My Personal Nursing Philosophy
Introduction
I am a future nurse and I view nursing as the most compassionate and helpful career in the world. Nurses are typically caregivers and nursing is a most rewarding career. My philosophy towards nursing encompasses: the environment, the person, health and nursing itself.
The environment
The interaction of the patient with me (the nurse) must always bring a positive impact to the patient’s and my environment. My personal philosophy in nursing describes the environment as the dwelling place of a society. Societies in nursing evolve in each given circumstance. An environment can be described as the physical area in which a person resides. The environment also in my philosophy encompasses mental awareness. This includes the person’s spiritual awareness, emotions and thoughts about their current situation.
The person’s family, friends, clergy, and other people close to the patient are all affected by the care given by me to the patient. They are all impacted in one way or another by the services I offer. Therefore at best, I as a nurse must always strive to ensure that all the people that come into touch with the patient and myself receive positive services. This is my way of giving back to a society, and making an impact in society.
As a nurse I believe that just touching one aspect of my patient’s environment positively, be it the family or friends or even the physical home of the patient, can make a difference between the wellness of my patient and the recurrence or worsening of the sickness in my client
Health
Health is the condition in which all functions of mind and body are normally active, which includes both the patient’s wellness and illness issues. I define health as the physical, mental, emotional, social, spiritual and environmental dimensions of well being, which when acting upon each other form an individual’s state of health. Based on these definitions my philosophy on health is that; health education and health promotion are instruments that I need to utilize to improve or modify the health behaviors of my patients. The modification of one individual or patient then in turn modifies the health of the community and/ or populations.
As a nurse, I am willing to work towards encouraging my patients to embrace and be ready to change their behavior and practices for the benefit of their health. This way, I view myself as a guide for my patients along the path to improving their personal and community health for justified, self fulfilling reasons.
Person
I define a person as a human being, the recipient of my care. I am a person centered nurse. I allow a client to participate and input ideas into their care. I always strive to help the patient fulfill some of their basic needs. In doing so, I apply the hierarchy of needs, ensuring that whatever stage of need the patient is in, such as psychological needs, safety and security, belonging and self esteem, they leave fulfilled.
I allow patients to incorporate their personal experiences and alter my care to fit some of these experiences. Finally, I must always approach patients on a one to one basis, focusing on my relationship with each patient different, and failing to compare them to each other and myself, my focus must always be on assisting my patient obtain optimum health.
Nursing
Nursing is the caring and nurturing of healthy and ill clients. These are my actions while caring for the patient. To me, nursing is more than administering medicine and performing different procedures, it is being with people, talking and visiting with them. An important aspect of nursing is ensuring the emotional wellbeing of the patient as well as the physical wellbeing. This is why; I am compassionate, understanding and empathetic while carrying out my nursing duties. Nursing requires me to step out of the box of job description and be willing to take up the burden of my patient. Nursing activities are used in my everyday practice and allow for me to support and promote adequate holistic patient care.
References
David Seedhouse (2000). Practical Nursing Philosophy. New York, John Wiley And
Sons.
