Understanding Experiences to Improve Patient Care As I have progressed through this semester learning about numerous nursing philosophers, I have poured over the readings trying to identify my place in the world of nursing theory. How am I supposed to create a theory with meaning and purpose? As I reflected on this question, an obvious and simple answer kept coming to mind. Why did I decide to become a nurse in the first place? What about nursing pulled me in to this profession? When I began to think of my nursing journey in this light, my personal nursing philosophy became obvious to me. Delineating my Philosophy of Nursing In its simplest form, my philosophy is this: Each of our experiences shape the way that we perceive the world around …show more content…
In doing so, I was able to identify specific ideas which came together to form a new, unique philosophy on nursing care. The utilization of many grand theories allowed me to better visualize how my personal nursing philosophy would fit into the context of daily nursing practice by providing evidence of my assumptions. Noted by Newman et al. (as cited in M. J. Smith & Liehr, 2014, p. 20) “A body of knowledge that does not include caring and human health experience is not nursing knowledge”. While the entirety of this concept is true, the focus on the experience of health is what stands out to me as centrally nursing based. Nursing is an art form and the involvement that patients have is an incredibly important aspect in their care. The experience of healthcare and its role in patient care is central to my nursing …show more content…
As I have created my theory and began its evaluation, the substantive foundation and structural integrity have been challenged. It is this point in the creation of a philosophy that these two categories come into light in order to review the theory as a whole. However, the functional adequacy portion of theory evaluation is continually at play. As time progresses, does my theory continue to be relevant and useful? Is this philosophy equally as useful across different situations? Is it actually helping anyone receive better care? While evaluating functional adequacy, it is possible - imperative even - to include patients in the ongoing evaluation process. Patients can give input on care in the form of pre and post-visit questionnaires, narrative interviews, and feedback forms. If this philosophy is successful when put into practice, my patients will feel as though their care was positive and tailored to their
The purpose of this paper is to define, describe, and explain the thoughts, feelings and beliefs of the author in regard to the philosophy of nursing practice. Philosophy is the study of ideas about knowledge, truth, nature, and meaning of a subject Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, (n.d.). I will address the four concepts of the nursing metaparadigm and the relationships of each as they guide my practice as a nurse. This concept synthesis paper will address the personal nursing autobiography, two practice specific concepts, and a list of propositions and assumption statements that clearly connect the described concepts. Many factors influence the philosophy of nurses and their practice.
According to Chitty & Black (2014) the philosophy of nursing is defined as beliefs and values that are the bases for how we think and act in our nursing careers. Similar to a nursing philosophy, a personal philosophy includes a person’s specific beliefs and values. The purpose of this paper is to start evolving my own personal nursing philosophy that contains my own beliefs and values that I will take with me throughout my career as a registered nurse.
Developing a personal philosophy of nursing and patient care is essential to the development of every nurse. The development of a personal philosophy begins in nursing school. Nurses incorporate our personal beliefs within our nursing practice and as we grow and mature as nurses and human beings our philosophy changes. Exposure to new beliefs, cultural differences, and researching the views of a variety of nursing theorists assist nurses in developing an expanding their own philosophy with the culture of care.
My personal nursing philosophy and fundamental beliefs of nursing using the four meta-paradigms concepts: nature of human beings, health, environment, and nursing. First, I believe that the profession of nursing is all about the nature of human beings as people. Care involves the patient as a whole, not just as a disease process. Second, I believe that health is on the same continuum as illness. Health is more about quality of life. Third, it is also necessary to look beyond the patient to the environment in which he/she lives in. This is important because people come from different backgrounds and have their own story, we cannot separate patients from their environment because they are interrelated. Last, I think that nursing involves being with the individual patient and having an active roll with them. This process of being engaged in meaningful relationships requires we as nurses be actively
Nursing theories have been a fundamental tool used to explain, guide and improve the practice of nursing. Theorists have contributed enormously to the growth of nursing as a profession. The four grand theorists I chose are Virginia Henderson, Peplau, Myra Levine and Jean Watson. These theorists have contributed tremendously in the field of nursing through their theories, and research. One thing the theorists have in common is that they are patient centered. They are all concerned on ways we can improve our responsibility to the patients, their families and the environment. They have different ideas but they are all aiming towards achieving the same goal, which is patient satisfaction and safety. Their differences are in their areas of nursing specialization, their definition of nursing and their philosophies of nursing.
This paper is a first attempt at forming and articulating my own philosophy of nursing.
