My Responsibilities as a Student: Navigating Education and Growth
The purpose of this my role as a student essay is to fully understand the true value of ‘valuing self’ and how this affects my lifestyle and my role as a student nurse. I will discuss the roles of values-based nursing, self-compassion, and self-care to create a personal development plan. In this plan I will be addressing my personal, educational, and professional development needs for guidance to be able to better myself for future practice, my professional role and maintaining a healthy lifestyle. This demonstrates that I can reflect on my own development and set goals to achieve in my personal life, career, and role as a nurse, as well as embracing a healthy lifestyle, moderate exercise, and self-care. This will allow me to understand that I have a responsibility to maintain a healthy lifestyle and good character to meet people’s needs for mental and physical care.
Values based nursing ‘is the theory and skills base for effective health care decision making where different (and hence potentially conflicting) values are in play.’ These values are useful as it guides the way healthcare professionals conduct themselves when they are caring for patients, this promotes safe, effective, and professional standard of nursing for the patients’ health and wellbeing. Professional values are linked with values-based nursing as for they both strive to ensure patients have the highest and safest standards of care delivered by professionals. Professional values are crucial and must be instilled as students as they create good nurses with considerate and respectful attitudes towards their patients and other healthcare professionals. These values consider the needs of the patient as an individual and ensures they are at the centre of their own care. They include kindness, compassion, fairness, empathy, good teamwork, clear communication, and leadership to ensure patients are their first concern, treated as individuals and never putting a patient at risk. The professions history helps to understand the importance of adhering to professional values from the mistakes and criticisms on the past. One of these include the Stafford hospital scandal in 2009, where patients suffered many years of abuse which led to many tragic deaths. Due to this incident, there were 290 recommendations suggested for this to never happen again, to learn from their mistakes and how it needs to be avoided in the future. This is important as for the history of the NHS allows the present NHS to educate themselves and know how essential it is to use the guidance from the professional values. My understanding of professional responsibility is where healthcare professionals must ensure they have a healthy lifestyle which include good diet, exercise, and emotional wellness to be able to meet other individual needs. To be able to care for other individuals’ professionals must learn about self-care and compassion, this is important as for it reduces health problems, stress, bad mental health and improves quality of life. Which will therefore lead to clearer and positive attitudes brought into a workplace environment, then transferred to the patient who is in the care of the professional. To have good health means the healthcare professionals can fulfil their role correctly, without any complications of making decisions that is well suited for the patient and be able to perform safe practice. Without good health it will be difficult to perform anything safely and effectively. This is important, as well as having good character as for this is where the healthcare professional creates a professional relationship with their patient. To enable a patient to recover, it depends on the character of the nurse. They must show good character such as empathy, compassion and communication skills towards the patient which will therefore create a better care plan and quick recovery. Overall Good health is related to good character as for if you are mentally and physically healthy it will help have a positive and motivational outlook on life, in which it will be shown through their character, which is shown through their work and communication with patients. Both good health and character rely on support from family and friends, as for having this ensures you feel safe and supported through everything. Family and friendships are crucial for encouragement and to always have someone to communicate with, this will help clear the mind and not let things build up. Also having a support system to encourage and motivate you, will build you as an individual and encourage good health and grow good character.
Self-care is particularly important, and the world health organization describes it as “the ability of individuals, families and communities to promote health, prevent disease, maintain health, and to cope with illness and disability with or without the support of a healthcare provider”. This suggests as individuals we have a responsibility for our own health and wellbeing, where we can support ourselves without seeking help from a professional. Self-care can be as easy as following a healthier and balanced lifestyle such as exercise, nutritional meals, small to no intake of alcohol and stopping smoking altogether. Self-compassion can be defined as being able to be sympathetic and empathetic towards yourself. Without having self-compassion, a healthcare professional might find it difficult to be compassionate towards patients. This could be extra draining on a student nurse, as if they are not compassionate towards themselves, they will find it hard to be compassionate towards others. These are both especially important for a nurse’s wellbeing, because having self-care and compassion allows them to be considerate towards themselves while showing the same respect and kindness towards patients. Self-care is essential for a nurse as it means they get time to take care of themselves and reduce any stress related from their workplace, which will therefore help them to improve their mood, stay focused, and motivated to radiate this energy on their patients. This is the same for self-compassion as for without it, it can lead to poor mental and physical health, which will therefore lead to negative outcomes and expressed when caring for patients. To have both self-care and compassion promotes resilience in a nurse as for it allows them to recover from a particularly challenging situation, as for they are controlling their stress management and motivating themselves to be able to improve their way of dealing with certain types of situations. One key issue within adult nursing is the shortage of staff, this was already an issue before the global pandemic however this has created even more of a demand. Not only is there more staff sickness but healthcare professionals are leaving this type of profession due to the stress it causes. This therefore creates more staff vacancies; however, this does not mean the service is being performed up to satisfaction. This overall causes extra pressure on all healthcare professionals, trying to perform their job efficiently as well as having extra workload. Another issue this field is facing is longer and more exhausting hours which is caused from the shortage of staff, as professionals are picking up more work, patients and job demands. This will therefore cause them to ‘burn-out’ and will affect their mental health which again relates to staff illness and shortage.
