Theoretical Foundations of Nursing: An Examination of its Importance
Abstract
The Philosophy of nursing is a spiritual and soul searching theory for each individual nurse and person. There is not one specific item or belief, it’s the grit of the individual nurse. It’s the genetic makeup of the nurse’s values, the culture of not being set in one way or another. This is the importance of nursing theory essay in which this topic will be considered.
When a specific nurse can live in a world that allows them to keep their cup half full, the belief that all people desire the best life they can live and desire to be treated with kindness and love, that’s the philosophy of being a nurse. Not all people are meant to do nursing. This is a very tough, very demanding, and draining career. It will wear the nurse out, and they will leave everything they have at work. The nurse will come home empty because they left your heart, emotions, and energy with your patients. That nurse will keep doing it because as tired as they are, as empty as their soul feels, that cup is refilled every day that they walk into a patient's room and say, 'Hello my name is Stephanie and I am going to be your nurse today.”
Introduction
The philosophy of nursing is this nurse's motivating point of why she became a nurse. She became a paramedic at 18 years old as she enjoyed the adrenaline of riding on the ambulance. At such a young age that was my driving force, but as I got older I learned that being in the medical field was a great career as it allowed for me to help people and being a paramedic for 10 years allowed for me to get the critical and trauma base that I needed to become an ER nurse. At 27 years old I went to nursing school during the bridge program of Paramedic to RN. I have been blessed with the opportunity to have so much experience in trauma and critical situations before I ever went to nursing school that going into the ER was a perfect fit for me. There was still adrenaline and there is still the satisfaction of helping and caring for others.
Self-Concept
Every nurse has an individual self-concept. There are so many different types of nurses that work in the ER each having a different self- concept at a different stage of their nursing career. You may have the very young nurses that went straight into nursing school after graduating high school. They lack the life experience and the ability to handle stress yet. This is why in the ER they usually require at least two years of nursing experience before you come to the ER. This allows them to build on their base. Their style of nursing is more toward the textbook style of nursing as this is the base they have. These young nurses struggle with understanding the life stress of the patients may be going through from stressing over how to pay the hospital bill or who is going to take care of my children if I am staying overnight. Now you have a nurse that started this field as a second career, they have experience from their previous knowledge plus more life experience. This nurse will have compassion for nervous patients or concerned that this hospital visit will cause more damage financially to them then they can afford. This nurse is older with maybe children and will show self-concept with sympathy for this mom that is concerned about her children not doing school work because she is in the hospital. This nurse can give aid to this problem to solve for those patients. The final example of a nurse with a different self- concept is your “seasoned nurses” they have been on the unit for a long time and have the experience that others do not. They do not get rattled over any situation and see what’s about to happen to a patient before it does. All of these nurses have the self-Concept of experience. The nurse can look at a patient's vitals and see exactly when a patient is going to start becoming unstable. Nurses will go through three stages of nursing; the young in the career nurse nerves, the experience of life, and at some point the new or young nurse becomes the unicorn nurse of the unit. The unicorn Nurse is the one that never gets nervous or allows their nerves to get rattled in any situation and the other nurses come to make sure they are not making mistakes. These nurses all have stages that will change their self-concept as they grow through this career called nursing. Self-Concept is what a nurse’s character is when you add life and career experience to it.
Values
Nurses have a value system that they all start with, this is what usually drives them to be a nurse. In nursing school, they are taught the ANA code of ethics, which the nurses are tested on. “The Code was developed as a guide for carrying out nursing responsibilities in a manner consistent with quality in nursing care and the ethical obligations of the profession” (ANA, 2015). When a new nurse begins their career their values base is set on what they learned in nursing school and what life experience they may have. Values are different than self-concepts, values are something that doesn’t change, and they just get stronger. The base is built with life, but with experiences and care of patients, the Values that these nurses hold grow stronger over time. A nurse that has experience with death on a daily bases and has held a parent while their child is in critical condition, beliefs that last moment as she has children then a young nurse that has not felt loss or had children. In offering those parents several minutes of silence without the alarms sounding may give that parent or family member a moment to grieve and to have closure or at least a start of it. In my outlook personal and professional experiences weave. Nevertheless, being able to separate them is what makes us nurses. As a parent and a nurse we can view the world with our children one way, and completely understand why some parents would want to try, “EPIDIOLEX® (cannabidiol, CBD) oral solution for the treatment of seizures associated with two epilepsy syndromes - Lennox-Gastaut syndrome and Dravet syndrome - in people two years of age or older'. As nurses, we live in two different worlds with our values; one with patients and one with family and friends. Then being able to distinguish the two is what makes us a different strain. We count on these values to guide us through all the perils of life.
Culture
“That the culture care needs of people in the world will be met by nurses prepared in Transcultural Nursing.” M. Leininger
'Transcultural Nursing has been defined as a formal area of study and practice focused on comparative human care (caring) differences and similarities of the beliefs, values, and patterned life-ways of cultures to provide culturally congruent, meaningful, and beneficial health care to people.' M. Leininger. While working in the emergency room; being culturally diverse in the cultures that come into your hospital allows for overall better patient care. So many nurses struggle with being able to understand that just because we live in the same area, town or country does not mean we have the same values or views. In one culture a man may not speak to a female or make eye contact with the nurse and speaks to a male tech, so understanding why he does this allows for better patient care. When you have educated yourself on culture and have no judgment against any one individual, we learn to change and reassess the barriers. The nurse might have to use that male tech to help assess to further the ability to help the patient. When thinking with an open mind will help do what's best for the patient.
Nursing Theory, Model and Framework
This section will be listing Nursing theory examples that have been listed before. The nursing theory that will be listed and focused on is, “King’s systems interaction model (theory of goal attainment), the purpose of nursing is to help people attain, maintain, or restore health, primarily by mutual goal settings'. Having a good self-concept allows the nurse to have a mutual goal setting for patients. When nurses apply that experience, that nurse can provide concepts to a patient on how to meet and help with their goals on health. When the nurses’ values are strong they can understand that the patient needs to heal, however, she also needs to help care for the family and not knowing how to balance the two. The Nurse with life experience can address different ways to address the situations for success. The nurse can find a routine that may help that patient be able to handle healing and caring for her family both. This female nurse can understand that in muslin or Hispanic family the responsibility of care for the kids, cooking, and house chores falls on to her. When using this Nursing theory, “King’s” the nurse can help with the adjustments in her health journey to life stress and changes. When a nurse can help a patient make her health come first and align with your personal life that is 'theory of goal attainment”.
Application into Practice - Conclusion
A nurse having a good Self-Concept which includes life experience and job experience can have understanding and compassion for a situation that a younger new nurse in this career would not have. A nurse with experience will have an understanding of why a patient is non-compliant because their medications are so expensive that they decided to pay the bills or buy food for their family instead of buying the medication that they need for their blood pressure or diabetes. By being able to have the strong values of a nurse they can see through their patients' eyes. Take, for example, a child that has seizures and the family has been unable to get the medication correct to regulate them, so the child when having seizures losses bodily control and is embarrassed at school would be willing to try holistic measures to better the quality of their child's life. With knowledge of cultural diversity and thinking with an open mind, the nurse can recognize why a Muslim woman has problems with health goals. She is concentrated on her children and spouse instead of her health. As a nurse, we can help her to find a balance between her health and her family.
