My Personal Philosophy of Nursing in Practice

In my personal philosophy of nursing, I feel that the most obvious to me are person and nursing. As a practicing nurse, I feel that it is very important to consider the person as another being just like myself that possesses feelings, personal views, and beliefs regarding their physical, emotional, and psychological state. I practice empathy by always reminding myself, “What if this was my situation?”. It helps me to practice holistically and with compassion, in a way that I am able to consider the person as a whole and not just a task to complete, or a situation that I must solve based on my knowledge or the medical doctor’s knowledge on how it should be solved. I consider the person’s feelings toward such situations and consider how they would like to solve the problem.

A perfect example, just yesterday, I worked the holiday at my hospital of employment, and I cared for a patient that accidentally swallowed her hearing aid battery when she was taking her morning pills. She was admitted for ingestion of a foreign body. The doctor’s intervention to have her pass the battery quickly was to have her drink as many gallons of “Golytely” which we all know is absolutely horrible. The patient drank 2 gallons in 24 hours in which X-Rays showed that the battery was still in her colon, and only moved 6 cm since the day before.

When I took over her care yesterday morning, the night shift reported to me that she was now refusing the Golytely. Upon my assessment, the patient complained of weakness and expressed agitation. She stated to me that this was the wrong direction to take at this time in her care and she challenged me with her next question. She asked, “How can you move a rock with water?” I thought about it as if this were my situation, regardless of my nursing knowledge, and I asked her what she thought was the best course of action. She stated, “Get rid of the Golytely, give me a regular diet and stool softeners if you have to. This battery needs some type of mass to push it out.” I felt that this idea was reasonable, and I advocated for the patient, to resume her regular diet by the end of my shift, she passed the battery.

Finally, this brings me to nursing as an apparent metaparadigm in my opinion. Nursing is not only an academic discipline but also a profession is driven by practice. It is a profession that delivers optimal patient outcomes with the delivery of a safe atmosphere, the development of trust, and provides a caring environment. The knowledge of nursing will continue to develop while never overlooking the individuals and populations that are served. Nursing will always be a profession that uses science and art to continue to advance knowledge and improve healthcare for the individual and all populations which makes it an apparent metaparadigm in my personal philosophy of nursing.