Jordan Woods

Personal Philosophy of Nursing Paper

NUR 4142

October 17, 2018

Christine Turner, PhD, RN

“I Pledge…” Jordan M. Woods

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Definition of Nursing

The World Health Organization defines nursing as “encompassing

autonomous and collaborative care of individuals of all ages, families, groups and

communities, sick or well and in all settings. It includes the promotion of health, the

prevention of illness and the of ill, disabled and dying” (who.int, 2018). I think that

this meets my personal definition of nursing in the literal sense but to me there is a

great deal more to this definition than nursing in the literal sense. In addition to

physically caring for the well, sick and dying; my definition of nursing incorporates

compassion, empathy, diligence and heart that is motivated by our patients.

Nursing for me is not only a profession or career but also a lifelong commitment to

providing the absolute best care possible to the ones who need it the most. This

commitment to providing the best care means that we as nurses never stop learning

and improving. That we actively seek out knowledge and continuing education to

better our practice in the ever-changing setting of healthcare because that is what

our patients deserve.

The Bon Secour slogan of being Good help to those in need has always

resonated within my own personal definition of nursing and the tenets of our

program philosophy statement I believe fall hand in hand with being good help.

These tenets include nursing, education, caring, health and service. The tenet of

caring is what comes to the forefront of my mind when I think of nursing in both a

physiological and psychological way. As nurses we physically care for patient’s

illness and physiological needs to improve their health but that is only part of caring

for patients in my definition of nursing. There is also the heart of a nurse that tends
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to a patient’s psychological needs above and beyond just making them well, not just

caring for them but making the patient feel cared for. Service is another tenet that

resonates with my definition of nursing. Nursing is truly a service career; we go to

work everyday to best serve the needs of our patients regardless of the sacrifices we

might need to make such as missing a birthday or holiday with family. We do it

because we find joy in what we do and in serving our patients. A tenet that also

exemplifies my definition of nursing is education. I mentioned before that as nurses

we are doing a disservice to our patients if we get complacent with our education.

They deserve our very best everyday and in the healthcare field that is always

improving and changing, we must keep up with the change by continuing our

education and constantly absorbing new knowledge.

Personal Philosophy

I reflect my personal philosophy of nursing into my practice with direct

patient care. Part of my joy in nursing is building a relationship with my patients

and their families; I want to get to know them as a person and not just their medical

history as a patient. To me this reflects the compassion and empathy I define as

pieces of my philosophy of nursing. It is one thing to physically care for the

physiological needs of a patient but to me that isn’t enough. In my philosophy of

nursing we do the best we can to give our patient’s excellent care but it is the heart

of a nurse that completes the picture and means a great deal to our patients. I also

reflect the education part of my philosophy by never hesitating to ask questions and

seeking out opportunities to learn while finishing school. As a student nurse I am

committed to learning and absorbing any and all information that I can to help in
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making myself a great nurse. My preceptor has been a great resource and advocate

for my learning and growth as a student nurse by providing countless opportunities

to see and do new things to enhance my knowledge.

Throughout my immersion experience I am lucky enough to have such an

amazing mentor in my preceptor who exemplifies many aspects of my own

philosophy of nursing. I am learning a great deal from her nursing wise as well as

getting to see in practice what an experienced nurse with similar values and

philosophies looks like. I believe that we work so well together and developed a

strong interprofessional relationship because we share similar values in the nursing

practice. She and I both make it a point to get to know our patients and their

families more personally than just medically, we find joy in talking with them and

getting to know them. While caring for them and learning from her we as a team are

building the patient nurse relationship that we find to be an exceptionally important

aspect of our philosophy of nursing.

Nurse patient encounter

A few weeks ago on a Tuesday I had the pleasure of taking care of a patient

that had been on our unit for about a week and was loved by all the staff. She

unfortunately had a delay in her progress and had been re-intubated over the

weekend. It was unique for us to find her that morning clear of any sedation, calm

and able to communicate with us via whiteboard. Many patients on ventilators

interact with us minimally so this was a new experience for me. Throughout the day

we cared for her and communicated clinical necessities as well as even a little

chatting via her whiteboard. Through our conversation she wrote to ask about my
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siblings and told her I was a twin to which she responded by writing two of her

sister’s names down and the word twins, telling me her sisters were twins. I later

on got to meet her twin sisters when they came for a visit and she wrote to them

that I was a twin, which they thought was neat to have in common. That day her son

spent a few hours at the hospital and asked us questions about her plan of care,

updates, etc. He also wanted to get to know us as his mother’s care takers and his

mother wrote him things about how great she thought we were which was

heartwarming. What resonated with me most though was when the son called the

next day saying he would be by later but wanted to check on her. I gave him an

update on how she was doing and he was thankful, he then stated “this must be

Jordan isn’t it, I can hear your smile through the phone”. That small statement made

me feel like I was successful in practicing my philosophy of nursing with that patient

and family.

