Personal nursing philosophy and professional values

¶ … Personal Philosophy of Nursing

Nursing is, according to the U.S. Department of Labor, one of the 'hottest' or most desirable to enter of all professions today because of the increasing cost of health care, because of the managed health care system's extraction of doctor's time and personal resources, and the aging of the American population as a whole. More individuals will need personal care, advice on taking prescriptions and managing health and illness, and greater attention than physicians can provide. But despite this supposed national health care trend, the definition of nursing remains the same. It is not a definition that every personality can accommodate. To be a nurse, one must put an individual and human face upon medicine for the individual patient, tailoring the doctor's instructions and requests for the individual in a flexible fashion that is still perfectly consistent with an accurate and high standard of care. It is a calling as well as a profession, and an old one, a vocation as well as a 'hot' job market trend.

Also as defined by the Department of Labor, registered nurses "work to promote health, prevent disease, and help patients cope with illness. They are advocates and health educators for patients, families, and communities. When providing direct patient care, they observe, assess, and record symptoms, reactions, and progress in patients; assist physicians during surgeries, treatments, and examinations; administer medications; and assist in convalescence and rehabilitation." (2004) Thus, even according to the Department of Labor, the definition of a good nurse is both psychological and physical in its nature. A nurse must possess scientific competence yet he or she must help meet the individual patient meet the patient's health challenges on a personal basis that treats the patient as a body, mind and soul.

This nurse's and author of this paper's central belief about the individual is that the individual, as defined as a patient, is always the central concern of the nurse. The nurse's obligation is to treat the individual, as the individual exists within a certain point in time, in the hospital and/or home environment, to the best of that nurse's ability. The needs of the individual and environment may shift, particularly in an emergency context, and it is incumbent upon the nurse to deploy his or her training and compassion together, along with the advice of other health care professionals, to treat the individual. To a lesser but still significant degree, the needs of loved ones around the individual must be taken into consideration, such as the family.

According to the World Health organization, health may be defined as an individual's state of being at any point in time. (WHO, 1986, p.1) Health is not the absence of illness, for even healthy people require preventative care, rather health exists upon a continuum, dependent upon the environment and the individual's age, personal needs, and life status and perceptions. A nurse must help maintain health and bring an ailing person as close as possible to a state of equilibrium on the health and illness continuum.

An environment may be defined as "the immediate surroundings, the universe" (or at least the patient's universe) and what that universe may be said to contain at a particular point in time. (George, 1998, p.2) For instance, a healthy young pregnant woman in a home environment still requires special care, and a healthy but injured athlete will have a different attitude to a sprained wrist than, for instance, an elderly person whom is still happy to be 'getting around.'