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What We Owe to Each Other: Considerations from the Nursing Perspective

Anna Iverson
NURS 478, Spring 2023
University of Arizona

In practical definition, nursing is a healthcare profession that is focused on treating individuals

and their families in order to manage acute and chronic health conditions. It involves performing

assessment, creating care plans, administering medications, monitoring vital signs, and providing support
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and education to patients and their loved ones. Its scope is extensive and ever-changing. This is a

comprehensive technical definition, but it misses a specific human element that great nurses strive for. To

me, nursing is simply caring for the person in front of you- whatever they might need. Obviously, this

includes the medical day-to-day and the assigned care tasks, but it extends. Nursing should be restorative,

empathetic, and individual. Every day is an opportunity to leave a positive and lasting impact on

someone, to better the world piece by piece. And there is something so human about this drive to do

something good and lasting; empathy is perhaps the most human quality that exists. Because, at the end of

the day, the ordeal of living is collaborative. This is something I have come to understand more and more

throughout my clinical experience, and it is something that I have developed a philosophy around. My

mission in nursing is to always consider what we owe to each other.

When considering one’s own nursing practice and philosophy, it is important to consider the

things that you hold at your core. In order to define what sort of nurse you want to be, you must first

consider what you value and what you believe. I have a lot of beliefs, a lot of things that I hold as Gospel.

However, at my core, my strongest belief is that humanity is meant to help each other. In traditional

philosophy, I define myself as a contractualist, and I operate under the guise of what we owe to each

other. As defined by Scanlon, contractualism refers to the philosophical idea that people are motivated by

both self-regard and their respect for others, (Scanlon, 2008). My values tie in neatly to this: I value

justice, empathy, and effort. If everyone in the world were to determine justice through a lens of empathy,

and then engage in the effort to install it- we would be in paradise. In this paradise, we would realize that

the world is made infinitely more beautiful when we live for the love and happiness of our neighbors.

And this is something that you have to practice; it takes a conscious effort to place yourself in the shoes

of others. In my life, I have engaged in this practice throughout times of conflict, and I consider it to be

one of my best skills. Over the last two years, I have been blending my values and beliefs with my

newfound skills in nursing. And, as I have gained more autonomy and competence in the field, I have

been more able to consciously exercise my philosophies.

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Recently, I worked with a patient who was entirely dependent on nursing staff for all of their

daily needs. He also could not communicate clearly, and staff was unclear on whether or not he could

understand them or his environment. And so, I saw him be passed over- no one spoke to him, no one

cared if he was comfortable or presentable. All that is required of us as nurses in that situation is to do the

basic care tasks and document that they are done; however, I feel as though I owe more by nature of

humanity and our inclination to care. I cleaned and styled his hair every morning, wiped away dead skin

from his face and feet, trimmed his eyebrows, and spent time talking to him while I was in the room.

Later, we came to find out that he was starting to regain some consciousness, and so I increased the

amount of time I spent attempting to make him feel seen and heard when others might disregard his

personhood because of his dependence. By the end of the time I worked with him, he trusted me and I

knew that I had fulfilled my duty to truly care for him.

I am not alone in my beliefs and many share my values; in fact, this is demonstrated in the very

existence of the Integrative Nursing Principles. These principles are used in an approach to healthcare that

centers the physical, emotional, mental, spiritual, social, and environmental needs of the patient.

Essentially, these principles define how to care for a patient beyond their upfront medical needs. This

goes hand-in-hand with my personal philosophy: what do we owe to each other? Certainly, we owe more

than an IV and a cup of pills. We owe each other the consideration of personhood- mind, body, and soul.

One such principle is recognizing that human beings are whole systems. The only way that we

can truly treat a person is by recognizing that they are a complex being and their illness is affected by a

host of things including genetics, environment, and lifestyle. In practice, this can be something as simple

as not writing off someone who is overweight as unhealthy. There are a number of factors that contribute

to someone’s weight- it is not as simple as a diet for most people. To recognize this is to recognize that

human beings are complex, and that the patient in front of you is human. Another principle is

relationship-centered care. This involves creating a true, therapeutic relationship with the patient and

interacting with trust, respect, and open communication. In practice, this is sitting down with the patient

that has been deemed “neurotic” and listening to their concerns, fears, and feelings. It is asking the patient
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open-ended questions and providing real understanding, support, and assurance. This is crucial in

building relationships, which is paramount in healing from the nursing perspective. And in that vein,

another important principle in integrative nursing is interprofessional collaboration. This principle

examines the important need for collaboration between providers of various disciplines. In practice, this is

communication with the physician about what the patient needs. The nurse gets more face time with the

patient, and so we must work with providers in order to address the individual needs of a person and

make sure that they are truly treated because that is what we owe to each other.

So much of medical practice focuses on the impacts we make on individual patients. And, in all

honesty, that is a lot of what it is about. In fact, that is what I consider to be the most important thing, as I

have made clear with my sentiment in earlier statements: humanity is called to care about our neighbor.

But, one of the beautiful things about treating people person by person is that eventually, the neighbor

becomes the neighborhood. One of my favorite things about nursing is that it allows us the opportunity to

change the individual lives of the many. Every act is personal, and it results in a bettered world and an

improved society at large. Of course, this is only possible when we give the holistic and genuine care that

we are called to give on top of the bare minimum. And in that, my personal philosophy ties back in. Every

person is different; thus, everyone has different needs. Every patient is an individual who is deserving of

the empathy and time that we put into every other patient. This principle of togetherness, this focus on

what we owe to each other will push me to provide equitable care across a diverse range of people. When

you focus on the person in front of you, you see every part of them, and you see what they need from you

in that moment. And, in my eyes, that is where I will leave an impact on the profession and the patient- I

will provide for the person in front of me, and I will spare no effort in doing so.

In summary, humanity is a very simple and beautiful thing; we are a community of complex

creatures that need each other to survive. There is no animal that can survive a broken leg alone long

enough for the bone to heal. The broken femur that has been healed is evidence that someone else has

stayed with the person who was injured; it is evidence that they bound the injury, carried the wounded to

safety, and guided them through the healing period. This is how a civilization begins. Ursula K. Le Guin
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theorizes that the first tool in humanity was not a weapon, but a pouch or a vessel meant for gathering and

nurturing the rest of the group ( Le Guin, 1986). We are meant to care for each other, that is the way it has

always been. I don’t know why; I’m not sure anybody really knows why. But, I think that maybe it’s

everybody’s job to save each other. There is no value in asking who is deserving of what they need; every

single human being deserves it. I want to provide for people, I want to care for the wounded and treat the

sick. That is why I am a nurse, and that is what will guide me every time I step foot into a hospital.

References

Le Guin, U. K. (1986). The carrier bag theory of fiction. Other Futures, 1(1), 5-8.
https://otherfutures.nl/uploads/documents/le-guin-the-carrier-bag-theory-of-fiction.pdf
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Scalon, C. (2008). Contractualism.