Philosophy in Nursing

Growing up, I always wanted to be a doctor. Choosing Nursing as a profession, was the furthest thing from my mind, that is until my mother became ill with a Stroke. While my mother was in the hospital, I remember the doctors giving up and losing hope, telling me to prepare for the worst. The situation went from bad to worst really fast, my mother was unresponsive and had to be intubated. After becoming stabilized, my mom was moved to ICU. I can remember crying my eyes out, as saw tubes coming out from every orifice of my mother and hearing the words of the doctors “play” in my head. Then a woman asked, “why are you crying, your mother is still alive, and while she is alive, you have hope”, and she told me she saw many patients with the same diagnosis, walk out of the hospital. I then asked, “are you a doctor”. She replied, “no, I’m a nurse, and I sit here at the bedside more than the doctors”. That’s when I knew I wanted to become a nurse.

My philosophy in nursing is patient advocacy, and to always consider Jean Watson’s theory of caritas. Nurses has an obligation to advocate not only for the patient, but also for the family. When patients need care, many times they are unable to advocate for themselves. A patient’s inability to advocate for themselves could be due to lack of knowledge, unresponsiveness, or just not knowing their options. Nurses also has a responsibility for the installation of hope and to assist with the gratification of human needs. Nursing is a nurturing profession and caring is the essential component of its holistic practice. A nurse serves a great liaison for the patients to get the necessary care and successful outcomes of sick patients.

Integrity and cultural competence are the most important values and beliefs, I believe a nurse should have. Nurses who practice with integrity posses a strong sense of themselves and performs responsibly with the knowledge that they a morally accountable for their actions. Being morally accountable and responsible for one’s judgement and actions is central to the nurse’s role as a moral agent. A nurse that has cultural competence, is a nurse that attempts to meet the social, cultural and linguistic needs of their patients. Cultural competence encourages nurses to strive to work within the cultural context of the patient and their family.” Cultural competence is vital to reduce health disparities and improve access to high quality of care that is responsive to patients’ needs.” (Neese,2017).

Reference

Neese,B.(February, 2017).A Guide to Culturally Competence.Retreived from: https://www.diversitynursing.com