Philosophy of Nursing: Reflection

A philosophy is a statement of belief about something. Humans, their health, and the environment in which they live and function are phenomena of particular interest to nursing. Learning to reflect critically on one’s practice requires considerable effort. It is also essential to being an excellent practitioner. Being able to think about and to explain your beliefs about the basic concepts of your practice provides the framework for your practice.

Do remember that what you write today is not written in stone. As you learn new information and expand your professional practice your thoughts and beliefs about these phenomena may very well change. View this assignment as an opportunity to articulate your thoughts about these four concepts.

My Belief is Good pain control and community health services help rebuild a person after surgery…

You need to include the following items:
1. An introduction to the paper that includes a brief overview of the paradigm.

2. A statement and explanation of your beliefs in relation to each of the four concepts included in the paradigm of nursing (humans, health, nursing, environment). While there is no minimum requirement for the length of each `statement and explanation,` many fall into the range of three (3) to five (5) paragraphs for each component of the paradigm.

Some questions you may want to ask and answer for yourself are: What is the essence of human? What is health? Illness? Wellness? How are they related? What is the reason for nursing’s existence? How do I facilitate a client’s movement toward health? These are just suggestions. You are NOT required to respond to the questions listed in this paragraph.

As you consider your explanation of how you have reached this belief, i.e. `This I believe about . . . because. . .`, you may want to review some of the information from previous NRSE 300 modules. The Paradigm Online Writing Assistant has guidelines about writing a Thesis/Support Essay. This can help you in the construction of the paper. You need to document your explanation with material from the textbook, from the videos, from your practice, and from at least two sources that are not listed in your class materials.

3. Choose one of the nurse theorists you viewed. Compare your beliefs to those expressed or implied by the Jean Watson. How similar are your beliefs? What differences exist?

4. The final section of the paper is to be a statement of your philosophy of nursing. It may help to go to the Ohio School of Nursing website and read the Philosophy of the School of Nursing. It will give you a sense of one style of writing a philosophy. The philosophy is a distillation of the thinking you did to write your beliefs and explanations. It usually takes the form of one to three sentences about each of the components with linking comments about how they relate to each other to form your personal philosophy of nursing.

5. Paper will be typed. Double-space the body of the paper. Use APA format for headings and references. Make sure that your name is on each page of the paper. Use the running head style as explained in the APA Manual. Proofread the paper. Do NOT rely solely on spell check. It will not tell you when you wrote `of` when you intended to write `or.` There is no specified length for this paper. They usually run between 3 and 6 pages of double-space

Introduction

Nursing refers to a contact or a bond that exists between two or more persons in which one of the two persons provide professional care to the other in addition to providing advice with an aim of improving the health of the other individual an preventing illness. Philosophy of nursing may refer to beliefs that different individuals have towards nursing.

Humans refer to the primates in the family of hominids. They have a brain which is highly expanded enabling them to solve problems through reasoning, control of emotions, use of language and introspection. Humans are always craving to understand the world around them and influence the natural occurrences. Health refers to a state of well being where there is no sickness and reflects the social, physical, spiritual and mental fitness of an individual. Good health may be brought about by a balanced diet, exercise and rest. Nursing refers to a science in which the person involved aims at ensuring a good health for individuals, families and communities. In general, the science of nursing aims at upholding the quality of life. Environment is defined as the extensive information on issues, programs and policies affecting our surrounding. It refers to anything internal or external that may create some impact in the life of an individual including all the living and non living organisms that exist on the earth.

Humans

A good pain control after surgery when accompanied by appropriate community health services enables an individual to rebuild him or herself. It is however the responsibility of every person to ensure that the nurse or the doctor knows about him or herself before the pain control is administered on him or her. This the patient could do by enabling the doctor to know about his or her drug addiction either the past or present.

