Personal Nursing Philosophy.
Introduction.
According to Deliktas et al. (2019), a scientific paradigm is a model for shaping scientific activities in the process of advancing scientific knowledge. In nursing studies, the ideology of paradigms is influencing the nursing curricula to encourage students to incorporate personal values and concepts in their education and professional development. Furthermore, getting a deeper understanding of the nursing metaparadigms equips us as nursing students with the necessary skills to deal with challenges in the field of nursing. As a nursing student, my philosophies act as beacons of strength and determination towards achieving personal goals of a healthy and happy world. My philosophies involve including love and compassion in in-patient care. I can associate my philosophies to the four paradigms of nursing, which are nursing, person, environment, and health.
Client/Person
Human beings are complex and diverse creatures that cannot fall under one category or description. Considering this, I prefer visualizing the person based on three classifications. The first is the person as a wise being. This means that every human being has their mind and perception of situations, which enables them to make personal decisions. For example, some people will believe in faith to heal them of their illness, which others will rely on science (Deliktas et al., 2019). The other perception of the person that I hold is that human beings are limitless beings. The person holds the potential to go beyond their perceived potential. A good example is Neil Armstrong, the first human being to land on the moon. The third perception of the person is their adaptability. The human being can adapt to his/her environment, regardless of how severe conditions in the environment are (Deliktas et al., 2019). A good example is how people born with Congenital amputation can adapt and perform human activities like anybody else. Therefore, in the future, as I deal with patients as a nurse, I will ensure that my philosophies consider the fact that human beings have the brains and ability to make their own decisions. This will help me to avoid treating my patients as robots.
Health
I consider human health to be a system of forces maintained in perfect harmony. This means that illness is a form of instability in the system that requires rectification. For example, the hormonal imbalance leads to conditions like diabetes, thyroiditis. Secondly, I associate health with a state of independence or dependence. For example, an in-patient will depend on me as nurses to attend to them. Thirdly, I associate well-being with the state of being healthy. An excellent example of this is when you consider a patient with hypertension to be doing well when the blood pressure is normal and unwell when the blood pressure rises. Having this in mind, I will align my philosophies towards achieving the best health status for my patients (Deliktas et al., 2019).
Nursing
Under this paradigm, I believe that as a nurse, I should incorporate humanism, professionalism, and personal touch as I render my services. Based on love, which is one of my philosophies, this view involves treating my patients with the human dignity they deserve. Secondly, as nurses, we are prone to different forms of harassment; for example, sexual harassment. With this in mind, going into practice after school, a priority will be to remain professional with my patients. Finally, since we as nurses are in direct contact with the patients, we should ensure we maintain a personal touch, which goes a long way in changing their lives. Simple acts like being friendly have significantly huge results on the health of the patients (Deliktas et al., 2019).
Environment
In nursing, I believe that the environment paradigm is associated with three main sub-themes. The first is the psychological environment. For patients, the psychological environment, which includes the nurses, family, and friends, has significant impacts on their health. For example, a friendly nurse is more likely to convince a patient who does not want to take medication to do so. The other sub-theme is the physical environment, such as light, comfort, and silence. These have a significant impact on the patient. For example, rooms that are brightly lit are considered to contribute positively to improving the condition of depression patients (Deliktas et al., 2019). Finally, I believe that the social environment affects us as nurses and our patients too. For example, making patients feel at home contributes towards their recovery process and, in turn, makes our job more satisfying.
Aspects of Nursing
On an average day, nurses face many problems that require their input to come up with solutions. Therefore, one aspect of nursing is a practical problem-solving. In nursing, problem-solving skills include the ability to identify the problem or potential problem, consider the available alternative problem-solving solutions available then come up with the most appropriate decision (Rylander et al., 2019). For example, in a health institution with limited resources, the nurse should decide which patients require what equipment most. Another aspect of nursing is quick response. Nurses should be ready to respond to any emergencies as the need arises. Skills necessary during a quick response include calmness, thinking fast, and maintaining the basics (Rylander et al., 2019). Finally, physical endurance is another aspect of nursing. Nurses face difficult situations, for instance, having to stand for long hours and sometimes even having to carry the sick, activities that are energy draining. Therefore, as nurses, we need to develop physical endurance to help us undertake such activities.
Accountability and Responsibility Elements
As nurses, one way through which we can promote accountability and responsibility is by having a clear understanding of professional roles and responsibilities and how they relate to the organizational goals. For example, the four levels of nursing have various duties and level up to which they can make decisions. By ensuring you do not over-step your professional responsibilities, then accountability and responsibility are attainable. The other way of ensuring accountability and responsibility is through following the directions set at work. Understanding and following instructions from the leaders is a way of ensuring the tasks are accomplished as expected (McGrath & Whitty, 2018).
Nursing Task and Delegation Elements
The delegation of nursing tasks is a factor of several elements, including proficiency. By following the Lewin’s field theory, executive nurses can delegate some of their duties to juniors who prove to be effective in their operations based on the behavior and merit.
In summation, I believe that personal philosophies have a substantial influence on individual nurses. In my case, the philosophies of love and compassion have influenced my perception of the paradigm of nursing. This has, therefore, helped me in developing a framework that will suit me as a nurse and, at the same time, facilitate my ability to provide services to my patients as need be. Therefore, personal philosophies are bound to affect us as nurses for the rest of our professional lives.
References
Deliktas, A., Korukcu, O., Aydin, R., & Kabukcuoglu, K. (2019). Nursing Students’ Perceptions of Nursing Metaparadigms: A Phenomenological Study. The Journal of Nursing Research, 27(5), e45.
McGrath, S. K., & Whitty, S. J. (2018). Accountability and responsibility defined. International Journal of Managing Projects in Business.
Rylander, A., Fredriksson, S., Stenwall, E., & Gustafsson, L. K. (2019). Significant aspects of nursing within the process of end-of-life communication in an oncological context. Nordic Journal of Nursing Research, 39(2), 85-91.