Personal Philosophy Paper, Essay Example

Abstract

The paper discusses personal nursing philosophy. Medical knowledge, compassion, spirituality, communication, and interaction with patients are shown as the basic components of the personal nursing philosophy. The paper shows the decision to return to school as a unique chance to reconsider these philosophic beliefs and to learn better ways of fulfilling professional and human obligations toward patients.

Introduction

After 5 years of being a nurse, I have suddenly realized an urgent need to continue my studies. I cannot say that I never thought of gaining master’s degree; rather, life always created circumstances and obstacles which I had to overcome before I could concentrate on moving to the new professional highs. Years of professional nursing became an extremely valuable experience to me: not only was I able to define my position in the care continuum, but I was also able to list the principles and standards that would govern my career and professional self-realization for the rest of my life. I can call it my personal nursing philosophy – a combination of professional nursing and human knowledge about people, which are supplemented with and reinforced by spirituality, compassion, and care about everyone who finds himself in a difficult health condition.

My Personal Nursing Philosophy

My journey to becoming a nurse began early in life, when I decided that I wanted to use my compassion and virtue to serve people. Nursing looked like the best choice I could make to realize my professional and individual strivings. Nursing for me had been always associated with being an angel of mercy to everyone who found oneself in a difficult health condition and needed professional medical assistance. The years at the university, however, shifted my attention away from spiritual toward the medical aspect of nursing: trying to be the best, I had to learn and understand the basics of the nursing process which, according to Brunner and Suddarth (1986) is “a systematic, decision-making process that involves assessment (data collection), planning, and implementation and uses evaluation and subsequent modifications as feedback mechanisms that promote the ultimate resolution of the patient’s nursing problems” (p. 3). As a result, by the time I became a practical nurse, I had a vision of nursing as of purely medical profession which required systemic medical knowledge and positioned nurse as the direct physician’s assistant, or even a physician extender. Needless to say, nurses are expected to support medical professionals in the process of delivering quality care to patients, but the first year at work became a philosophic revelation to me, and I could no longer limit my vision of nursing to purely medical skills.

Throughout my professional career, I had been trying to create my own philosophy of nursing that would help me to excel in my professional field. Years after graduation have shown me that practical experience and the knowledge we obtain in the process of fulfilling our professional obligations visualize and underline the most important elements of the nursing profession. These elements should be cherished and followed, to maintain a vision of a nurse as of a virtuous angel sent to the patient in the most difficult times. Bearing in mind that nursing philosophy is “a statement of foundational and universal assumptions, beliefs and principles about the nature of knowledge and thought and about the nature of the entities represented in the metaparadigm” (McEwen & Wills 2007, p. 12), I have created the system of beliefs that differed from those I had kept to during my student years. I was able to preserve my loyalty to the principles of medical knowledge and excellence but had to extend the scope of my philosophic beliefs to cover the norms of compassion, communication, interaction, virtue, and spirituality. No, I cannot say that as a student I did not know anything about spirituality or mercy, but only through my practical experience was I able to learn their real professional and personal value. The period when I had a delay due to working, got married, and had a baby gave me enough time to rethink my personal and professional ideals. Now as I am more stable, I decided to return to school to further my education and to gain master’s in the nearest future. I want to expand my professional knowledge and to pursue professional excellence by showing people that nursing is invariably associated with communication, interaction, and compassion. I believe that these principles will help me to make a good career.

Years of practical experience have shown me the way to being a better nurse. I have understood that, on the one hand, I can hardly satisfy my professional ambitions without good and, more importantly, continuous education. Although I believe practical nursing to be the most valuable professional experience, education will lay the foundation for my continuous professional development – I will be able to renew my previous knowledge, to share my ideas and findings with colleagues and other students, and discuss my previous experiences and professional issues with professors. On the other hand, I also expect that my decision to return to school will become a good test to my nursing philosophy, with its emphasis on spirituality and communication with / compassion toward patients. I cannot but agree to Shattel (2004) in that patients in hospital environments actively seek ways to connect with nurses; patients depend on nursing staff, and their perceived powerlessness compared to the professional power of nurses makes them search ways to establish close contacts with nurses. These contacts are possible only if nurses realize their importance and value, and I believe that my decision to return to school will teach me better ways of establishing close contacts with patients and using them to improve the quality of their health outcomes. In its current state, my system of philosophic beliefs positions nursing as a unique combination of medical science, nursing skills, and human abilities, which lose their relevance if not reinforced by compassion, spirituality, communication, and interaction with patients. I am confident that my years at school will help me to re-evaluate these philosophic statements and will teach me how to fulfill my professional and human obligations toward patients.

Conclusion

When a student, I had an idea of nursing as of the profession that requires excellent knowledge of medical and health topics but pays minor attention to the human aspects of care. 5 years of practical nursing have shifted my attention toward spirituality, compassion, communication, and interaction with patients as the necessary drivers of quality nursing care. My philosophic beliefs about nursing cover medical and health knowledge, which, nevertheless, loses its relevance if not reinforced by compassion, spirituality, interaction, and communication with patients. I expect that my decision to return to school will help me reconsider my philosophic beliefs about nursing and will show me the best ways of fulfilling my professional obligations toward patients.

References

Brunner, L.S. & Suddarth, D.S. (1986). The Lippincott manual of nursing practice. Taylor & Francis.

McEwen, M. & Wills, E.M. (2007). Theoretical basis for nursing. Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.

Shattel, M. (2004). Nurse-patient interaction: A review of the literature. Journal of Clinical Nursing, 13, 714-722.