As a nurse, I believe that since the days of Florence Nightingale, the purpose of nursing has always remained the same, ie. provide a safe and caring environment that promotes patient health and well-being (Selanders and Crane, 2012). This goal is the basis of the philosophy of nursing. In other words, my philosophy of nursing is to provide a safe and caring nursing environment that promotes the overall well-being of the patient. A safe environment is a healing environment. In this case, as a nurse, it is critical to integrate interpersonal tools such as advocacy, effective use and promotion of a caring environment to provide a safe and healing environment.
As a nurse, I believe that since the days of Florence Nightingale, the purpose of nursing has always remained the same, ie. provide a safe and caring environment that promotes patient health and well-being (Selanders and Crane, 2012). This goal is the basis of the philosophy of nursing. In other words, my philosophy of nursing is to provide a safe and caring nursing environment that promotes the overall well-being of the patient. A safe environment is a healing environment. In this case, as a nurse, it is critical to integrate interpersonal tools such as advocacy, effective use and promotion of a caring environment to provide a safe and healing environment.
The four metaparadigms of nursing are person, environment, health and nursing. Interpreting the person as nursing meta-paradigm promotes practices that meet people’s needs through social care. It focuses on the patient, who in this case is the person or recipient of treatment (Branch et al., 2016). Each person has unique needs that must be respected and met in care.
For a person to achieve complete recovery in a health care setting, a holistic approach is needed that focuses on mind, body and soul. In the metaparadigm of the situation, it is important to note that the environment plays a central role in the nursing process. The environment has a direct impact on the patient’s healing process and nursing’s ability to provide care. A safe care environment is critical to the patient’s healing process as well as to nurses (Branch et al., 2016).
From the metaparadigm of nursing, Watson offered insights into the need for nurses to build relationships with their patients. Although medicine and science are therapeutic agents, relationship building is essential to create collaboration between nurses and patients. In the metaparadigm of health, nurses must treat their patients holistically (Nikfarid et al., 2018).
The plan should focus on the patient’s mind, body and soul. Effective healing requires nurses to create a perfect balance between the patient’s physical, cognitive and spiritual selves. In other words, nurses have the duty to combine these three components to achieve true health. In my understanding, the four metaparadigms of nursing encompass the entire concept of nursing as it focuses on care, concepts, patient, environment and conditions affecting health.
The development of nursing philosophy is inextricably linked to the learning that gave me experience and my views on the task of nursing changed. From my role as a side worker who performs routine tasks, the image of the nurse evolved into a critical image of the art of nursing. An important principle of nursing philosophy is respect for life, human dignity and human rights (“What is Philosophy of Nursing”, 2016). Based on this, the nurse must not see the patient as a mere client, but as an individual who represents a unified whole with his own internal capacity for growth and development.
Only on rare occasions can a nurse, who must be considered a priori strong and cold-blooded, encounter thoughts that violate personal philosophy. In the course of medical practice, as in any other profession, one must inevitably face the fact that familiar worldviews are collapsing. As a rule, the event or phenomenon that occurred conflicted with the person’s worldview.
A similar situation happened to me when I was nursing. In my case, because of my profession, I had to meet a patient who was aggressive and did not want to compromise medically. The principles of philosophy suggest the need to treat the patient with respect and reverence, but this is implicitly a two-sided relationship. As a result, I had to revise some of my understandings and not enter into a conflict with the patient, because the nurse must remain a guarantor of peace, care and love.
The patient’s right to self-determination and independence is of no importance in my treatment philosophy. They are inextricably linked to the capacity of the patient and are realized by consenting to the treatment prescribed by the patient after receiving information about his state of health. When I chose to treat the patient relatively aggressively, I chose not to deceive myself and did not treat the patient without his consent. So I just confirmed the idea of how important it is to respect the patient’s choices. However, it is certainly worth mentioning that there are situations where the threat to a person’s life cannot be ignored, and in such a crisis the chief doctor or substitute doctor decides to continue the treatment without the patient’s consent.
The core of a doctor’s professional activity is at four levels: care, patient, health and environment. The nursing metaparadigm incorporates each element, creating a type of instruction for the novice nurse (Rosa, Estes, & Watson, 2017). It is a set of basic theories and ideas about how nursing should work. The four paradigms can be linked as follows: the environment affects the health of the person, who then turns to the medical staff.
The original philosophy I described earlier did not undergo a radical metamorphosis. Based on past time and accumulated experience, we can say that the original nursing observation model has been polished just like a stone sculpture, and non-essential parts have been broken off. I now pay more attention to the multifaceted personality of the patient than to creating an environment. Of course, creating a comfortable treatment environment is very important, but in these circumstances one cannot be negative or ignore the wishes of the patient.