Health to me can be defined as free from any illnessdisease both physically and mentally. Being healthy does not always mean just physically, but mental health and wellbeing is just as important as the physical aspect. The WHO define health as ‘Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.’ Comparing the definition of health to my lifestyle does not follow it as much as I would like it to. My physical health is moderate as for I go to the gym when I can, however since the global pandemic it has become increasingly harder to go, therefore I go for a run outside or do home workouts where I can. My diet can be improved, as it is not the most balanced or healthy and I would like to start getting more adventurous with meals. Personal fitness and wellbeing are important for student nurses because staying fit, active, and healthy allows for clearer minds which results in good mental health, which means stress and anxiety can be reduced when students go onto placements. Ensuring both physical and mental health is catered for, means students can focus on their placements which will be tiring, however having a mental and physical balance means they can deal with these types of situations a lot easier and handle more challenging scenarios. If my health was poor and deteriorating whether it is physically or mentally, it will affect my work and be presented on those in my care. If I cannot take care of myself and ensure I am being healthy, it will be harder to teach others how to care for themselves. Coming to a workplace mentally unhealthy can strain myself, which could lead to bad decisions or unfit practice which will have a negative impact on the patients. Therefore, ensuring my diet, lifestyle, exercise, and mental health is well cared for, means better care, and plans for my patients. The NMC ensures all nurses and healthcare professionals make a self-declaration about their ‘good health’ this therefore shows they can produce safe and effective practice and care to their patients.
I wish to develop my diet and for it to become healthier and balanced. This associates itself with purpose and vision of the NMC which is to ‘Promote and uphold the highest professional standards in nursing and midwifery to protect the public and inspire confidence in the professions.’ Starting to develop my diet will ensure I uphold the professional standards in nursing as for improving my food intake will encourage my mental and physical wellbeing which will show through my work in nursing and my patients. Using the NMC’s values and choosing to improve myself and diet comes under ‘we’re ambitious’ This is because to fully fulfil and take pride in my work, I need to ensure my needs and wellbeing is taken care of, for me to then aim to do my best for others. This includes both patients and the staff I am working with. To achieve this goal, I can plan my meals in advance ensuring when I shop, I am more efficient and have a list to go off. Being a student nurse and when I start placements, I will find it hard to eat healthy as finding the time will be difficult. Therefore, if I cook meals and refrigerate them, I will not miss a meal. I could also think of healthy snacks if I get hungry in the day rather than eat something unhealthy. The support mechanisms that I can get access to are my academic advisors, my occupational health nurse and my reslife leader. These are all individuals I can ask questions to and get the support I need if I need it. Improving my diet is important to me because I find it difficult to find the time to eat and when I do it is usually something quick and unhealthy. This then reduces my energy, makes me feel very sluggish and decreases my motivation to stay active. Therefore, it is important as for it will ensure I get the right nutrients, give me more energy, and encourage me to do more exercise. This is also important to my role as a student nurse as for I will come into placement feel refreshed and energised, which will lead to better outcomes when I am learning and communicating with patients. I can also be a good example to my patients of why it is important to take care of your health and wellbeing. I can also give any advice, if someone is also struggling like I am and help them find ways that suits them.
To conclude, the key themes that have emerged whilst writing this essay is the importance of self-care and compassion as a student nurse and how it reflects on placements, communicating with patients and working as a team with my leaders. To fully participate and engage in my placements I need to ensure my physical and mental health is good to be able to achieve my full potential. I have learnt from compiling the essay how important it is to take care of myself to care for others. It is easy to let yourself get lost, however the best care and achievements are made when your own basic and psychological needs are fulfilled so that it can reflect on others. I have learnt from producing my personal development plan that it is important to have goals you want to achieve. Going through my diet, physical activities and assessing my mental health has made me realise how much I neglect it, and that it has made me more motivated to improve myself. I hope to take confidence into my first practice placement, as for being nervous will only let me down and cause myself to get lost in the background. Therefore, to have confidence and fully engage myself in the life of being a nurse will allow me to grow as an individual and achieve my best potential.