Surgery of the stomach is a very painful one and the drug history of a person may affect the person’s tolerance to the pain or response to the pain relievers. The pain control in patients also depends on the age of the patient as well the conditions of health of the individual before the surgery. Controlling pain after surgery is a very essential step in the life of a patient as it helps the individual to gain the best results on functionality. This is appropriate because the pain after surgery increases the functionality of the patient.

Patients who before the surgery were on pain medication do require an administration of extended pain medication. Otherwise the patient may require shorter acting pain medications for the control of pain.

Nursing

The belief that good pain control and community health services help rebuild a person after surgery relates to nursing in the sense that nurses have been found to be mediums through which terminal care at home can be improved. Pain control is one of the components of quality terminal care in the community. Patients who have undergone surgery should be given enough advice by the nurses on where to get help if necessary. In addition to this they should be given appropriate analgesics to carry home which should be accompanied by sufficient instructions on their usage. Nevertheless, patients should be given both verbal and written information about pain so that and how pain can be reduced. The nursing staff should always be there for patients to advice them and to discuss with them their choice of a pain relieving techniques.

The pain that is experienced by patients after surgery is usually very great that it should not be underestimated. This is because the pain does different implications on both the patients and the community health services. A proper pain control after surgery therefore requires the intervention of the nurse which will give way for community health services thus helping the patient to gain his or her health back. Nurses facilitates the process of pain control and ensures that it well managed to speed the process of recovering of a patient.

Health

The health of a person enables that person to function mentally, spiritually, physically and socially in full ability. The belief that a good pain control and community health service helps an individual to rebuild after a surgery relates to health in the sense that an individual will only have a good health when he or she is not in pain.

A person is considered to fully healthy if he or she is not feeling any pain. Surgery involves a lot of pain therefore after a surgery an individual requires pain relief which is achieved through proper pain control by the nurses to enable him or her to function properly both physically, mentally, spiritually and socially.

When a person is in pain, he or she will not perform any physical activity in addition the person will not be able to socialize freely with other people. The person will also not think properly thus lacking both mental and spiritual thinking. This is because pain makes a person uncomfortable creating a feeling that something is wrong in the body. The pain in the body i.e. physical pain sends a signal to the brain through the spinal cords that something is wrong thus stopping the mind from working properly. It is therefore essential that after surgery a patient should receive a good pain control and community health service to enable him or her to rebuild his health. Effective pain management is therefore considered by nurses as part of recovery because it when it is well controlled it speeds up the process of healing and reduce complications that a person may experience as a result of surgery.

Environment

The surroundings in which individuals live do affect the activities performed in that particular environment. Nurses do require an enabling environment to enable them to perform their duties properly. After surgery it will for the well being of the patient to have a conducive environment in which physical, mental, spiritual and social healing is possible.

The nature of the environment in which pain control is conducted is very essential and should be set to fit the requirements of different patients. Pain control will enable an individual to feel comfortable as he or she heals, get well faster and avoid some problems associated with surgery.

The nurse theorist viewed was Margaret Newman who also came up with a nursing theory of health as an expanding consciousness which requires every person to find the meaning of life and find connections with other people in the rest of the world. According to Margaret, health means increasing awareness. She put forward that the role of a nurse is to identify the lifestyle of an individual so that the nurse can work within that lifestyle to help the individual achieve the goals of his or her life. Newman’s theory includes the health of every individual irrespective of the condition of illness i.e. whether sick or well.

Jean on the other hand developed a caring theory which involves the caring actions taken by nurses in their interaction with the patients. The caring theory involves the deep respect offered to patients by the nurses for the mysteries of life and the ability of the patients to change their lifestyles. Watson’s caring theory also requires a nurse to help the patients to acquire self control, knowledge and healing not regarding their health conditions.

The difference that exists between my beliefs on Newman’s theory and Watson’s caring theory is that Newman’s theory was focused on helping every person whether in the absence or presence of sickness to understand his or her status. It focused on the adjustments that a nurse should put to ensure that a person meets his or her requirements. Watson on the other hand focused on caring for the patients, respecting them and helping them to understand themselves by acquiring self control, knowledge and healing.