"Philosophy is an attitude towards life that evolves from each nurses’ beliefs" (Parker, 2001). It is the philosophy that underlies our practice what brings to life our desire to be nurses. Philosophy is essential because it is the natural extension of our interest in knowing the truth (Parker, 2001). A metaparadigm is the widest perspective of the discipline and a way to describe the concepts that concern the profession of nursing (McEwen & Wills, 2014). In this paper, my philosophy of nursing will be discussed through reflection on the four nursing metaparadigm concepts to determine if anything should be added or taken out.
I started nursing on the cusp of the transition from wearing all white and reciting “yes, doctor” to wearing scrub or lab coats and having collegial conversations with providers and making recommendations to providers to improve patient outcomes. I ask myself, “when did this happen”? Maybe, it wasn’t so much a cultural shift in nursing but maybe it was my own understanding of the role a nurse plays in patient care. Or, maybe it was both. Either way, this shift has played an instrumental role in my perception of nursing and my own career development. Nursing theory has been around since the time of Florence Nightingale but in recent years it has played an integral role in the way nursing is perceived. Nursing theories allow nursing to be purposeful by stating not only the focus of practice but specific goals and outcomes (McEwen, Wills, 2014). Gone are the days of completing tasks and orders but instead using theory to guide our plan of care. In my own practice theory has helped guide the role of the nurses in the ambulatory
Throughout this philosophy paper, I have explored what nursing is based on my personal values and beliefs as it relates to the body of work in nursing. I value the importance of holistic nursing and the care of patients being individualized for them and their family. Also, effectively collaborating among health care professionals to ensure quality care for patients. Additionally, the importance of health promotion as one of the main roles of nurses is being a teacher, since promoting health prevents illness and increases the level of health in clients. These principles will serve as a guide for my personal standards of nursing practice.
Before I went to College to study nursing, I had a philosophy about it which has evolved as I have gained experience and knowledge. According to …..( ), philosophy is “a theory or attitude held by a person or organization that acts as a guiding principle for behavior (p.sss). Therefore, our nursing philosophy should help us identify what are our priorities in nursing and how we should act as a nurse.
The best way to look at nursing theories is like the foundational block. Nursing theories are important set the tone of how a nurse will practice. A nurse will use intuition, practice, past expertise and events, and couple with learned theories to work every day in order to give the best patient care. it is all the more important to appreciate what first advanced nursing beyond mechanisms of practice to becoming a knowledge-based force in healthcare: That force is nursing theory and the theoretical thinking and research that generate theory. The complexity and depth of nursing are reflected in its structure of knowledge, which includes discipline-specific components such as philosophies, theories, and research and practice methodologies”( Reed, 2006). Patient care is a wide topic, but a key role in a patient’s care is the patient themselves, an educated patient is vital to their well being and higher level of care.
To make good nursing decisions, nurses require an internal roadmap with knowledge of nursing theories. Nursing theories, models, and frameworks play a significant role in nursing, and they are created to focus on meeting the client’s needs for nursing care. According to McEwen and Wills (2014), conceptual models and theories could create mechanisms, guide nurses to communicate better, and provide a “systematic means of collecting data to describe, explain, and predict” about nursing and its practice (p. 25). Most of the theories have some common concepts; others may differ from one theory to other. This paper will evaluate two nursing theorists’ main theories include Sister Callista Roy’s
Nursing theory can be used to empower nurses by giving autonomy and improve skills. With the rise of healthcare, administrative decisions involving nurses could have a negative effect on patient care. There are four concepts that make up the nursing metaparadigm, person, environment, health and nursing and act as the model for nursing care. All theories in the nursing practice proves valuable within the profession but may vary between different theorists depending on what their beliefs are. Some theorists can view the same situation entirely different. Both Rogers and Neuman were theorist that developed theories for viewing and caring for patients but in two different ways. Professionalization, coherence, and enhanced communication are three arguments when determining the importance of theory in nursing. Multi-disciplinary nursing becomes necessary to achieve positive patient
Research has demonstrated that nursing practice guided by theory from a perspective of nursing and caring has shown “improved patient and nurse satisfaction, and improvement in institutional reputation.” (Dyess et al., 2013, p. 167) Nursing theories specifically are created and shaped to describe this phenomenon called nursing. Afaf Meleis defines nursing theory as “a conceptualization of some aspect of nursing reality communicated for the purpose of describing phenomena, explaining relationships between phenomena, predicting consequences, or prescribing nursing care.” (Meleis, 2012, chap.
The purpose of this paper is to define my professional nursing philosophy. I will utilize the nursing metaparadigm as a framework for integrating the concepts of person, environment, health, and nursing into my nursing practice. Secondly, I will discuss Jean Watson’s theory of human care and how this has personally impacted my profession as a nurse and guided my nursing philosophy.