Ways of Knowing In the book, Theoretical Basis for Nursing, written by Melanie McEwen and Evelyn Wills, mentions Knowledge Development and Nursing Science, which basically means the various ways knowledge is acquired. In nursing, there are many, a few mentioned are the four different categories in Nursing Epistemology, which are: Empirical knowledge, esthetic knowledge, personal knowledge, and ethics, which are the four fundamentals in nursing knowledge.
Nursing Epistemology Empirical knowledge is objective, abstract, quantifiable, exemplary, discursively formulated, and verifiable. It is verified through repeated testing, laws, principals and theories; basically, seeking explanations. Esthetic knowledge is expressive, subjective and
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Ethics, or ethical knowledge, which is our moral code and obligation to service and respect human life. It is the good, valuable and the goals desired (McEwen & Wills, 2014).
Personal Situation
An example of a situation that I’ve encounter during my few years as a registered nurse, working in long term care, was dealing with residents with multiple diagnosis and aging. I had only been work prn, so it was difficult to really know a client. My resident was an older Caucasian female with diagnosis of dementia, congestive heart failure, iron deficiency, thyroid dysfunction, and several other illnesses. As I arrive to my unit at the start of shift, I had a resident approach me, wanting her medications, while she is standing on her walker, I notice, the resident having some shortness of breath. When obtaining her blood pressure, I remember both numbers, systolic and diastolic, were extremely elevated, I obtain and 02Sat, which seem to improve, after a few minutes of resting. I continued by asking is she had any headache or chest pain? She continued to state, yes for the headache, but no on the chest pain. I proceed by giving her morning
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Examples include assessing her symptoms, and treating them with blood pressure medication, diuretics, aspirin, applying oxygen, and reassessing after treatment was administered. Other ways in assisting the resident was when the wheel chair was offered and transferred her to the dining area for breakfast, as well as reassessing.
Esthetic Knowledge
Even though my resident was experiencing some physical needs, I continued to care for her in other ways, the attention I gave her, something as simple as to just sit with her in her room. Listen to her social needs, missing her daughter, and wondering why her daughter hadn’t shown up to visit. I comfort her and explain that her daughter was trying to schedule time to spend with her soon. We even called her on the phone just so that she could hear her voice. My residents need where cared for in a holistic manner.
Personal Knowledge
The personal knowledge experience by myself with my resident was more than just empirical, there was a bond, more than just treating the symptoms. A simple gestor, such as holding her hand and listening to her concerns, is something my resident never forgot. Soon she expressed her appreciation by giving me a hug every time she would see
My family has always taught me to help people out when they need it and reach out because you never know what situation they have been through. When I see someone who is in pain, needs a friend to talk to, or needs help; therefore, I will be there. I love helping and seeing how thankful different individuals are. Helping the residents helped me become more of an adult because I learned how to treat them and how they like to be treated like, as an adult. They want to do everything they possibly can, it’s great to encourage them to do so.
As there are many care associated that work together during the day, the manager was always around to help support them. It has been made clear that strong relationships are made with those who are working together and the residents. This is very important when it comes to this type of environment because a lot of people in the elderly population have a lot of grief with not being able to be fully independent. It is very important to make those residents feel like there is nothing wrong with them and that it is just another stage in life that we all will have to go through at some
As I have mentioned several times, I monitor feedback, complaints policies and procedures all the time. It is part of my role to make sure that all systems and procedures are working well and smoothly. When new procedures are needed then I make sure they are implemented by all staff and make sure they are aware of them from meetings memos and care plans. Families of the residents are very forward in making complaints and raising concerns if they feel something is not being carried out correctly, with this I must make sure that it is factual as family members often try to make us do things which does not promote the independence of the resident, I make sure I see them listen to concerns and explain reasons these actions and methods are in place.
Reading this article for the elderly care, I feel that ethical issues commonly occur anywhere in the treatment of older patients. I had a clinical experience both in an acute-care hospital and in a long-term care facility. Before working in a long-term facility, I was not aware of how many ethical principles were violated in the treatment of older patients as a daily routine as stated in the article. In reality, there are many situations in which older patients don’t completely exhibit their autonomy because they are vulnerable physically and emotionally and dependent on others. Therefore, they become more conscious of caregivers or healthcare professionals.
