Nursing is a broad field and an important profession which is perceived differently by different people who find themselves in the career. Every person who opts to pursue the nursing career is led by his or her personal values which in most cases are determined by our immediate environments. The personal philosophy of nursing determines how one performs in the career and the personal philosophy is greatly influenced by our values. The purpose of this paper is to bring out my personal philosophy and the values which have directly or indirectly influenced me to choose the nursing career.
Personal View of Nursing
I was born and brought up in a locality where community voluntary services were a common phenomenon. Most people in our community were involved in free service delivery to the less privileged persons in the society during the weekends. My mother compelled me to join one of these voluntary service groups at the age of 12 years. My group mostly visited hospitals and other healthcare facilities. My interest in the nursing profession began during these voluntary service activities after noticing how useful nurses were to the patients we visited. In my opinion, nursing is an integral part of the health care system which involves the promotion of health, prevention of illnesses and diseases, the caring for the physically ill, the mentally ill, and the disabled people of all ages, in all healthcare sectors and other community settings . A nurse plays a key role in ensuring the well-being of all persons.
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Nursing is very unique compared to other healthcare professions in that nurses are the ones who are involved in providing care for recovering patients. Other healthcare professionals only come into contact with patients during the treatment time and after that the patients are left in the hands of nurses. Nurses assess the patients’ recovery status and determine whether it’s positive or negative. For the cases of mentally ill and physically disabled patients, nurses claim an overall role of providing the care which would otherwise be provided by family members of the patients. For instance, a cesarean surgery specialist will only will into contact with an expectant mother in the theatre, after that all other services to both the mother and the new born baby will be provided by the nurses until the mother is discharged from the hospital. The services provided by nurses are paramount and cannot be overlooked. Without the care that comes from nurses, then patients would be going through a hard time in the hands of other healthcare professionals.
Personal Values and Beliefs
From my early life all along to adulthood I have learnt to do well to others and especially the less privileged in the society. This motivated me to pursue the nursing career so that I could get a better platform to execute my good will services to the community. The most important thing in my career is to see all patients at my disposal getting the necessary care and helping them to fully recover and rejoin their families. In ensuring that the right care is accorded to the right patient, I am usually guided by three values of competence, trustworthy and care (Orford, 2012). The community voluntary services that I attended during my youth taught me the importance of being competent in all that I do. This value has really helped me in my career because I always ensure that I attend to my patients the best way I can. This has made many patients have belief in my services both inside and outside the healthcare premises. My nursing profession and service provision has greatly improved through offering quality services to all types of patients regardless of their backgrounds.
Trustworthy is a value and a belief that creates a friendly environment for interaction between healthcare providers and the patients (Orford, 2012). In my nursing career, I always ensure that my style of healthcare provision makes the patients to have total trust in me. Patients always feel comfortable and secure when they are in hands of healthcare providers they can trust in. I have also learnt to trust in my patients and support their views and opinions. One factor that promotes trust between my patients and I is keeping their personal information secure and ensuring that it does not leak to other patients. The value of trustworthy has seen my nursing career gain popularity among patients with most of them demanding for my services even outside the hospital.
My nursing career calls for offering the care that the patients cannot get from their houses or homes. Therefore, to ensure that the patients are efficiently cared for, the value of love must prevail. Love has helped me as a nurse to execute my services without discrimination because every patient is of paramount importance to me (Orford, 2012). As a nurse, I have witnessed patients recover faster from their illnesses simply because of showing love and concern to them. This is more so to patients who suffer from mental illnesses and the physically handicapped patients. The value of love has also assisted me as a nurse to do my duties from the heart which improves my competence and efficiency. This has brought positive remarks and comments from patients regarding my nursing career.
Despite the positive influence to my personal life as a nurse from the values of competence, trust and love, the nursing career has had challenges on these values and beliefs. In some instances, other healthcare professional might not fully diagnose the disease a patient is suffering from and in that case they end up giving a wrong prescription. This really challenges my competence because a wrong prescription will worsen the condition of a patient instead of improving it. It also compromises my professional trustworthy to the patients because most of them would demand to know why their health condition is not improving. My competence in work and the trust I have with my patients suffers negatively during such incidences. My value of love is challenged in scenarios where some patients turn violent while they are still under medication. Some of them even tempt to harm me and this lowers my nursing love to them.
Comparison of Personal Values and Nursing Essentials
My value of trustworthy in providing healthcare services to my patients is fully represented in the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN) Baccalaureate Essentials 2008 professional value of human dignity. Trustworthy by nurses to the patients can be demonstrated through withholding confidential information about particular patients from unnecessary people or other patients (AACN, 2008). My nursing value of love is also closely comparable to the AACN 2008 professional value of altruism. Love calls for a lot of sacrifice of good will from the nurse. As described by the AACN (2008), altruism is showing concern for the welfare and wellbeing of patients through taking full responsibility of their needs. Competence has also been discussed by the American Association of Colleges of Nursing in the introduction of professionalism among the nurses. Professionalism has been described as the constituent demonstration and execution of core the values of the nursing career.
My values and beliefs are alike to the American Association of Colleges of Nursing in several ways. The AACN has greatly talked on altruism which refers to showing concern for the wellbeing of the patients. This correlates with my value of love which I accord to all my patients during their treatment and recovery periods. The AACN also touches on the value of trustworthy among nurses and explains its importance and its effectiveness in executing nursing roles (AACN, 2008). This totally matches my value of trustworthy which I have created with my patients during the period that I have been in this nursing career. The value of professionalism as discussed by the AACN 2008 mainly talks on the ease at which nurses are able to attend to patients. This matches my value of competence which helps perform efficiently to meet my patients’ needs.
In my opinion, the American Association of Colleges 2008 of Nursing has touched on all the values and beliefs need by a healthcare provider to offer the necessary service needed by patients. The AACN 2008 has touched on altruism, autonomy, human dignity, integrity, and social justices values, which generally define a competent nurse and give the ethics which one should uphold to ensure good service delivery to the patients. Therefore, the AACN 2018 is a reliable article to the nurses who want to be competent and productive in their career.
Conclusion
In this paper, I have generally discussed on the qualities of a good nurse and the impact those qualities have on the wellbeing of patients. I have discussed competence, trustworthy and love; values and beliefs which I exercise daily in my work place and the effect they have on my patients. The American Association of Colleges of Nurses has also outlined other values and beliefs which define a good nurse or a healthcare provider. My take in all this discussion is that nurses and healthcare providers should adopt positive values and beliefs to enhance their service provision to patients.
References
American Association of Colleges of Nursing, (2008). The Essentials Of Baccalaureate Education For Professional Nursing Practice. Pg 28-29
Orford, J. (2012). Relating Your Values, Morals And Ethics To Nursing Practice. (Online). Retrieved from http://www.independentnurse.co.uk/professional-article/relating-your-values-morals-and-ethics-to-nursing-practice/64200
