Philosophy, Cultural Care and Florence Nightingale Essay

Philosophy, Cultural Care and Florence Nightingale Essay

Philosophy, Cultural Care and Florence Nightingale Essay

Nursing is one of the most complex disciplines requiring the nurses to apply various aspects of knowledge to guide the nursing practice. Philosophical underpinnings of nursing practice have largely helped guide the nursing practice in the appropriate directions. Known nurse theorists such as Nightingale have defined various important aspects of patient care, such as human, environment, and culture, to help give a more definite direction and care actions that can support the profession (Smith, 2020). Therefore, it is vital that nurse practitioners have their own and internalized nursing philosophies covering various care aspects. As such, the purpose of this paper is to explore a personal philosophy of the professional nursing practice. As part of the philosophy, various aspects will be addressed, including a perceived view of nursing, the definition of culture and culturally congruent care, values, definitions of nursing, environment, health, and patient, and how the world view influences my nursing care.

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Perceived View of Nursing

Whenever someone mentions the word “nursing,” my thoughts sometimes settle on reflecting on what nursing means to me. I believe nursing encompasses the acts of caring, being compassionate, giving hope, and lifesaving. My personal view of nursing also entails optimizing and promoting patient care to facilitate healing and prevent injury and illnesses. The implication is that any individual involved in nursing should have the compassion to alleviate the suffering experienced by patients through effective diagnosis and treatment, giving hope, and ensuring that the patient’s dignity remains (Urden et al., 2017).

Definition of Culture and Culturally Congruent Care

As part of nursing philosophy, a nurse needs to be aware of the impact of culture on patient care. Therefore, individuals need to understand the meaning of culture and how culture may impact care decisions and patients’ responses to formulated care plans. The results would be culturally congruent care. As earlier indicated, various nurse theorists have defined various care aspects as culture. I believe that culture entails a collection of behaviors, customs, ideas, and spiritual practices that help define a society, people, or group of individuals. Closely connected to culture in terms of patient care is culturally congruent care (Sharifi et al., 2020). Culturally congruent care entails the provision of care to a patient while taking into consideration of a patient’s cultural practice, beliefs, and values. As such, the patient’s needs are met in a better way.

The Enduring Values that Brought Me to Nursing

Before deciding to join nursing, there are various factors that came into play and consideration. Among them were enduring values. One such value include respect for human dignity. I had a chance during my early teens to see one of my neighbors battling cancer and needing care at the most vulnerable point. The nursing services offered to him were impressive and showed respect for human dignity, even though the condition was terminal. I acquired this value, and it is one of the top values that led me to nursing. The other value was compassion. I have grown to be a person who believes that everyone needs compassion, and more so, individuals battling diseases. I believed that I needed a profession where I could easily show more compassion on a regular basis to the individuals in need of the same. Therefore nursing as a profession ticked this box, hence choosing the profession. The other important value that led to nursing is precision. I value performing actions to precision and with accuracy. I knew that patients need a safe environment to achieve recovery and receive medical procedures. These are conditions that should be as precise as possible. I also longed to be precise in offering patients accurate information regarding how best they can improve their health and prevent illnesses.

My Definitions of Patient, Health, Environment, and Nursing

Offering appropriate patient care services to patients implies that a nurse develops a comprehensive understanding of various aspects surrounding the care environment, such as patient, health, environment, and nursing (Smith, 2020). Therefore, my definition of a patient is that a patient is an individual battling a known or an unknown illness that requires a medical and nursing intervention to address. The illness can be mental, physical, psychological, or spiritual. Health is the state of being whole, without any concerning illness, implying that an individual exhibits a complete social, mental and physical well-being in addition to the absence of illness. Environment refers to a patient’s complete surroundings that can foster the development of diseases, enhance healing, or be a barrier to a patient’s healing. It, therefore, does not only entail health enabling factors such as light, cleanliness, pure water, and fresh air, but also hazards that can result in a patient’s injury. Nursing refers to planned care actions that help individuals to maintain their health, prevent diseases, heal from diseases and have better health outcomes.