Values and Beliefs

My values and beliefs have not necessarily changed since my original

philosophy of nursing paper but I think my experience gained over the last few

years expanded my philosophy and made it more specific. For example, in my paper

from Nursing 1100 I referenced being the best for my patients and building a

trusting relationship with them as part of my philosophy of nursing. Neither of

those concepts have changed but I gained the experience now in my nursing

practice to expand on that thought process. I now know how to build a trusting

relationship with a patient and I now know that building that relationship with their

family as well is just as important. In my original philosophy paper I talked about

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being the best for my patients and generally speaking that is still very true in my

personal philosophy. What has changed in the concept is my ability to know what

that entails. I know now the importance of always seeking out new knowledge and

opportunities to expand my nursing practice and improve so that my patients get

the best nurse possible. Even though my philosophy of nursing hasn’t exactly

changed since I originally wrote about it, I will say that it has grown up a bit with my

nursing practice experiences. My philosophy of nursing has evolved and improved

since Nursing 1100 and I have every reason to believe that with added experiences

and improving my nursing practice that my philosophy will be ever improving as

well.

Benner’s Theory

Patricia Benner’s theory uses a model that utilizes both experience based

skill and education to categorize clinical development in nursing. The idea is to

gauge how nurses progress through their careers and that on-going education and

development is a cornerstone to our practice. The theory describes skill acquisition

and development in one of five levels: novice, advanced beginner, competent,

proficient and expert. The novice level is defined as task oriented rather than

experience. The novice is taught how to perform tasks to meet an objective, but not

necessarily situations where the tasks are expectations. The advanced beginner can

perform within a situation that requires only some previous experience. A nurse in

the competent skill level has usually been a nurse for a couple years. In this stage

the nurse can see how his or her actions influence the long-term care plan and have

future actions in mind. The proficient nurse has a broad picture in mind and has the
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practical experience to see a situation as a whole instead of sections or tasks directly

in front of you. Experts practice with an in depth understanding of situations and

how to react to them, many times without even having to think about it. They have

enough experience and knowledge to react while thinking critically instead of

critically thinking the then react (Benner, 2001).

Skill Acquisition

The skill stage I think most accurately represent my current stage of

development is the advanced beginner. This stage describes a nurse who has the

prior experience to be able to respond to a situation using critical thinking skills

based on a situation they have experienced before. For example, I have had a couple

patients in practicum on Continuous Renal Replacement Therapy and the machine

alarms for various reasons. The first time I heard the machine alarm, a slight bit of

panic came over me but my preceptor was there to explain that this particular alarm

means we need to empty and replace the output bag. She proceeded to show me

how we did that and based on that experience I was able to respond to that situation

appropriately and independently from then on. As a senior student nurse I think the

advanced beginner is an expected skill level for us. We are not completely or

proficiently independent but we have the background knowledge and experience to

think critically in situations and respond with our preceptors there to guide us

should we falter.

Action Plan for Moving Forward

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As a soon to be new graduate nurse I would like to strive to be proficient

even though it is two stages from the stage I am in now. I want to be able to see a

situation as a big picture and not just a piece of it. A nurse in the proficient stage

also knows what to expect in situations based on prior experience and knowledge.

To accomplish this goal of being a nurse in the proficient stage I first will complete

my immersion experience and utilize my preceptor to the best of my ability to help

guide me through making critical thinking decisions on my own. I have already

learned and have had an exponential amount of growth through the first half of my

immersion experience and continuing on that tract will help me move to the next

levels of skill acquisition. Something else I would like to do to move up in my skill

acquisition stage is to absorb any and all experiences and chances to learn that I can.

Nursing is very busy but I like the think that the busier the day the more learning

opportunities there are. Lastly I would like more time under my belt as a nurse on

my own to move up a level or two in skill acquisition. In nursing we think of greater

experience meaning greater knowledge and I do think a part of this is time exposed

to the environment of nursing. All three of these goals to move up in skill level I

think relate back to a part of my philosophy of nursing to never stop learning. We

cannot improve our practice or acquire new skill levels if we are stagnant in our

education and willingness to continue learning. Our patients motivate us as nurses,

they deserve us continually striving to be better and to never settle for the

knowledge we already have as being enough but to always seek out more.
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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.

World Health Organization. (2018). Health Topics: Nursing. Retrieved October 10,

2018, from http://www.who.int/topics/nursing/en/