Running head: PERSONAL PHILOSOPHY OF NURSING 1

Personal Philosophy of Nursing

Megan Holowaychuk

Bon Secours Memorial College of Nursing

NUR 4142: Synthesis of Nursing Practice

Christine Turner, PhD

October 17, 2018

I pledge.
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Definition of Nursing

Nursing is a truly compassionate, selfless, caring, and service-oriented profession. Being

a nurse is not for everyone, it takes a special person to take on this career. It is a career in which

you sometimes have to put aside your own values and beliefs to provide the best care possible

for your patients. Nurses are people that others look to in times of great distress and need. To me,

nursing is very easily defined as a profession of science and art, focused on providing the best

care possible to those in need.

Nurses possess many qualities, but when I think of nursing a few specific ones come to

mind: lifelong learners, caring, and advocacy. With the changes in technology and research,

nurses are constantly being educated on new processes, skills, and medications. By using

evidenced based practice, the nurse is able to truly care for their patients holistically because they

are adapting to the changes within the medical system and the patient’s needs. However, nurses

do not just provide medical care to patients; their caring goes far beyond medicine. The care

shown by nurses is emotional, spiritual, and physical. Lastly, nurses are phenomenal patient

advocates. They can be seen standing up for what is right, especially in regard to their patient’s

care. Often times, nurses are the voice for their patients. Overall, I think nurses are saints of the

healthcare system.

Personal Philosophy

My personal philosophy can be easily seen within my nursing practice. At my very core,

I believe in the golden rule of treating others like you want to be treated. Because I believe in the

golden rule, my personal philosophy has really evolved into giving patients the best care I can

with the most respect possible. As a nurse, I think you can see this directly in my relationships

with doctors and patients alike. The golden rule means that every person I encounter, I treat with
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respect and kindness. While sometimes this is difficult, especially in situations where there are

disagreements, I think that the golden rule keeps me both grounded and level headed.

My philosophy is not only reflected in situations of high stress, but also in every day

nursing situations. It can be seen in something as simple as providing basic care to a patient. It is

a matter of remembering that patients are often time in their most vulnerable state when they are

in the hospital and my job as a nurse is to make them comfortable. All patients deserve the same

level of care and treatment, without judgment. Sometimes this is as simple as maintaining my

own humility in patient interactions.

I think the golden rule also applies when talking about patients with other healthcare

providers. Sometimes it is hard to remain nonjudgmental, and I have especially found that within

nursing there is a lot of gossiping. My philosophy always reminds me that I do not know what

other people are going through and that it is never my place to judge another human being. While

I try my best to I refrain from gossiping, there are many times you will find me saying, “we

know nothing about this person’s struggle”. I think that this helps to show others not only that

gossip should be frowned upon, and also that everyone deserves respect.

Nurse Patient Encounter

While there are many patient encounters in which you can see the application of my

nursing philosophy, one in particular really stands out to me. I had one patient in the intensive

care unit (ICU) that was in a coma and ventilator dependent. This patient had been in the ICU for

several months and did not have any visitors. Aside from doing typical nursing tasks of

medication administration and hygiene, to me it was especially important to talk with the patient.

Even though this patient was not able to talk and was comatose, communication is still an

important aspect of caring for people. You never know what people may or may not be aware of
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when they are in a coma. I made sure to always tell the patient what I was doing and explaining

everything to the patient.

Another aspect of my philosophy that was reflected with this patient is just being

conscious of their dignity. When doing tasks such as changing the linens or bathing the patient, I

think it is important to treat the patient with respect. Sometimes as nurses I think that we forget

that patients can be self-conscious or are from different cultural backgrounds and may not be

comfortable in some scenarios. For this patient in particular, it was more about just maintaining

her dignity and privacy to the best of our ability. This means keeping them covered while

performing hygiene and linen changes and brushing their hair to help them maintain their normal

look as much as possible. Having a patient that is in a coma, I believe they should still be treated

with the utmost respect and the same as a person that is alert and oriented.

Values and Beliefs

Overall, my values and beliefs have remained fairly consistent with what I wrote in NUR

1100. I still strongly believe that everything happens for a reason and that everything will work

out the way it is supposed to in the end. I also believe that laughter is the best medicine. One of

my beliefs that has changed is, “I believe that sometimes bad things happen to good people”. I

now believe that accidents just happen sometimes. There is not always a reason as to why things

happen, and things happen regardless of whether you are a good person or not. Sometimes things

just happen for no reason. I still hold respect, honesty, and empathy as strong values for myself. I

believe these values really do hold true to my character both in my professional life and personal

life.

