Philosophy Of Nursing And Professional Nursing Practice

A theory is defined as “a plausible or scientifically acceptable general principle or body of principles offered to explain phenomena (Merriam-Webster, 2017). In the nursing field, nursing theories have helped shape philosophies of many nurses in our history, as well as modern day. Every nurse, near and far, could probably tell you who Florence Nightingale was. She was a pioneer for women in nursing and made countless contributions to our field. Her nursing philosophy was based on Environmental Theory, “A belief that a person’s surroundings such as clean air, water,

To understand nursing philosophy, you must first understand what nursing means to you as an individual. To me nursing as well as nursing philosophy involves providing individualized holistic care to a patient, family, community, or even one’s own self. Holistic care is providing care involving the mind, body, spirit, and environment.

Jean Watson is a nurse born on Jun 10, 1940 in West Virginia, Southern United States. She developed her human caring theory which focuses on providing quality nursing care in the hospital setting. The main focus of her theory revolves around the principle of caring. Watson stated in her theory, disease is cure, but illness would remain because without caring, health cannot be attained (Dr Hicks lecture 2016). Watson believes caring is the essence of nursing and connotes responsiveness between the nurse and the person. The nurse becomes a coparticipant with the client. In Watson’s theory there are four concepts which are highlighted, and they are as follow: person, health, environment, and nursing (The Seven Assumptions). Watson stated

A philosophy refers to a set of values, attitudes, and beliefs that an individual or group have. I think my nursing philosophy and experience will continue developing and refining through this nursing program by reviewing philosophical persuasions that include realism, idealism, existentialism, and experimentalism. The program provides a platform of exercising the persuasions, therefore, helping in the development of my nursing philosophy. This program helps in evaluating the philosophical categories that assist in utilizing the knowledge they offer, therefore changing the philosophy of an individual, improve its development and refinement. Alpers,

Two of the major theories of nursing have been published by Jean Watson and by John Paley, who each have taken markedly distinct approaches to conceptualizing nursing care in a theoretical construct. This paper will provide a discussion of Jean Watson’s background, including educational preparation and process of developing her Care Theory as well as her career high points, discussion of Jean’s Watson’s Care Theory, including major points, discussion of John Paley’s background, including education preparation and his career high points, brief discussion of Friedich Nietzsche, specifically his major philosophical beliefs, compare Jean Watson’s Care Theory with the ideas presented in John Paley’s article, and contrast Jean Watson’s Care

For centuries the development of nursing knowledge has been influenced by numerous theorists and their respective theories. These theories have influenced, and continue to influence, nursing education, practice and research. (Johnson & Webber, 2005)

Philosophy is something that can be personal for a nurse, focusing on a value and beliefs from their daily practice or be the groundwork for an organization and the standards of care they wish to maintain. Philosophy also focuses on the continued development and knowledge of nurses as well as organizations, to keep up with the ever-changing medical field. Lahey Hospital & Medical Center & Medical City Dallas Hospital, each have their own nursing philosophy, to which they hold nurses to the upmost standards of care.

In this paper, famous philosophies and my personal nursing philosophy are presented, including personal definitions of the four phenomena of nursing which includes the person, environment, health, and nursing. A Philosophy’s distinctive contribution comes in the education of nurses and teachers and in the development of nursing theory and research. More importantly, philosophy strongly affects the formulation of personal values which underlines all undertakings of a nurse in the practice of his/her profession (Meehan, 2012). My personal philosophy of nursing is to attain an exceptional nursing practice and the ability to decrease the cases of unresponsive and incompetent practice. This also serves as my career guide, which will aid in giving meaningful direction. Furthermore, it has been claimed that a philosophy can close the relevance gap between nursing practice and nursing science and help in gasping knowledge regarding patients, their environment, the workplace, and health and wellness (Meehan, 2012).

In order to effectively guide practice, it is essential that nurses understand and critique different theories to evaluate them for use in practice. For this paper I have selected Jean Watson’s Human Caring Theory:

Nursing is an age-old profession and while it has advanced over the years, many aspects have stayed the same. There are many great and influential nurses who have changed the face of nursing over the years. Contributions to change and better the way nurses practice have helped today’s nurses advance to an unmatched skill level. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the meaning and development of nursing regarding Jean Watson’s theory of caring.

A nursing philosophy is the thoughts and beliefs about the job of a nurse based on one’s values. My values that have formed over the years have influenced me to purse a forever career as a nurse. I grew up in a small town Smithfield, Pennsylvania with my parents and younger brother. My community consisted of close relationships between the residents. Every one helped and cared for one another when needed. The practices of my community guided me to want to become a nurse. I want to continue to care for my community and give back to them by treating their illnesses and providing them with better health care. I am particularly interested in caring for pediatric patients. My goal is to try to provide every infant a chance to live their beautiful life created for them by God. While doing this, the primary focus of being a nurse will be to accommodate my patients and allow them to become a healthy person again.

It’s been five years since I started practicing as a nurse, and I have never really given much thought about any of the nursing theories I had learned in my Bachelor’s nursing program. As years have gone by, and I am back getting my Masters, I am readdressing the importance of nursing theories. Nursing theory is fundamentally the basis for nursing practice. It is outlined as “an organized framework of concepts and purposes designed to guide the practice of nursing” (Petiprin, 2015, para. 1). For this paper, I have chosen to discuss Jean Watson’s theory of human caring. “Watson’s theory of human caring promotes health, preventing illness, caring for the sick and restoring health; it focuses on health promotion and treatment of disease”

Upon reading the title of this paper, one may ask themselves why it is termed “take one.” As I have learned in many of my freshman year classes, everything in life exists on a continuum; from health, to the completion of psychosocial tasks, to one’s opinions on various moral issues, nothing can be succinctly and eternally summarized, especially not at the juvenile age of eighteen. For this reason, what follows is the first take of my own personal nursing philosophy, one that is not only prone to change but will enact an evolving bidirectional influence on my nursing practice, that is, as my practice changes, so will my philosophy, and vice versa.

Although that is what came to mind first, helping others lacks the many duties and qualities

As a nursing student in the BSN program at West Coast University, I have discovered my skills and knowledge to prepare myself on how to be an efficient nurse as well as a nurse that truly cares for the best quality of care given to a patient. I have found some good qualities and insight in the paradigms to a philosophy of caring as a nurse. In this paper I will discuss the four paradigms of nursing which includes: Health, Nursing, Client/Person, and Environment. As a nurse, one must understand the importance of these paradigms and the philosophy of caring. Developing a nursing philosophy with each paradigm can result into a better quality of care, having an authentic relationship with the patient, and inviting growth and