Running Head: Personal Philosophy Paper 1

Personal Philosophy Paper

Katelin Wells

NUR 4142: Synthesis for Nursing Practice

Bon Secours Memorial College of Nursing

3/21/17
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Personal Philosophy Paper

Nursing can mean a variety of things to many different people. To some, it could mean

being ones only psychological support while to others it could mean just curing ones disease so

they can live for another day. Whatever the meaning, it can be agreed upon that nurses play a

major role in patient health care.

Throughout my nursing school career, I have grown and developed my personal

philosophy of nursing. To me, nursing is more than just curing a disease or giving someone their

medications to help maintain their illness; it is providing holistic care and paying attention to all

of the patients needs whether it be mind, body, or spirit. Nurses provide endless support to

patients even if they are just in need of someone to listen to their story. No bias or judgment is

passed on those seeking care and education is key when caring for patients. Nurses constantly

teach patients about lifestyle choices and how they can improve their health just by making a

change. Nursing is also full of modern technology so nurses have to be innovative and ready to

implement change. Nursing is being ready to give a part of yourself to someone you just met to

improve their health and outcomes.

Bon Secours Memorial College of Nursing has formed a philosophy of nursing that

serves as a guideline to the students and those employed by the school. The nursing school has a

vision of the types of nurses they want to graduate from their school and to be the voice of

change in this career. Three tenets talked about in the schools philosophy statement are caring,

health, and service.

According to the philosophy statement, nurses who are caring show this by utilizing their

nursing knowledge and critical thinking skills, interpersonal skills, curiosity, courage, and humor

(BSMCON Faculty Handbook, 2016 p.39). Nurses are able to think on a whim about what move
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needs to be made next and act courageously while performing tasks. They are able to bring tough

situations to light with humor and commit themselves to lifelong learning with their curious

minds. Nurses ensure patient safety and speak up for patient rights when they feel safety has

been or will be compromised (BSMCON Faculty Handbook, 2016 p.39). They especially stand

up for the vulnerable populations that seek care to ensure they feel safe for an optimal healing

environment. Nurses provide holistic care and impact each sanction of a person mind, body,

and spirit (BSMCON Faculty Handbook, 2016 p.39). Nurses dont only provide medical care to

patients; they provide psychological support and ensure spiritual needs are met. Through their

nursing presence, they provide a caring and healing environment to patients to encourage rest

and relaxation (BSMCON Faculty Handbook, 2016 p.39). Nurses meet the needs of patients

through hard work and determination, but they also know that to care for others, one must care

for themselves first (BSMCON Faculty Handbook, 2016 p.39). Nurses know the importance of

self-care and dont take it lightly when it comes to caring for others as well. Caring is a major

part of nursing and nurses who graduate from Bon Secours are ready to put that into practice and

improve patient care.

Nurses provide holistic care to improve patient health and outcomes. They help patients

reach a sense of acceptance of their illness or disease process and meet the holistic needs of the

patient so they can live harmoniously (BSMCON Faculty Handbook, 2016 p.39). Nurses

constantly look for things the patient may need to reach the attainable goal of healing holistically.

According to the schools philosophy, health is always fluctuating and changing (BSMCON

Faculty Handbook, 2016 p.39). A person who is healthy today, may not be tomorrow and will be

seeking care. It is the nurses responsibility to ensure the patient is comfortable with seeking

care. Everyone should have access to health care as it is a basic human right of all, especially
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those who are vulnerable in the community (BSMCON Faculty Handbook, 2016 p.39). Health

care should not be withheld from people because they do not have the ability to pay or because

they have something that separates them from others and induces fear like AIDS. People who

seek healthcare should not be turned away and should be welcomed with open arms as they

receive care. The nursing school states that humans are very unique and complex individuals

(BSMCON Faculty Handbook, 2016 p.39). Nurses are able to communicate with the patients

more often than most members of the healthcare team giving them the advantage to discover

patient needs and provide care that provides for optimal healing. A person becomes who they are

as a result of the environment and influences around them and each person deserves to be treated

with dignity and respect (BSMCON Faculty Handbook, 2016 p.39). Nurses are to provide care

that is nonjudgmental and respectful of ones wishes and desires. The nurse is an advocate for

patients and care provided should reflect that.

