Personal Definition Of Nursing

This portfolio shows the educational journey through the BSN program at Western Governors University(WGU). The curriculum at WGU was very challenging, nonetheless it prepared me to become a safe and effective nurse. The BSN curriculum provided avenues to keep me up to date with safe practices and learn how to master therapeutic communication. WGU also helped me sharpen my critical thinking skills in order to make decisions quickly and provide safe and effective care to patients. As the result of my training, I am ready to embark in the field of nursing and do my best to make a difference in my patients lives.

Please identify and describe characteristics of nursing practice as you understand it, that have attracted you to the profession.

"The Nola Pender Health Promotion Model, 1996" is based on educating people on how to care for and lead a healthy life. This theory identifies in the individual cognitive-perceptual factors that are modified by the situational, personal and interpersonal characteristics, which results in the participation in behaviors conducive to health, when there is a pattern for action. She considers health as a high-level positive state, and takes it as a goal, towards which the person must strive to lead a healthy life. The objective of this model is to integrate both the nurse and the person regarding the behaviors that promote the human well-being, biological, psychological and sociocultural; It is visualized that the nursing professional should be

My personal philosophy of nursing seeks to incorporate the art of conveying nursing science holistically with care and human dignity. The four nursing metaparadigm concepts are described in relation to nursing as a science and an art and provide the base upon which my view of nursing and my personal philosophy are derived. As a nursing student at UIC, I am well aware of the fact that the best outcome for any patient may not be improvement in health, but rather, a dignified death during the end of life care. End of life care includes a significant quality in care and human dignity.

As a first year student I have very specific goals in mind that I hope to achieve through my work in college. My main hopes for the future are that I pass all of my exams in the coming years, graduate and receive my honours degree in general nursing, become a registered nurse and finally get a job as a nurse. Throughout this essay, I have detailed my strengths and the opportunities that will help me finalise these goals along with my weaknesses and the threats that will hinder my progress.

From these realizations I have concluded that the professional nursing theories which most align with my own philosophy is a combination of Jean Watson’s theory of human caring and Rosemarie Parse’s theory of human becoming.

What is a nurse? According to the dictionary, a nurse is someone who is trained to care for sick or injured people. Nurses are well respect because of the career they choose and the danger they go through every day. They can get pricked with a needle that is infected with HIV or get coughed on by a person that has the flu. Just because nurses are respected they are stereotyped day by day. They are often stereotyped as being women, male nurses are gay, they always work in a hospital, they will always marry someone that is the medical field, they all were white scrubs and a cap, and they are all the same.

To me, nursing as an art of caring, is defined as caring for the whole person, building meaningful relationships, and providing compassionate care. Holistic nursing care involves healing a person physically, emotionally, and spiritually. I believe the art of nursing is embedded in the steps we take to address problems that are not simply physical. Additionally,

Nursing, and everything that it entails, cannot be easily described in just one simple word or phrase. It goes beyond the meaning of a profession and the stereotypical definition of treating the ill. Nursing is the “protection, promotion, and optimization of health and abilities, prevention of illness and injury, alleviation of suffering through the diagnosis and treatment of human response, and advocacy in the care of individuals, families, communities, and populations” (American Nurses Association, 2010, p. 1). Therefore, it is a career that requires dedication, passion, critical thinking, and knowledge. It demands commitment and an understanding of its core values and concepts, as well as the nurse’s own personal philosophy and principles.

What does nursing mean to me? Nursing means helping people heal, meeting their needs while they are in your care, listening to concerns, protecting them from harm, and educating them how to care for themselves while treating them with dignity, compassion and respect and giving of yourself to the care of people and community. It is having compassion for people and their health and being a humanitarian, making sure they receive the best care possible. Nurses must also treat families of patients with kindness, realizing they are going through a stressful situation also.

Everyone’s values and beliefs about the profession of nursing are all different. The four concepts of nursing are interrelated and all mean something different to every person, too. Throughout this paper, I will be reflecting on my values and beliefs about nursing through the four concepts while comparing them to a nursing theorist with views that are most similar to my own.

Being a nurse is not always as easy and picture perfect as people paint it to be. A nurse is expected to act perfectly professional, even when tears, anger and all-around emotions are begging to come out. A nurse must always be the one that has their life together, especially when others do not. They are there to be the ones to hold and care for others in desperate times of need. Nurses are expected to be more than just a nurse, but rather an advocate, caregiver, support system and professional. There are 5 professional values that are associated with the description of a nurse.

Nursing referred to nursing actions. For example, the nurse ability to alter or manage the environment to enhance maximum

“Concept clarification is an important step in developing useful and useable knowledge in nursing science.” (Tofthagen, 2010). Within the home health field of nursing one of the major and most significant concepts is team work. Simply stated, concept analysis incorporates a method or approach by which concepts that are of interest to a discipline are examined in order to clarify their characteristics or attributes” (Cronin, 2010). Within a home health care team there are Registered Nurses, Physical Therapists, Home Health Aides, Medical Social Workers, Managed Care Coordinators, and Clinical Managers. Within this team specific goals are set and a plan of care is designed and established. “In 2003, the Institute of Medicine identified care

Virginia Henderson defined nursing as: “The unique function of the nurse is to assist the individual, sick or well, in the performance of those activities contributing to health or its recovery (or to peaceful death) that he would perform unaided if he had the necessary strength, will or knowledge.” (Vera,2014) Henderson states that “The nurse is the only twenty four hour worker. We are the only people that will say we stay with you. They are the people that will do for others what they will do for themselves. They have the strength, will, and knowledge. We are the patient’s alter ego. We should try to get in their skin and find out what they need. If the nurse is the best prepared person to help the patient and there is no doctor available, nurses diagnose and treat the patient.”