As nurses, we continue to gain knowledge and skills within our area of practice. We use theories to help us build concepts or ideas in gathering information, explaining relationships and demonstrating experiences of development. Theories vary in their level of abstraction and scope. Nursing theories are beneficial in helping us to understand, organize our thoughts and influence practice and research. Nursing theory has three distinct types to describe the level of abstraction:
I am interested in applying to the USC New Graduate Nurse Residency Program offered in the Stepdown Telemetry Unit. I will graduate from California State University, Fullerton’s Accelerated Bachelor’s of Science in Nursing program in May of 2016 and I am an excellent candidate for this program. Throughout my nursing program, I have performed quite well in both lecture and clinical environments, maintaining a 3.9 GPA and receiving excellent evaluations from my clinical instructors. During my capstone externship in the Los Alamitos Intensive Care Unit, I have learned not only the technical skills required of a registered nurse providing care for critically ill patients, but have also developed the critical thinking abilities that must accompany
Philosophy of Nursing 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.
A career as a Psychiatric-Mental Health Nurse Practitioner is a natural extension of my personal, educational, and research experiences. Although my path to nursing has not been a straight line, every experience that put me on this path has shaped my passion and dedication to psychiatric nursing. After losing loved ones to suicide at a young age, I made a promise to myself and to them that I would dedicate my life to helping individuals struggling with mental illness. This promise led me to study Psychology at UC Berkeley, where I fell in love with clinical research investigating the efficacy of treatments for mental illness.
Sometimes, we would have people come to our home for treatments as well. Our home had become a place of healing for the broken, both literally and metaphorically. Our home had being set apart from many others. I learnt the importance of love, care, and support. My first opportunity personally interacting with patients was after I became a certified nursing assistant (CNA); I took a job at a Skilled Nursing Home called York land Park.
The last three clinical weeks at the Long Term Care Facility have provided me with real life situations to enforce the SILC clinical skills and improve my therapeutic communication. This experience has helped shaped me as a professional by allowing me to develop essential skills that contribute to the holistic care of nursing. A significant improvement that I developed following this experience included my assessment skills during every resident interaction. During these resident encounters, I began to address the resident’s overall well-being and comfort rather than just the current problem. I started incorporating questions about pain, how the resident slept at night, their current mood, and many other questions addressing the resident’s status as a whole.
Caring for The Individual: An Examination of Personal Nursing Philosophy Arianna Mailloux 400164224 NURSING 2AA3 Ashley Collins Harris February 19, 2018 As a novice nurse, developing and understanding of ones’ own personal feelings about nursing is important to help shape your clinical practice. Within this paper I will examine my personal assumptions, beliefs and values of the four nursing paradigms to develop a personal philosophy of nursing. This philosophy will be aligned with a known nursing theory and the comparisons will be discussed. Section I: Personal Philosophy of Nursing Person
Showing a genuine interest in the patient's life and
This theory defines nurses developed skills and the understanding of patient care over the years, with a combination of educational background and personal experiences in the clinical area. This theory has five levels of Nursing; Novice, Advanced Beginner, Competent, Proficient, and Expert. . A novice-is a beginner with no experience, they are bound by rules to assist in performing tasks.
Ways of Knowing Related to Nursing Theory Emily Amstutz University of Missouri Kansas City MSN FNP Program Abstract Carper (1978) presents four fundamental ways of knowing that have been developed from emerging patterns in the discipline of nursing: (a) empirical way of knowing, (b) esthetic way of knowing, (c) personal knowledge, and (d) ethics. As a registered nurse, I primary utilize the empirical way of knowing in my practice because it is science based and encourages logical decision-making skills. The four fundamental ways of knowing apply to nursing theory by: Keywords: empirical, esthetics, personal knowledge, ethics, ways of knowing, Ways of Knowing Related to Nursing Theory
In group deliberation, knowledge was seen to be a vital quality within nursing. We agreed that nurses must have a sufficient knowledge in order to provide competent patient care, and that nurses needed to have the ability to apply their knowledge so that they could benefit their patients. In our Coat of Arms, knowledge was characterized as an infinity sign made of green vines. Our interpretation was based on the belief that knowledge within nursing was ever growing, and that the pursuit of knowledge was always relevant within nursing.