Bon Secours Memorial College of Nursing influences the students of the program to

apply the values respect, compassion, justice, integrity, quality, innovation, stewardship, and

growth in the care they provide (BSMCON Faculty Handbook, 2016 p.39). Students follow and

support Bon Secours mission of good help to those in need (BSMCON Faculty Handbook,

2016 p.39). Students in the nursing program learn about the mission and values of Bon Secours

and incorporate it into their practice as they develop into nurses. Nurses serve as patient

advocates and strive to eliminate discrimination and health disparities in the health care field

(BSMCON Faculty Handbook, 2016 p.39). The vulnerable population is the biggest population

that nursing students defend and advocate for. They are unable to speak up for themselves and all

nurses should strive to help this community. Nurses strive to be change agents as they provide
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care to patients. They set an example to others about how to provide care and how to improve the

care provided to patients.

My personal philosophy is reflected in my nursing practice in a variety of ways. I always

provide non-judgmental care to each of my patients even when the other nurses do not. I also

strive to meet all of the patients needs, even if it is just a snack that they are in need of.

Providing holistic care to patients is the most important part of the care I provide. I always try to

get to know each of my patients personally to lighten the mood and learn about their level of

acceptance of the reason why they are in the hospital. From there, I will take what I have learned

and educate about their expressed needs. For example, if they dont have a family I will ask

about close friends and if they dont have that, I will educate I will talk with them about any

psychological concerns I may have like the importance of talking to someone if they are

feeling depressed. With every clinical experience I have had, I have always strived to learn

something new or do something differently to determine the most effective way to perform a

task. I always act with my personal philosophy in mind and work hard to ensure it is passed

through in everything I do as a practicing nurse.

An example of me utilizing my personal philosophy of nursing is one of the patients I

have cared for this semester in clinical immersion. My patient was a very sweet elderly woman

who had just undergone two life-changing surgeries. She came into the hospital with an ischemic

foot and leg due to a clot. She had a femoral-popliteal bypass to restore blood flow to her leg and

foot. Later that day, she had returned to surgery because the problem had not been resolved and

her foot remained ischemic. She had a below the knee amputation and no longer had a leg. While

providing care to the patient, she was extremely tearful. I had talked with her a bit and

discovered that she was tearful because the day before, she had a leg and now she does not. She
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would repeatedly say behind her tears, I am in so much pain. I dont have my leg anymore.

After providing pain medication for her 10/10 pain, I sat with her and held her hand. She and I

had talked about her concerns of never walking again. I took this opportunity to educate her

about prosthetics and the importance of physical therapy and occupational therapy to prepare for

walking again. By the end of my shift, she was no longer tearful, was managing her pain, and

was ready to go through the prosthetic sizing and physical and occupational therapy to move

forward. Caring for this patient helped me learn how to manage a situation like this and how to

improve delivering education to patients.

My values and beliefs about nursing have grown and developed throughout my nursing

school career. My values consist of respect, dignity, compassion, and quality. I believe that all

patients deserve to be respected, even if their wishes and values do not align with my own.

Dignity is a huge thing to provide to patients. They deserve to have ethical treatment and to be

treated well. All nurses should provide compassionate care to every patient and deliver nothing

but the highest quality of care to patients. I believe that all patients have a right to privacy and a

right to care and should not be denied either of those things when seeking care.

