¶ … autobiography of the author of this report. The remainder of the report will mostly focus on the four meta-paradigms of nursing. Of course, those meta-paradigms are patient, nurse, health and environment. The author will also offer two practice-specific concepts from the scholarly literature that can be applied to the career and environment of the author of this report. Next up will be a list of propositions that will number five in total. As suggested and required by the assignment, the paper will integrate these discrete elements and in a way that connects to the concepts described. While analysis of the nursing professional can get a little silly and/or delve too much into a bit of navel-gazing, the profession is indeed noble and deep and is thus worthy of the proper full analysis. Biography

The author of this report started as an electrocardiogram (EKG) technician and nursing assistant while the author was going to school to become a nurse. The program in question was an associate degree program and it was at Essex County College. Essex County is the county in New Jersey that contains Newark (which is where the college is located), West Orange and a few other cities and boroughs. After that was a Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) at Felician College. That school is located in Lodi, New Jersey. Lodi is in the general Passaic area. The author of this report presently works in an emergency room as a clinical coordinator. The author works a twelve-hour shift from seven at nigh to seven in the morning. The author of this report has six years as a trauma nurse. The author is also a member of the New Jersey Nurses Association as well as the Emergency Nurse Association. The author of this report has previously worked in interventional radiology, as a medical surgical nurse, in the chemotherapy department and as a telemetry nurse. The author has served as the President of the Professional Practice Board at the author's hospital of employment. The author of this report graduated from the Minority Nurse Leadership Institute Program. That program was conducted by the Rutgers College of Nursing and the author of this report was awarded several times for leadership and excellence in clinical work.

Nursing Meta-Paradigms

The author of this report did a review of the literature and found a few sources that pertain to the four nursing meta-paradigms. Some of this material greatly echoes the dreams and thoughts of the author of this report. As is easy to tell in the autobiography section of this report, the author is a minority and thus has concerns and perspectives that a non-minority nurse possibly would not feel or agree with or even not known about. However, the concerns of minority and other under-served populations as well as any mention of "social justice" ring true in many ways. Indeed, minorities are among the most vulnerable populations when it comes to health-related concerns and disease rates. The author of this report found a treatise by Schim and a few other authors. It was written in 2007 and references the addition of a meta-paradigm division that relates to social justice and urban health nursing. Of course, the article references the four standard meta-paradigms in the form of person, environment, health and nursing. The very first sentence in the main body of the report gets straight to the point when it says "nursing has within its power the theoretical and practical foundations to do great good in improving the health of urban populations through social justice interventions" (Schim et al., 2007). The article notes that this can manifest in a number of different nursing and medical professions or divisions such as community health, pediatrics, midwifery, women's health and adult health. Of course, the author of this report has or currently touches on many of those forms of medical care. As such, this is the sort of material and analysis that rings true and as very important to the author of this report. The first figure in the report has the four nursing metaparadigms centering around the overall concept of social justice. The source notes that many other nurses, both individuals and associations, agree with the central concept of social justice as a part of nursing in or around a nursing setting. The recognition of social justice has been roundly acknowledged by nurses as far back as 2001. This is nearly a generation ago and thus shows that the overall idea has staying power and perseverance (Schim et al.,...

Lee and Fawcett noted that the nursing metaparadigms should have a demonstrable and positive effect on Bachelor of Science in Nursing programs. The author of this report has been through such a program and would agree with this idea wholeheartedly. Any good BSN program needs to cover the right topics, cover them in the right ways and with the right evidence-based practice behind them. The professional development and assistance of learning nurses is a pivotal part of preparing future nurses for the careers and experiences that they will be encountering once they fully enter the career field. The author of this report knows this first-hand (Lee & Fawcett, 2013).
One last source that was found for the general metaparadigm question is the idea that a lot of the theories out there related to the meta-paradigms are still very fluid and very much up for debate. The differences in opinions and outlook are many. Perhaps this is because the perspectives, priorities and ideas of people are so different from situation to situation, from region to region and from person to person. However, sometimes the debate gets a little dicey and unproductive. Indeed, Thorne et al. (1998) notes that "although debate and discourse within a discipline can be healthy and productive where there is a common purpose, the model debate was rarely elevated to this level." Indeed, the author of this report has seen debates and points of debate that are either very contentious or are fairly pointless. At the same time, people say that all points of debate and analysis are fair game if they relate at all to the well-being and perspective of the patient (Thorne et al., 1998).

Practice-Specific Concepts

Based on the above sources, one practice-specific concept is the idea of delivering quality and sufficient care for people regardless and irrespective of their ability to pay, at least at the time of care. Indeed, the ethics of nursing and medical care in general dictate that medical care is much more of a right and entitlement than some people would seem to believe or be willing to admit. Considering that racial minorities and the poor are both hardest hit and most likely to be in that situation, they are the people that need the service the most. All four of the nursing metaparadigms are partially or fully affected by this subject (Schim et al., 2007). The author of this report has been involved with emergency services in the past. While money is an issue when it comes to the cost of emergency-level and high-level care, that cannot be a factor in who gets care and when.

Another practice-specific concept that will be mentioned in this report is the proper cultivation and development of nurses. Of course, everyone is a novice at some point but they need to progress beyond that point. Further, the people teaching those novices need to be themselves good at what they do and they also need to know how to transfer and extend that knowledge to other people. The knowledge needs to be measured and proven to be present because it must be there when the patient is in need of treatment (Lee & Fawcett, 2013). Further, the knowledge being extended needs to be in an evidence-based way and should not be based on personal vendettas or ideologies that have little to nothing to do with patient care (Thorne et al., 1998).

Propositions

Based on the research noted above as well as other ideas and thoughts that the author of this report would be willing to offer, the following propositions come to the mind of the author:

People that get into the nursing field need to understand that they will be serving people of all income levels, races, genders, ethnicities, ages and backgrounds. Any prejudices based on the above should be suppressed and set aside because they have no place in nursing or the medical care profession in general.

Nursing, in all of its forms, can be very stressful, draining and can lead to burnout. This is especially true in areas and fields like hospice, emergency services of any kind, hospitals/clinics in areas that are prone to violence and crime, and so forth

People that enter the nursing field need to be prepared to put in the proper level of work. Knowing theory and so forth is all well and good but application, knowing what to do and when and the proper…