My World View That Influences My Nursing Care

The nursing care offered to patients can be impacted by various factors. The implication is that, depending on the nature of the impact, nursing care can either be enhanced or impeded (Smith, 2020). Among such factors is an individual’s worldview. According to my world view, there is a supreme being who is enabled every individual to come to the earth and that everyone exists for a reason, either known to them or unknown to them. An individual requires another person to help them identify their reasons for existence in cases where such reasons are unknown to them. In addition, my world view also holds that individuals should be helped to live the best life they can by offering support through whatever means. Therefore, such views impact my nursing care. I believe that it is my responsibility as a nurse to help patients learn that it is not their destiny to be sick every time and stay in bed. Therefore, I believe in taking active roles in designing care activities and promotion efforts to help patients achieve the ultimate goal of being healthy and staying healthy.

How My Worldview of Nursing Practice Changed as Result of My Nursing Experience

In most cases, individuals develop a worldview of nursing practice even before becoming nurses. However, when an individual becomes a nurse, such world views change to various degrees due to the nursing experiences (Dossey et al., 2017). It has not been different with me either. Interacting with patients has been an enriching experience. One aspect of nursing that was never part of how I view nursing is culturally competent nursing. I came to note that patients come from different backgrounds, diverse from each other, calling for a nurse to quickly learn about individual patients if proper care is to be offered. As part of my original worldview, I believed that there is God, a supernatural being, who can help ill individuals get better. However, I met some patients who did not believe in such as; therefore, I had to look for better ways to help them improve and develop a better attitude towards their healing. Therefore, while my worldview has remained largely the same, some of the aspects have been impacted by the nursing experience over the years.

Conclusion

Nursing care forms an integral part of patient care, treatment, and management. Therefore, a nurse should have enough knowledge of various aspects of patient care. The personal philosophy of nursing care reveals what a nurse believes in terms of patient care and patient care settings. This paper has explored various aspects of patient personal philosophy.

References

Dossey, B. M., Beck, D. M., Oerther, S., & Manjrekar, P. (2017). Florence Nightingale’s Legacy: the rationale for an integral worldview in achieving the sustainable development goals. A new era in global health: Nursing and the United Nations, 2030, 149-178.

Sharifi, N., Adib-Hajbaghery, M., & Najafi, M. (2019). Cultural competence in nursing: A concept analysis. International journal of nursing studies, 99, 103386. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijnurstu.2019.103386

Smith, M. C. (2020). Nursing theories and nursing practice. FA Davis.

Urden, L. D., Stacy, K. M., & Lough, M. E. (2017). Critical Care Nursing-E-Book: Diagnosis and Management. Elsevier Health Sciences.

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Your Philosophy, Cultural Care, and Florence Nightingale
Course readings provide the foundation for your reflection on your worldview or lens informing professional nursing practice. From a historical perspective, Florence Nightingale’s nursing work continues to provide significant influence in creating nursing knowledge, cultures of safety, and nursing’s call to improve the health of the community.

Instructions:

For this activity, complete the following steps adapting for the option chosen to show mastery:

Present your own philosophy of professional nursing practice including
Your perceived view of nursing
Your definition of culture and culturally congruent care
Your enduring values that brought you to nursing
Your definitions of patient, health, environment, and nursing
Your worldview that influences your nursing care
How your worldview of nursing practice changed as a result of your nursing experiences
Analyze components with the Sunrise Enabler developed by Leininger (1995) aligned with your philosophy of nursing that guide you in a culturally sensitive practice

Suggested Readings & Materials:

Chapter 4 & 17 in Smith, M. C. (2020) Nursing theories & nursing practice (5th ed.). Philadelphia, PA: F.A. Davis

Additional Instructions:

All submissions should have a title page and reference page.
Utilize a minimum of three scholarly resources.
Adhere to grammar, spelling and punctuation criteria.
Adhere to APA compliance guidelines.
Adhere to the chosen Submission Option for Delivery of Activity guidelines.