The similarity between the two theories is that both the two believe that it is the role of a nurse to ensure appropriate lifestyles for different persons whether sick or not. They both believe that a nurse should be able to identify or recognize and accurately detect the health status of a person and be able to help that person accordingly. They believe that a nurse must come together and engage in an interaction so that the nurse can understand the unique lifestyle of the person and provide care in a manner that fits that lifestyle. Finally both the beliefs involve human and nursing in the science of nursing in order to provide desired care to persons.

The statement of my philosophy of nursing is the belief that Good pain control and community health services help rebuild a person after surgery.

Conclusion

Surgery is a very painful exercise which usually requires an immediate pain control to stop the patient from suffering. Pain management especially after surgery is therefore very essential for the well being of the patient and nurses should ensure that it is provided to enable the patient to rebuild his or her health.

Reference

Newman, M. A. (1972). Nursing’s theoretical evolution. Nursing Outlook, 20(5), 449-453.

Newman, M.A. (1979). Theory development in nursing. Philadelphia: F.A. Davis.

Newman, M. A. (1982). Time as an index of expanding consciousness with age. Nursing Research, 31(5), 290-293.

Newman, M.A. (1983). Newman’s health theory. In I. Clements & F. Roberts (Eds.), Family health: A theoretical approach to nursing care (pp. 161-175). New York: John Wiley.

Engle, V. F. (1984). Newman’s conceptual framework and the measurement of older adults’ health. Advances in Nursing Science, 7(1), 24-36.

Newman, M. A. (1984). Nursing diagnosis: Looking at the whole. American Journal of Nursing, 84(12), 1496-1499.

Newman, M.A. (1986). Health as Expanding Consciousness. St. Louis: Mosby.

Newman, M. A. (1987). Aging as increasing complexity. Journal of Gerontological Nursing, 13(9), 16-18.

Newman, M.A. (1990). Newman’s theory of health as praxis. Nursing Science Quarterly, 3(1), 37-41

Gustafson, W. (1990). Application of Newman’s theory of health: Pattern recognition as nursing practice. In M. E. Parker (Ed.), Nursing theories in practice (pp. 141-161). New York: National League for Nursing.

Kalb, K. A. (1990). The gift: Applying Newman’s theory of health in nursing practice. In M. Parker (Ed.), Nursing theories in practice (pp. 163-186). New York: National League for Nursing.

Newman, M. A. (1990). Shifting to higher consciousness. In M. E. Parker (Ed.), Nursing theories in practice (pp. 129-139). New York: National League for Nursing.

Newman, M. A. (1990). Toward an integrative model of professional practice. Journal of Professional Nursing, 6(3), 167-173.

Newman, M. A., Lamb, G. S., & Michaels, C. (1991). Nurse case management: The coming together of theory and practice. Nursing & Health Care, 12(8), 404-408.

Newman, M. A., Sime, A. M., & Corcoran-Perry, S. A. (1991). The focus of the discipline of nursing. Advances in Nursing Science, 14(1), 1-6.

Newman, M. A. (1992). Prevailing paradigms in nursing. Nursing Outlook, 40(1), 10-14.

Marchione, J. (1993). Margaret Newman: Health as expanding consciousness. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

Newman, M. A. (1994). Health expanding consciousness (2nd ed.). New York: National League for Nursing.

Newman, M.A. (1994). Theory for nursing practice. Nursing Science Quarterly, 7(4), 153-157.

Newman, M. A. (1995). A developing discipline: Selected works of Margaret Newman. New York: National League for Nursing.

