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Professional Nursing Philosophy Paper

Ashley Altman

Delaware Tech Terry Campus

NUR 300: RN to BSN Transition

Dr. Jeanmarie Maloney

April 25, 2021

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Through the short 6-week duration of this course, NUR 300- RN to BSN, I was able to

reflect upon myself in several different aspects. I not only was able to reminisce about how my

journey started as a Registered Nurse, but I was also able to learn more about myself through

personality styles and my wellness. In this course, I also learned how different nursing theories

contributed to nursing today and which I felt I was most similar with my goals within my career.

This course showed the importance of furthering your education and reflect upon your

knowledge to better care for patients and their families and to work as a team within the

healthcare system. The course started off with a self-reflection on our educational journey and

how we believe life-long learning is valuable.

Starting the day we are all born, the growth of knowledge and life-long learning is

beginning and shaping us into who we have become today. Going through my educational

journey from high school; obtaining my CNA; to my pre-requisites at Del Tech and nursing

courses at Beebe I have gained so much knowledge that it has shaped me into the nurse I am

today. It not only helped me gain my education needed for daily living, but also, I gained a life-

long knowledge into the healthcare field. Lifelong learning is something I embrace

wholeheartedly. I know that I can always gain knowledge to better myself and better my

performance within my career as a nurse. Learning is something we do on a daily basis; every

day you learn something new; I am hopeful to learn so many new things on my journey within

obtaining my BSN and throughout my career.

Growing your knowledge through the RN to BSN program strengthens one’s ability of

caring for others to your fullest extent. A BSN degree is more than just writing papers and

adding credentials to your name, it is broadening your horizons and shows the RN the

different roles a nurse can provide within the healthcare system. Nursing is not just providing
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care to clients; it is also about teaching and providing accurate information to help clients

better understand their illness or disability. Nursing is also working with other parts of the

healthcare team to better the client. The RN to BSN program will help the nurse look at the

whole picture in the care and not just the present illness. The transition to RN to BSN has

given me an insight to the important of wellness while working in the healthcare field and

continuing education.

Wellness is being in a state of good health; mentally, physically, and emotionally.

Maintaining one’s health and wellness is a must to properly function in everyday life situations.

When just one aspect of wellness falls short it can affect the health and well-being of your body.

I believe it takes focus and dedication to keep your mind, body, and soul in good health to

promote wellness in life. I, myself, have fallen behind on proper wellness in my lifestyle to

promote good health and well-being. I find myself wanting to do the things needed to maintain a

good healthy life, but struggle with the motivation to actually do/perform those tasks. This

wellness plan made me realize the importance to keep up with my health and maintain a good

goal, physically, mentally, and emotional to best preform as a RN and in school. Wellness is not

the only thing as a nurse you have to maintain as healthy, but conflict within the

interprofessional team as well.

I learned in this course about what personality type best suits me during this course and

how I can use my personality to better work with my team to care for my patients. To determine

my personality type I had to answer a series of questions and based off our answers the test gave

us a personality type from a group of 16. I was given the personality of a defender

(16personalities, n.d.). After learning more about the defender, I believe it suited my personality

type well, while I am quite reserved, I believe I do have good people skills and social
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relationships and analytical abilities. Though this personality type is known for their

procrastination, they can always be relied on and get the job done on time. Taking their

responsibilities personally and going above and beyond. Defender’s strengths are being

supportive, reliable, observant, loyal, hard-working, and good practical skills. But with strengths

comes weaknesses, such as humble/shy, take things personally, overload themselves, and

reluctant to change (16personalities, n.d.).

Defenders are found in lines of work with a sense of history behind them, such as

medicine, academics, and social work. No other personality type is more suited to be of service

to others than the defenders. Within the workplace, defenders seek a frictionless environment

working with a supportive team to help get the job done. These qualities can be a drawback

though as defenders like to avoid conflict and their desire to help others can be abused by others.

This causes the overburdened and stressed-out weakness to surface (16personalities, n.d.). With

learning about myself, I was also able to learn about multiple theorists and they impacted nursing

today.

Reviewing the multiple nursing theorist, I choose who I thought I best matched my

philosophy on nursing, I chose Florence Nightingale’s Environmental Theory. I think her theory

best correlates with my personal philosophy because she proposed that nursing is more than

just emotionally caring for a patient, following doctor’s orders, or meeting physical needs. By

adding light, warmth, fresh air, quietness, and cleanliness to the environment in a proper

order, then along with meeting nutritional needs, a patient could unmake what God had made

disease to be (healthresearchfunding, 2017).  I believe that one must meet the basic needs of

Maslow’s Hierarchy of human needs; shelter, clean air, food, water, and sleep

(Bonnieterrylearning, 2017); to maintain an adequate health status. If one does not care for
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their basic needs properly, it can lower their immune system causing their health to diminish.

Nightingale’s 13 cannons; ventilation and warming, health of houses, petty management,

noise, variety, food, bed, light, cleanliness, hope/advice, and observation of illness; canons are

key concepts, that I value and see beneficial in caring for patients (Masters, K. 2020).

Included in the philosophy of nursing, there are also now Quality and Safety Education for

Nurses (QSEN) competencies to help with the care of patients.

The overall goal for the QSEN project is to meet the challenge of preparing future nurses

who will have the knowledge, skills, and attitudes necessary to continuously improve the quality

and safety of the healthcare systems within which they work (QSEN Institute, n.d.). There are

five competencies within this project: patient centered care, teamwork/collaboration, evidence-

based practice, quality improvement, and safety/informatics. The QSEN competencies can help

nurses positively impact patient outcomes. Although many of these competencies are already

being addressed in healthcare settings, you can continue to integrate them into your practice and

serve as a role model to nursing students and new nurses on your unit (Wolters Kluwer, n.d.). 

Using the QSEN competencies can help nurses lead in leadership. Leadership is important in

nursing; it shows new nurses and student nurses the proper way to care for patients. When in the

leadership role, it gives others the strength to follow your leads and properly care for others. New

nurses know who they can come to with any problem and question to better care for their

patients. Nursing is a work of heart and it is an on-going process of learning strengthening your

care for others.

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References

16Personalities. (n.d.). Defender Personality. Retrieved from

https://www.16personalities.com/isfj-personality

BonnieTerryLearning. (2017). How Homework Can Help Build Kid's Self-Esteem and

Confidence. Retrieved from: https://bonnieterrylearning.com/blog/how-homework-
can-help-build-self-esteem-and-confidence/

HealthResearchfunding. (2017). Florence Nightingale Environmental theory of Nursing

Explained. Retrieved from: https://healthresearchfunding.org/florence-nightingale-
environmental-theory-of-nursing-explained/

Masters, K. (2020). Role development in professional nursing practice (5th ed.). Jones and

Bartlett.

QSEN Competencies. (n.d.). https://qsen.org/competencies/pre-licensure-ksas/

Wolters Kluwer. (n.d.). QSEN competencies: A bridge to practice : Nursing made Incredibly
Easy. LWW.
https://journals.lww.com/nursingmadeincrediblyeasy/fulltext/2012/09000/qsen_competenc
ies__a_bridge_to_practice.1.aspx