Personal Philosophy in Nursing
NURS 401 – Career Pathway Assessment
Purpose of Assignment
The purpose of this assignment is to enable the student to discover his or her personal philosophy of nursing, as it exists at the beginning of the academic journey toward the BSN.
Student Approach to Assignment
This assignment was challenging because I had less than a year’s experience in nursing at the beginning of this bachelor’s program. I felt that I was still adjusting to a new role. This assignment helped me to put into words what I set out to do in nursing: to care for other people in times of illness. Illness means more than just physical health, but also mental health. To illustrate how I supported my patients’ well-beings, I drew upon the limited, yet varied, cases that I had dealt with up to that point: bowel resections and surgeries, bariatric surgery, and diabetics. In particular, I recounted an interaction with a young diabetic amputee and how I helped him through the loss of his leg. That experience had showed me that emotional support was as important to health as physical support. In a year of medical-surgical nursing, I also realized that I was always explaining, educating, and informing patients about their disease processes. I discovered that I liked to teach my patients, so I had also incorporated my desire to educate and encourage my patients into my philosophy.
Reason for Inclusion of this Assignment in the Portfolio
My nursing philosophy is an especially important piece because it helped establish some base values for my nursing practice. The desires to care, guide, teach, and be compassionate have been close to my heart since writing this essay. While the assignment’s intent was to provide a starting point, it gave me a general direction in my nursing career.
Core Competencies
Critical Thinking
Nursing Practice
Communication
Teaching
Research
Leadership
Professionalism
Culture
How My Philosophy Has Changed
I established in this assignment that I would hold caring, professionalism, and education as tenants of my nursing practice. I’ve continued to do so, but in this program, I have been able to explore professionalism and education further. The ability to care and be compassionate are innate characteristic, but professionalism and education can actively be built upon. Professionalism has taught me to extend past my comfort zone and interact with other people. Education also reaches past the patient, but also to my co-workers and myself. I believe that it is one of the most important elements of my growth as a nurse.
The purpose of this assignment is to enable the student to discover his or her personal philosophy of nursing, as it exists at the beginning of the academic journey toward the BSN.
Student Approach to Assignment
This assignment was challenging because I had less than a year’s experience in nursing at the beginning of this bachelor’s program. I felt that I was still adjusting to a new role. This assignment helped me to put into words what I set out to do in nursing: to care for other people in times of illness. Illness means more than just physical health, but also mental health. To illustrate how I supported my patients’ well-beings, I drew upon the limited, yet varied, cases that I had dealt with up to that point: bowel resections and surgeries, bariatric surgery, and diabetics. In particular, I recounted an interaction with a young diabetic amputee and how I helped him through the loss of his leg. That experience had showed me that emotional support was as important to health as physical support. In a year of medical-surgical nursing, I also realized that I was always explaining, educating, and informing patients about their disease processes. I discovered that I liked to teach my patients, so I had also incorporated my desire to educate and encourage my patients into my philosophy.
Reason for Inclusion of this Assignment in the Portfolio
My nursing philosophy is an especially important piece because it helped establish some base values for my nursing practice. The desires to care, guide, teach, and be compassionate have been close to my heart since writing this essay. While the assignment’s intent was to provide a starting point, it gave me a general direction in my nursing career.
Core Competencies
Critical Thinking
- Evaluates nursing care outcomes through the acquisition of data and the questioning of inconsistencies.
Nursing Practice
- Applies appropriate knowledge of major health problems to guide nursing practice.
Communication
- Uses therapeutic communication within the nurse-patient relationship.
- Produces clear, accurate, and relevant writing using correct grammar, spelling, and punctuation.
Teaching
- Provides teaching to patients and/or professionals about health care procedures and technologies in preparation and following nursing or medical interventions.
- Uses information technologies and other appropriate methods to enhance one’s own knowledge base.
Research
- Differentiates between descriptive nursing literature and published reports of nursing research
Leadership
- Articulates the values of the profession and the role of the nurse as member of the interdisciplinary health care team.
Professionalism
- Demonstrates accountability for one’s own professional practice.
Culture
- Demonstrates sensitivity to personal and cultural definitions of health, and how these beliefs influence an individual’s reactions to the illness experience and end of life.
How My Philosophy Has Changed
I established in this assignment that I would hold caring, professionalism, and education as tenants of my nursing practice. I’ve continued to do so, but in this program, I have been able to explore professionalism and education further. The ability to care and be compassionate are innate characteristic, but professionalism and education can actively be built upon. Professionalism has taught me to extend past my comfort zone and interact with other people. Education also reaches past the patient, but also to my co-workers and myself. I believe that it is one of the most important elements of my growth as a nurse.
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