My Philosophy of Nursing

Entering the nursing profession has broadened my horizons to the extent that I have never thought would happen. Upon entering into the nursing career, I dreamt to fulfill my ambitions to become a skillful medical practitioner, but I never thought about my personal nursing philosophy. One particular class assignment had really made me think about all of the nursing theories I have learned that propelled me to be the nurse I am today.

Watson’s human caring theory believes “the practice of caring is central to nursing; it is the underlying focus for practice.” I cannot be more proud that her assumptions of caring that include a personal response, human caring that involves values and commitment to care, knowledge, and caring that promotes health, that correlate with my own believes, have received worldwide recognition.

My personal philosophy also integrates Knowles Theory of Adult Education that was taught in our curriculum while I was pursuing an associate degree. This theory taught me to apply critical thinking, clinical judgment, and patient-centered care to all the members of the society and especially to those in needs, as well as to a diverse population of clients, as defined by sexual orientation, race, gender, culture, age, and religion.

I believe in empathy, compassion, and integrity when caring for patients who sometimes don’t need just nursing, because holistic care, oftentimes as much important as traditional one, involves not only physical body needs and mind, but also client’s spirituality. When opening doors to the client’s spiritual needs, nurse must have a healthy spiritual self-awareness, which undeniably influences nursing care. When implementing spiritual care, nurse must have skills in establishing a trusting nurse-patient relationship, follow ethical procedures when providing spiritual guidance, avoid imposing personal beliefs on clients, as well to respect clients’ rights to receive care that is customized according to their individual spiritual and religious values. Nursing care that promote client’s spiritual needs include offering one’s authentic presence, attentive listening, supporting the client’s religious practices, praying with client, and referring the client to a spiritual counselor. I believe that development of all aforementioned aspects in the medical personnel leads to effective healing of the patients.