If anything, I think that nursing has really showed me how important my values and

beliefs are with patient interactions. These characteristics of myself are what allows me to care
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holistically for my patients and their family. Over the course of nursing school, the one thing that

has really changed is how I look at myself as a person and what kind of image I want to portray

to those around me. I hope to use my values and beliefs a source of comfort and trust for those I

interact with. I strongly believe that the values and beliefs I possess are what not only will make

me a good nurse, but overall a better person.

Benner’s Theory

There are five stages in Benner’s theory: novice, advanced beginner, competent,

proficient, and expert. It takes five years to get through the stages, some people do not advance

through the stages and may end up fixed in a certain stage. A novice is someone who has no

skills or knowledge of the subject. A person in the novice stage does not use any critical thinking

skills and merely follows what rules they are given. A novice has no background or experience

in the subject. Advanced beginners differ from the novice level in that they have had actual

experiences in which they have learned from. An advanced beginner is best placed with a more

experienced nurse so that they can learn how to prioritize their actions and assessments. In the

competent stage, a nurse has had years of experience. This nurse, “lacks the speed and flexibility

of the proficient nurse but has a feeling of mastery and the ability to cope with and manage the

many contingencies of clinical nursing” (Benner, 2001, p. 27). The nurse in the proficient stage

sees the situation as a whole and deeply understands the situation. In the proficient stage, the

nurse uses past experiences and knowledge to guide them through their decision making. In the

final stage, an expert level nurse is one with a vast amount of experience and knowledge. This

nurse has strong intuition in situations and a great ability to recognize changes with a patient

based on pure experience. A prime example of an expert would be a nurse on the unit that has

been there for over twenty years and is the mentor for the unit.
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Skill Acquisition

I believe that I am in the advanced beginner stage of skill acquisition. I am past the stage

of being a novice where I have no experience in situations. After spending almost two years in

the hospital in various different units and settings, I have been exposed to a variety of situations.

I feel confident in my ability to perform basic clinical skills. The aspect that makes me an

advanced beginner is that I still need help with priority setting and determining what is an

important assessment finding. Through my immersion this semester in the emergency room,

most of my time has been spent prioritizing patient care and talking over different scenarios with

my preceptor. I am still learning what the next step is in a situation when I notice that there is

something abnormal occurring with my patient.

While I feel confidence in my basic clinical skills, there are still some skills in which I

have yet to master. I think over the next year or so I will remain in the advanced beginner stage

while I become acclimated to a position as a nurse and start working on my own without a

preceptor. Being in this stage is hard for me because I feel like I know more than I actually do. I

have learned about various disease processes and I have seen them in textbooks, but now that I

am actually experiencing them, I am finding that it is harder to prioritize in practice versus a case

study scenario.

Action Plan Moving Forward

There are a lot of things I need to do in order to move forward to the stage of a competent

nurse. Once I get a nursing job, the first thing I am going to do is develop a comfortable and

trusting relationship with my preceptor. With this, I will feel comfortable with asking questions

related to patient care and different scenarios. Having a trusting relationship will enable me to

seek out advice and input from my preceptor without feeling scrutinized or criticized. My hope is
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that my preceptor will be willing to walk me through their thinking process related to

prioritization of patients and what aspects of care are important to that patient.

The second thing that I will do to move to the competent stage is practice with my

clinical skills. I want to make sure that while I am with a preceptor I practice as many skills as I

can, especially those that I lack confidence in. I want to make sure that by the time I am off of

orientation I am comfortable and confident in the everyday clinical skills that are performed on

the unit. If I do not master these skills, I am afraid that my lack of confidence will hold me back

from being able to accel in other areas out of fear.

The third thing I am going to do to transition to competent is learn what is truly important

in patient situations. Being in the emergency room, this is something that I sincerely struggle

with right now. I find that it is sometimes hard for me to hone in on the problem and only focus

on what is important in regards to that patient. In the emergency room, there is such a vast

population that it is difficult to know what typical assessments for each disease process are until I

get that hands-on experience. I also find that with pediatric patients it is difficult to know what is

important because although they may not be feeling well, they may act like they are not sick. The

way I plan to learn how to prioritize is to practice my assessments and prioritization of patients.

This I think will help me move from a more structured and rule mindset to a “what is the most

important right now” mindset.

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References

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

Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.