Nursing school has changed my values as I have a much larger understanding of patient

care and patient rights. I have seen lots of patients not get the care they needed and deserved

because of practitioner discrimination. For example, patients with a history of IV drug use

seeking care. Doctors and nurses refuse to believe that there is something wrong with the patient

because they think they are drug seeking when in reality, there may be something wrong with the

patient. I believe that this is not an okay practice and that patients deserve more than the

judgment they get from practitioners when they seek care. Judgment and bias causes patients to

refrain from seeking care which can cause a much larger problem later on in their life.
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Patricia Benner is a very influential author of the book, From Novice to Expert. In this

book, she talks about nurses and the importance of clinical experience in the journey of a nurse.

She believes that clinical knowledge is gained over time, and clinicians themselves are often

unaware of their gains (Benner, 2001 p.4). Benner believes that nurses gain the vast majority of

their knowledge over time throughout their clinical experiences. She explains this through a

variety of different mechanisms, but each relate back to clinical nursing knowledge. Nurses

compare their judgments in patient situations which allow them to further develop a knowledge

to recognize signs and symptoms of a specific disease process (Benner, 2001 p.5). Nurses

eventually develop a skillset to expect certain events to happen with the diagnose of a disease

(Benner, 2001 p.7). Nurses learn the majority of their actions through previous experiences with

patients and use what was learned to guide their nursing actions in patient care (Benner, 2001

p.8).

Benner has developed a model of skill acquisition which is the theory that each nurse

goes through five levels of proficiency. These five levels are novice, advanced beginner,

competent, proficient, and expert. The novice nurse is someone who has no previous experience

as a nurse (Benner, 2001 p.20). These nurses are often students who are learning about patient

care and how to perform tasks. The advanced beginner has the ability to demonstrate acceptable

performance and have had enough experience to make decisions and understand a situation

(Benner, 2001 p.22). These nurses are oftentimes newly graduated nurses who have not had

enough experience to be completely competent in their skills. The competent nurse is someone

who has been performing nursing tasks for a few years and are able to look more into the future

of how the patient care provided is making a difference (Benner, 2001 p.25). These nurses are

comfortable enough to make informed decisions and effectively prioritize care. The proficient
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nurse is able to focus on how care will effect a patient and how the care will affect the patient

long term (Benner, 2001 p.27). These nurses can expect events to occur based off of previous

nursing knowledge and are able to plan their response to the different situations that may occur.

The expert nurse knows and understands disease processes and why things happen the way they

do without having to research why things are the way they are (Benner, 2001 p.32). These nurses

are very competent in everything they do and are able to react quickly without thinking.

As an almost newly graduated nurse, I feel that I am at the advanced beginner stage. I

feel this because I offer an acceptable performance and am able to recognize abnormalities in

patient assessments. I still have to think about things when considering a patients diagnosis and

consider what I need to expect throughout the shift. I also need to have guidance from others

about what I need to recommend to the doctor to change the patients care. I feel with more

experience I will be able to move to the next level.

I plan to move to the next level as a competent nurse through a variety of ways. I need a

few years of practice in a clinical setting to better be able to recognize abnormalities and better

prepare for the patient care I provide. I also need a large variety of clinical experiences best

found in a medical surgical setting because of the large array of patients. I plan to work closely

with the preceptor I am assigned to during my training to increase my understanding and learn

their way of performing tasks and prioritizing patient care. After each of my clinical experiences,

I plan to reflect on the care I provided and how I can improve the tasks I have performed. I

believe these things can help me reach my goal of becoming a competent nurse.

Nursing is very important to me and I believe that through my experiences as a registered

nurse in a few months, I will grow and develop more than I thought I would. I will always hold

my values and beliefs close and will not stray from the path I have chosen for myself. Bon
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Secours Memorial College of Nursing has prepared me for my journey in the nursing field and I

cannot wait to see where I end up in my career.

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References

Benner, P. (2001). From novice to expert: Excellence and power in clinical nursing practice

(commemorative ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

BSMCON Faculty Handbook (2016). Chapter IV: Curriculum pp.38-39.