The professional organizations in nursing have developed numerous policies guided by various nursing models to ensure that the quality of nursing services is continuously enhanced. The contemporary health care system has dictated that nurses should use an evidence-based approach toward service delivery. Nurses are also compelled to assume a holistic approach in service delivery, whereby an individual based approach, coupled with a focus on the wellness of family members, is applied. The evidence-based approach has given nurses the freedom to develop personal philosophies that incline toward the organizational policies and personal experiences. I am compelled to follow a personal policy that focuses on pain management because it is one of the areas in nursing that has been overly ignored by the professional organizations. My personal philosophy is embedded in four major elements, which include accountability, compassion, professionalism, and personal goals.
Influence
When I was young, I dreaded getting sick because I always associated visiting the hospital with receiving painful injections. The service delivery process in hospitals is always associated with pain incurred as health care professionals conduct different processes. The fact that most people visit health care facilities complaining about pain implies that the primary goal of nurses and their inter-professional teams should focus on reducing pain immediately after the patients arrive at the hospital. However, this has not been forthcoming in the contemporary health care system, where pain management is not among the priorities of the professionals, especially in the emergency department and the ICU. Having seen many people suffer from pain, and also read many scholarly works revealing that there is a need to monitor and reduce the actual pain incurred during the caregiving process, my personal philosophy aims at providing guidelines that focus on pain monitoring and management. I have worked as a volunteer in a home care setting with old people, and I noticed that most of the elderly patients managing various long-term illnesses experience pain on a regular basis, and they are not aware that it can be managed. My philosophy inclines toward ensuring that all patients experience less pain progressively under my care.
Key Concepts
The first element of my philosophy is accountability. While other practitioners in the inter-professional teams continue to neglect their obligations to monitor and manage pain, I will always put pain management as a high priority. I will particularly focus on ensuring that the pain incurred during the caregiving process is minimized, and inform patients to report whenever the pain associated with the care delivery procedures becomes unbearable (Gatchel, McGeary, McGeary, & Lippe, 2014). I will always embrace the principles and ethical guidelines that dictate that nurses should enhance the wellness status of patients from the time of admission to the hospital. I will adhere to professional practice while monitoring and managing pain to enhance patients’ safety.
The second element of my philosophy is compassion, which is a function of portraying tenacity, empathy, and cultural competence. Respecting every patient and providing the highest quality of services on an individual-based platform forms the core of my philosophy. I believe that the best way to enhance the satisfaction of the patients is to apply a holistic approach to pain management, which includes reducing physical and psychological pain for the patients and their family. I will always strive to develop patient-nurse relationships that highlight the willingness to uphold dignity and to show the respective patients that they deserve the best quality of services. Most of the restrictions that influence poor pain management approaches by the practitioners emanate from the lack of cultural competence (Macintyre & Schug, 2014). Some nurses cannot help but treat various patients differently, which results in disparities in health outcomes, and dissatisfaction in some patients. My philosophy aims at ensuring that all patients are given fair treatment, regardless of their age, sex, race, ethnicity, and religion.
The third element of my philosophy is professionalism. Having chosen to focus on pain monitoring and management throughout my career, I am aware that I will have to uphold professional conduct. The pain monitoring and management process must not be associated with any form of misconduct or professional negligence. I will ensure that all due processes are followed when developing interventions for pain management. I will always adhere to the guidelines set by the professional organizations in nursing and apply the proposed models of caregiving while incorporating my personal philosophy in the process. My conduct will portray an individual that has specialized in handling cases and leveraging technology to enhance the quality of my services. I will ensure that all the ethical factors involved in the patient-nurse relationship are upheld. Most importantly, I will be a good team player when handling various cases alongside other professionals.
The last element of my nursing philosophy involves personal goals. My ultimate goal is to become a nurse educator. Attaining this goal requires hard work and patience, and I am aware that I will have to uphold my philosophy and lure other nurses into subscribing to its guidelines. I intend to compel the health care system to look into applying better guidelines for pain management. I am looking forward to lobbying for the application of health information technology in pain monitoring and management in all departments in hospitals. I will partner with other nurses who believe that pain management guidelines should be revised to influence the concerned authorities to compel nurses to undertake training and development programs on pain management. Just like Florence Nightingale, I will be relentless in advocating for nurses to focus on enhancing the wellness status of patients immediately after being admitted to the health care facilities (Zborowsky, 2014).
The Nursing Meta-paradigm
The nursing meta-paradigm consists of the concept of nursing, patient-nurse relations, and the interaction between the patient and the environment. Based on the elements of my philosophy, it is apparent that I will uphold the professionalism required of nurses. I will develop the relevant communication skills to facilitate the development of good rapports with patients from different cultural backgrounds. The patient-nurse relationship must be effective in influencing the patient to give self-reports on matters such as pain and personal preferences during their stay in the hospital. This is the core of individual-based care; hence, I will strive to portray a character that fosters trust from the patients. I will also be keen on the requirements of the patients with reference to the environment (Macintyre & Schug, 2014). Managing physical and psychological pain will require close vigilance on the reaction of the patients to the environment, and this calls for the application of the elements of Nightingale’s environmental theory (Zborowsky, 2014).
Nursing Process
The nursing process entails the provision of care to patients from different cultural backgrounds and working with team members with different values and beliefs (Macintyre & Schug, 2014). This implies that I will have to develop good interpersonal relationships with the members of my teams to ensure that my philosophy is upheld during the caregiving process. I will look to influence other nurses to be vigilant on the actual pain caused to patients when they are delivering various services. I will also ensure that I inspire other nurses to uphold the ethical guidelines that govern the profession throughout their practice, and hope that my teams will always be associated with good reviews from the patients. My primary goal in the practice is to satisfy my patients and to provide follow up on pain management after they are discharged from the hospital.
Strengths and Limitations
One of the strengths of my philosophy is that it is geared toward solving a prevailing issue in the health care field. Pain management is still one of the most neglected issues in the system, and there is a need for health organizations to develop the relevant guidelines to monitor and manage the actual pain incurred by patients as they receive care service from nurses and doctors. The philosophy aims at compelling the inter-professional teams to start considering pain management immediately after the patient is admitted to the hospital. My philosophy also attains parallelism with the prevailing theories and policies that guide the nursing profession. One of the limitations of the philosophy is that most health care facilities are yet to adopt health information technology in pain monitoring and management, which implies that nurses have to rely on self-reports from patients, and this is not an effective way of managing pain.
References
Gatchel, R. J., McGeary, D. D., McGeary, C. A., & Lippe, B. (2014). Interdisciplinary chronic pain management: past, present, and future. American Psychologist, 69(2), 119-130.
Macintyre, P. E., & Schug, S. A. (2014). Acute pain management: A practical guide (4th ed.). Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press.
Zborowsky, T. (2014). The legacy of Florence Nightingale’s environmental theory: Nursing research focusing on the impact of healthcare environments. HERD: Health Environments Research & Design Journal, 7(4), 19-34.