Marchione, J. (1995). Margaret Newman: Health as expanding consciousness. In C. M. McQuiston & A. A. Webb ( Eds.), Foundations of nursing theory: Contributions of 12 key theorists (pp. 261-316). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Engle, V. F. (1996). Newman’s theory of health. In J. J. Fitzpatrick & A. L. Whall (Eds.), Conceptual models of nursing: Analysis and application (3rd ed., pp. 275-288). Stamford, CT: Appleton & Lange.

Newman, M.A. (1996). Theory of the nurse-client partnership. In E. Cohen (Ed.), Nurse case management in the 21st Century (pp. 119-123). St. Louis: Mosby Year-book.

Newman, M. A. (1997). Experiencing the whole. Advances in Nursing Science, 20(1), 34-39.

Newman, M. A. (1997). Evolution of the theory of health as expanding consciousness. Nursing Science Quarterly, 10(1), 22-25.

Yamashita, M., Jensen, E., & Tall, F. (1998). Therapeutic touch: Applying Newman’s theoretic approach. Nursing Science Quarterly, 11(2) 49-50.

Desai, S., Keffer, M. J., Hensley, D. Kilgore-Keever, K. A., Langfitt, J. V. & Peterson, L. (1998). Margaret A. Newman: Model of Health. In A. M. Tomey & M. R. Alligood (Eds.), Nursing theorists and their work (4th ed., pp. 496-515). St. Louis: Mosby.

Newman, M. A. (1999). The rhythm of relating in a paradigm of wholeness. Image: Journal of Nursing Scholarship, 31(3), 227-230.

Pharris, M. D. (2001). Margaret A. Newman: Health as expanding consciousness. In Parker, M. (Ed.), Nursing theories and nursing practice (pp. 263-274). Philadelphia: Davis.

Newman, M. A. (2002). Caring in the human health experience. International Journal for Human Caring. 6(2), 8-12.

Newman, M. A. (2002). The pattern that connects. Advances in Nursing Science, 24(3), 1-7.

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Newman, M. A. (2003). A world of no boundaries. Advances in Nursing Science, 26(4), 240-245.

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Health as Expanding Consciousness

— A website by Margaret Newman.

ASSUMPTIONS deal with human life, nursing science, and the process of nursing.

Watson’s conception of human life is tied to notions that one’s soul possesses a body that is not confined by objective space and time. The lived world of the experiencing person is not distinguished by external and internal notions of time and space, but shapes its own time and space, which is unconstrained by linearity.

Nursing is a human science of persons and human health-illness experiences that are mediated by professional, personal, scientific, esthetic, and ethical human care transactions.

The process of nursing is human care.

THE THEORY OF HUMAN CARING

The main concept of the theory is TRANSPERSONAL HUMAN CARING, which is best understood within the concepts of three ancillary concepts: LIFE, ILLNESS, and HEALTH.

HUMAN LIFE is defined as spiritual-mental-physical being-in-the-world, which is continuous in time and space.

ILLNESS is not necessarily disease. Illness is subjective turmoil or disharmony with a person’s inner self or soul at some level or disharmony within the spheres of the person, either consciously or unconsciously.

HEALTH refers to unity and harmony within the mind, body, and soul.

TRANSPERSONAL HUMAN CARING and caring transactions are those scientific, professional, ethical, yet esthetic, creative and personalized giving-receiving behaviors and responses between nurse and patient that allow for contact between the subjective world of the experiencing persons through physical, mental, or spiritual routes or some combination thereof.

THE GOAL OF NURSING is to help persons gain a higher degree of harmony within the mind, body, and soul which generates self-knowledge, self-reverence, self-healing, and self-care processes while increasing diversity.

Nursing interventions or CARATIVE FACTORS are:

Humanistic-altruistic system of values

Faith-hope

Sensitivity to self and others

Helping-trusting, human care relationship

Expressing positive and negative feelings

Creative problem-solving caring process

Transpersonal teaching-learning

Supportive, protective, and/or corrective mental, physical, societal, and spiritual environment

Human needs assistance

Existential-phenomenological-spiritual forces

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