My personal nursing philosophy is based on the idea that empathy and knowledge are what help to drive the field of nursing. Nurses should be understanding and demonstrate that understanding towards their patients. They should also be knowledgeable of the skills that are required to provide quality care to people. This philosophy aligns with the mission of Kean University School of Nursing (n.d.), which is “to advance the standards of practice in the region and to provide the breadth and depth of academic and clinical experiences to prepare registered nurses for advanced clinical practice and leadership roles within the context of a continuously changing health care system” (p. 4). Implicit in that mission is the idea of being adaptive. Adaptability goes hand in hand with empathy: an empathetic nurse is one who is flexible with people and able to shift from one person to the next, getting into that person’s shoes and seeing the world from that person’s eyes in order to understand how that person wants to be treated. This idea applies not just to patients but to colleagues as well. It also applies to the field of nursing, as the Kean University mission statement suggests. The nursing field is always changing—even today in the Digital Age there rise eHealth and telemedicine is helping nurses to overcome obstacles of time and space to better service clients (Barello et al., 2016). Knowledge is required to implement technology effectively in the field, but a nurse has to be adaptable in order to accept change—not only in the environment but also among people. This is the basis of my personal nursing philosophy. Kean University helps to expand on its nursing philosophy by discussing it in terms of human beings, environment, health, and nursing. These four topics can provide a framework for how to think about nursing in a holistic manner. To help give context to my philosophy, the terms person, environment, health and nurse will now be defined by me.

Person

Every...

The identity is shaped by experience, family, friends, beliefs, values, culture. Sometimes religion plays a part in developing the worldview of the person. Sometimes a lack of a religion also plays a part. Every person is unique and that is something nurses must understand in order to provide quality care to every person, every patient. Some people are prejudiced against because they are different. They may be of a minority race, or they may have different views on gender identity. Disparities arise in health care because of problems like prejudice (Drewniak, Krones & Wild, 2017). Sometimes health care providers fail to recognize every individual as special and significant, as valuable and as having a right to care. Ending disparities in health care can start with the simple act of seeing every patient as a human being who needs to be helped, understood, and shown respect.
As Marrone (2015) points out, transcultural nurses can lead the way by recognizing the powerful input that is culture. A person’s culture can tell a lot about the individual—not that one should seek to stereotype, but rather the nurse should seek to be informed. The more that a nurse knows about various cultures, the more prepared the nurse can be to relate to each individual patient based upon a quick holistic assessment. This corresponds well with the definition of human beings provided by Kean University, which states that “understanding the fullness of the individual hinges upon discovery of these systems of meanings and value orientations” (p. 4). Providing quality care to persons depends upon embracing the fullness of the individual.

Environment

Environments impact people. A person’s socio-economic environment, for example, may be the difference between that person having good access to health care and having poor or no access to care (Whitehead et al., 2016). Environments can also be the difference between a person who has a healthy diet and a…