My personal philosophy for professional nursing practice is mainly guided by two concepts; empathy and holistic care. I believe that the nursing profession should not be just about providing “treatment” or performing algorithms aimed at healing patients; rather, it should be about understanding the needs of patients better and trying as much as possible to provide comprehensive care.
Empathy usually relates to feelings. According to Mercer and Reynolds (2002), nurses need to place themselves in their patients’ situations, imagine how their patients feel, and as a result, provide care that considers these feelings. A patient may need to understand the kind of medication given, its outcomes, and even how long it may take for the effects to manifest. Therefore, empathy requires nurses to realize that patients are normal human beings, with feelings, and emotions. Failure to address these aspects may lead to ineffectiveness, distrust, and even suspicion from patients.
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Holistic care is about trying to offer comprehensive care. Other than trying to treat the condition with which the patient presents within the healthcare environment, nurses need to also address physical, emotional, and psychological aspects (Zamanzadeh et al., 2015). Patients need to be talked to and nurses can accomplish this by establishing personal relationships. For instance, a patient who may have been knocked down by a car and injured could also be suffering from psychological problems. Therefore, apart from treating the physical injuries, it is also important to establish the causes of the psychological problems and address them.
In conclusion, I believe the two concepts emphasize the need to consider patients’ feelings and emotions in healthcare to achieve quality healthcare outcomes in the nursing profession. Some of the assumptions in this personal philosophy are that nurses can be counselors, possess great communication skills, are culturally sensitive, and are resilient. It is because it takes great effort to be empathic and provide holistic care.
References
Mercer, S. W., & Reynolds, W. J. (2002). Empathy and quality of care. The British journal of general practice : the journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners , 52 Suppl (Suppl), S9–S12. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1316134/
Zamanzadeh, V., Jasemi, M., Valizadeh, L., Keogh, B., & Taleghani, F. (2015). Effective factors in providing holistic care: a qualitative study. Indian journal of palliative care , 21 (2), 214–224. https://doi.org/10.4103/0973-1075.156506
