Early in the process of my nursing training, I came to a realization that learning the key aspects of the nursing profession suffices not. Given how strenuous the work in health care can be, a nurse needs to have his or her “why” figured out to guide them when the road becomes rough. Apart from that, considering that nursing involves ongoing human communication, each health worker should live by a clear set of rules that would govern this process. This leads me to the main point of this paper — the importance of developing personal philosophy in nursing. This paper covers my attitude toward four essential concepts
— client, environment, health, and nursing — and explains why self-care theory is the most compatible with my views.
Person/ Client
The person component of the nursing metaparadigm is the receiver of the care. This component can also be extended to include a person’s family members and other important social groups. Spending enough time in academia and in the workplace made me inclined to believe that interacting with the person in nursing requires respect for his or her autonomy. In health care, where many processes and procedures are protocoled and automatized, sometimes, it is easy to forget that a human being is not an object for manipulation. In other words, a health worker does not work with his or her illness but with the person as a whole. Holism states that a health worker should acknowledge the unity of body and spirit in each patient and address both health and social needs (White, 2014). By allowing patients to retain their personality even on the hospital bed, a health worker promotes their autonomy and independent decision-making.
Environment
The environment component in nursing focuses on describing the influence of external factors on a person’s health. For instance, some of the diseases have quite complex etiologies and are triggered by a variety of factors – biological, social, and economical. As I see it, the complexity of the disease is often dismissed in the healthcare sector. Many nurses prefer to take a retroactive approach in address the consequences of anomaly and treat the symptoms. The environment component of the nursing paradigm would help us built a proactive approach (Blair & Jahnsen, 2015). Knowing the many factors shaping a single patient outcome, nurses could take preventative measures, which are by far more favorable in terms of time and cost-efficiency. Sadly, there are two barriers to integrating the environment component: the lack of time and resistance to integrating evidence-based practices.
Health
The health component of nursing practice describes the extent to which a person has access to health care and enjoys wellbeing. I think that the very notion of health needs to be diversified. Previously, a common consensus was that the wellbeing of a person was associated primarily with their physiological state. While physical wellness is of great importance, I am convinced that there are other elements to the quality of life that are often dismissed. First, health workers should pay more regard to the emotional state of each patient. An emotionally stable patient will have better immunity to disease and enough mental resources to self-manage these conditions that he or she already has. Second, health needs to be seen as a longitudinal value, and long-term predictions should be made on par with making diagnoses.
Nursing
The nursing component refers to the ways in which health care is delivered, and patient needs are met. According to my personal philosophy, what nurses in the workplace should be concentrating on more is collaboration. I do not think that a clinical setting is a right place to assert a strong individuality and try to handle everything single-handedly. Even if a nurse is an excellent specialist with relevant skills and background knowledge, she or he cannot afford the audacity of refusing to be a team player. As I mentioned before, the wellbeing of each patient consists of many elements. To me, it seems that this notion calls for an interdisciplinary team working on tough cases. For instance, a pulmonologist can develop a treatment plan for an asthma patient, while a therapist may come up with strategies to handle the emotional burden of chronic disease. All in all, collaboration and cooperation in the workplace would account for a transfer of knowledge and better patient outcomes.
Nursing Theory
As much as I believe that health workers should do their best to help patients, receiving outstanding results takes a team effort. A theory that is really aligned with my views on nursing was developed by Dorothea E. Orem between 1959 and 2001. She put forward the concept of patient self-care that capitalized on the autonomy and independence of individuals (Smith & Liehr, 2018). I believe that a patient cannot solely rely on their health worker – after all, the latter will not accompany them every hour of the day. Instead, individuals need to settle on working self-management strategies together with health workers, commit to them, and follow-through. In this case, each party will benefit: patients will yield positive long-term outcomes, and health workers will enjoy lower complication and readmission rates.
Conclusion
Nursing is an incredibly versatile field that operates on knowledge as well as on ethics. In this paper, I elaborated on the four key components of the nursing metaparadigm – person, environment, health, and nursing. According to my personal philosophy, patients should not be treated as objects and seen solely as their conditions. Nurses should promote independence and autonomy in their patients by respecting their free will and individuality. When addressing a condition, it is critical to take into account all the various factors that might have contributed to its development. This approach requires an interdisciplinary team and seamless communication between health workers. The last element that will refine the system is patients’ engagement in their own recovery through the adoption of sustainable self-management strategies.
References
Blair, K. A., & Jansen, M. P. (Eds.). (2015). Advanced practice nursing: core concepts for professional role development. New York, NY: Springer Publishing Company.
Smith, M. J., & Liehr, P. R. (Eds.). (2018). Middle range theory for nursing. New York, NY: Springer Publishing Company.
White, L. (2014). Mindfulness in nursing: An evolutionary concept analysis. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 70(2), 282-294.