998), professional judgment, communication and collaborations are the other sub-components required to carry out duties and responsibilities. All these factors are inter-joined to achieve the best results for the benefits of the patient in terms of outcome. This component is all about the service given by nurses to the patient. It integrates with the other four components for the well-being of a patient. All these components are inter-depended and must be present to achieve the best scenario of patient outcome health wise.

Two Practice-specific Concepts

Nursing concepts address nursing skills and responsibilities which are distinctive and direct to care giving (McIntosh, 2013). From the past, nurses have been doing collaborative practice aimed at caring for the sick, vulnerable or injured people. All this is explained by different concepts interrelated, which forms distinct groups in the attempt to improve health care giving. They include:

• Great tenderness in all things
• Watching-assessment-recognition
• Perfect skills in administering comfort and safety
• Decision making and clinical reasoning
• Nursing diagnoses, outcomes as well as interventions
• Patient self engagement in self-care
• Heath teaching
• Family, community and friends supportive participation

Perfect skill in fostering comfort and safety

Direct care for the patient begins with this concept. It infuses all the other practice- specific concepts in determining health care outcome. Perfect skills when administering comfort and safety to a patient is a basic need to achieve perfect outcome. Perfection ranges from the basic elementary care giving to the

complex techniques and interactions in the process of care giving. It includes intellectual skills including theorizing about the process of care giving and selecting correct diagnosis in nursing. It also involves diagnostic accuracy and achievable outcomes when fostering appropriate nursing interventions. The concept rotates around ideal and perfection which is required for the achievement of a positive outcome in nursing practice.

According to Townsend (2014), everyone in the nursing profession works to develop professional skills over a period of time. Examples include nurse- patient relationships which are developed and improved from day to day for the benefit of the patient. Perfection also entitles provision of health education to patients in the attempt of helping them improve their conditions. Sharpening, improving as well as perfecting clinical skills required in therapeutic aspects. Care giving is a sensitive profession which determines the direct a patient responds to treatment.

When poor health care is given, the patient responds negatively and is impacted negatively. Therefore, perfection is needed to ensure no mistakes are done which can have a negative effect to the patient. Perfection is needed since nursing is a profession with no margin for errors. Such include administration of medication which is very sensitive and no errors required. This leaves nurses with no option but become perfect on their duties. This ensures safety to the patient.

Watching, assessment and recognition

These are concepts working hand in hand to determine the well being of the patient. They link to form a process through which health care is administered and are being treated as one concept. They provide nurses with basics for attempting nursing diagnosis, monitoring collaborative problems as well as recognizing them. The concept

distinguishes the reality of human being as a unitary being who is being watched, recognized and assessed by the nurses. These three sub-concepts can be addressed independently thus covering watching, assessment and recognition separately.

Watching is a primary concept to nurses in care giving process. It involves constant visual attentiveness and perception to patients including nurse’s alertness to the ever changing conditions and needs of the patients both psycho-spiritual and bio-physical (Townsend, 2014). Watching in this context carries with it more meaning than the ordinary observation. It entitles close observation carefully and attentively for a period of time with the aim of guarding or defending. It can be objective and specific for example physical position of a patient which keeps on being watched. The concept of watching sometimes becomes subjective or broad depending on the number of patients a nurse is taking care of. If the person is watching over more than two patients, the first thing on entering a ward should be a careful scan on the patients. Watching is an important component in the process of care giving and it’s the first way of establishing a problem with a patient.

Assessment

It’s the second procedure in the process of administering or either trying to come up with the actual condition of a patient or patients. Assessment can be explained as the process of evaluating the condition of a patient in order to administer health care (McIntosh, 2013). It’s an evidence based process which is structured to apply knowledge while involving data about the patient in question. Assessment is structured in a way that it guides nursing practice in the attempt to restore, protect and promote health.

In an acute care setting, the main aim is to restore health in the event of sickness or injury.

In the other hand, health protection helps people minimize the risks of getting sick or injured in any way. Lastly, health promotion entitles for assisting people to attain their highest health levels as human beings. All this requires the participation of the patient especially in discharge planning and health teaching. Nursing assessment has two types including comprehensive which is done during the time a patient is admitted. Focused assessment is only conducted for particular issues of a patient, for example pain or respiration status.

Lastly is recognition which involves identification of something through the sense of resemblance to a past thing. In nursing profession, it entitles identification of some perceptions by patients and the impact they have on the patient’s health. For accuracy recognition, the nurse should have a close interaction with the patient. All the ways of gathering information about the patient in order to improve the service are used during this stage. All the above components are important in determining the health of a patient.

Propositions and assumptions

These are philosophies and theories connecting some of the nursing concepts. They include:

•  The need theory
• Unitary humans
• Self care theory
• Interpersonal theory
• System model
• Transcultural nursing
• From Novice to Expert

Need Theory

It was postulated by Virginia Henderson, who is also branded the nightingale of modern nursing. The theory emphasizes on the need to increase patient’s independency to promote health outcome. Virginia holds that the role of a nurse is to help the patient in the performance of any act which can help in recovery process. According to Masters (2014), if

the patient has enough strength to perform un-assisted, then the client should be let independent. This theory connects to the concept of patient self engagement in care giving.

Unitary Human

It is a theory which was brought forward by Martha Rogers who explained that nursing only sought to promote interaction between environment and patient as an individual. This is aimed at strengthening the integrity of human beings. Nursing also entitles for interaction between people and their environments in the attempt of realizing maximum health potential. This theory is associated to the concept of perfection in fostering safety and comfort.

Dorothea Orem came up with self care theory which held that people should be self-reliant for the sake of being responsible for their own care and that of their family members. Same to need theory, it is aligned to self- reliable concept. People should not wait to be given health care services when they still have with the strength with you. Other theories include interpersonal theory by Hidegard Peplau about patient-nurse relationship. Others include Transcultural theory by Madeleine Leininger about relationship between patient and surrounding environment.

Conclusion

Nursing is one of the most sensitive professions which call for a lot of determination when handling clients. It’s composed of four main metaparadigms which help explain how nurses carry out their duties. They include, patient, nursing, health and environment all integrating to improve the health of patients. These metaparadigms are further explained by the use of different concepts. Concepts such as self-care, perfection including others seek to explain the role of nurses. All the concepts try to give an explanation of how nursing should be carried out and the major qualities required by

nursing. According to Fawcett, J & Desanto (2012), nursing got theories which explain the profession and give a clear understanding of the field. Nursing is a determinant to the health of a given community. More and new research is done from time to time for the benefit of the profession.

References

1. Fawcett, J., & Desanto-Madeya, S. (2012). Contemporary nursing knowledge: Analysis and evaluation of nursing models and theories. FA Davis.
2. Holloway, I., & Wheeler, S. (2013). Qualitative research in nursing and healthcare. John Wiley & Sons.
3. Masters, K. (2014). Nursing theories: a framework for professional practice. Jones & Bartlett Publishers.
4. McIntosh-Scott, A., Mason, T., Mason-Whitehead, E., & Coyle, D. (2013). Key Concepts in Nursing and Healthcare Research. SAGE.
5. Thorne, S., Canam, C., Dahinten, S., Hall, W., Henderson, A., & Kirkham, S. R. (1998). Nursing’s metaparadigm concepts: disimpacting the debates. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 27(6), 1257-1268.
6. Townsend, M. C. (2014). Psychiatric mental health nursing: Concepts of care in evidence-based practice. FA Davis.