Running head: MY PHILOSOPHY 1

My Philosophy

Charito Ward

Bon Secours Memorial College of Nursing

Mrs. Schultz

NUR 3240

I pledge.

October 15, 2015

My Philosophy

Introduction

My name is Charito Ward, I am 36 years old, a mother of 5 children (three children I

delivered, and two stepchildren), Im a granddaughter, daughter, sister, cousin, friend and

confidant, and I am also a Registered Nurse (RN). I have been in the operating room since 2000,

initially I started as a surgical tech in the Navy, and continued working in that occupation until I

finished nursing school. Naturally, I feel that my calling or comfort zone is in the operating room

and have been working in this area as an RN since 2012.

Defining Nursing
MY PHILOSOPHY 2
Nursing is defined by the American Nurses Association (ANA) as the protection,

promotion, and optimization of health and abilities, prevention of illness and injury, alleviation

of suffering through the diagnosis and treatment of human response and advocacy in the care of

individuals, families, communities, and population ("ANA nursing," 2015, para. 1).

Nursing exists because there is a need for it. Nursing exists to provide care to others. A

nurses work is to give health promotion, disease prevention, and care to altered health states

makes the job of an RN relevant in society ("Nursing definition," 2013).

I chose to come into nursing for several reasons. My grandmother, Aunts, and Mother

were all RNs; my aunt and mother are still practicing. My mom used to push me as a child and

teenager to get into nursing. I didnt think that nursing was the route that I wanted to get into

until I was much older. As a teenager I worked in a home that took care of teenagers that were

mentally handicap and given up to the state by their parents, thats where I knew that I wanted to

get into the medical field, I loved being able to care for the patients, and I felt like what I was

doing made a difference. Once I graduated high school I became a Certified Nurses Aide (CNA)

and worked in a nursing home for a year before I joined the US. Navy. Even in the Navy I knew

I wanted to be in the medical field and joined as a hospital corpsman (we functioned as practical

nurses in what we could do.), but after being a CNA I realized that I did not want to work on the

floor, so I went to surgical tech school. In my 20s I was debating on either being a Physicians

Assistant or an RN, after a lot of research I then decided that I wanted to be an RN and pursued

my career to become one. For me being an RN means a lot, its pride I take in myself for pushing

through school to have the title and job that I do, and I love doing what I do to help whoever

needs it.

My beliefs
MY PHILOSOPHY 3
My underlying beliefs about nurses is that we have this job because we want to care for

people no matter what their financial status, current health, race, beliefs, or thoughts. We do this

job not for the money, but for the satisfaction of knowing that what we are doing for each patient

makes a difference, and improves the patients current condition, even if only temporarily. I think

that most of us go into nursing because there is something inside of us that leads us to want to

care for people.

I believe all patients come across all spectrums in the world. Whether a person becomes a

patient by accident, illness, or surgery at a certain point they put their trust into us. I think that

patients have a standard that they expect nurses to preform by. Sadly enough some patients

become very skeptical towards us because of a personal experience they may have had with

health care worker who gave our field a negative image. Without patients there would be no

point in having our job.

Other healthcare providers are essential in being a team for the patient. CNAs help do a

lot of the brunt work for practical nurses and RNs to alleviate some of the patient care, in my

honest opinion, CNAs have one of the physically hardest jobs in nursing. Emergency Medical

Technician (EMTs) provides emergency life saving care to patients at any circumstance and

transport them to a medical center for care that will save a life. Doctors are necessary for

diagnosing and managing a patient. Although each job has a different title and different job

responsibilities we all have the same goal in common and that is to give the best care possible to

each person that we come across. Essentially all healthcare providers are a team.

Major domains in nursing

Person-I dont see humans and either good or evil, each person has a capability of being

good or evil but usually in life will be at a happy balance between the two. I believe that we were
MY PHILOSOPHY 4
put on this world to have autonomy, we still need rules to keep us balanced but to have the option

to make our own choices such as what job we want to do or what clothes we want to wear.

Humans need to have interaction with each other, and that if human interaction is lacking; it can

be devastating to that individual. Language is necessary for communication; it does not always

need to be in the form of words. Sign language and body language can also be forms of

communication to be able to have people know our likes, dislikes, fear, and anger.

Environment-Two areas of environment exist in this domain; internal-inside the person

and external-outside the person. Internal environment would be what I consider nurture in

psychology, what a person is inside the way they see the world, the way they react to situations

have a lot to do internally or the way they were raised growing up. For external environment I

would apply nature to, in other words the way a person acts, dresses, talks, and walks would be

because of where or how they grew up; for instance my husband grew up in the Oceanview area

of Norfolk, so he acts a certain way because of the area he grew up, he doesnt trust a lot of

people and talks differently because thats how he talked growing up.

Health- Health can be seen in several ways, a person may be physically healthy but has

issues with depression, would they be considered healthy?- probably not. Another example

would be someone who suffers from fibromyalgia, what do you address, physically there is no

indication of why they are in pain but treatment is not very effective. Health to me encompasses

all aspects of life the World Health Organization defines health as Health is a state of complete

physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or immunity.

Summary

Good and evil, environment and health are all connected in everything we do, people are

brought to us with vary forms of ailments, some patients come in with wounds that were inflicted
MY PHILOSOPHY 5
by an abusive parent or spouse, and some people come in suffering from a heart attack due to

cocaine use, and we have some patients who develop lung cancer and never smoked a day in

their lives. We have rich, poor, sick, and healthy patients who seek care daily.

My vision for nursing in the future is that people will know what we actually do. We

wont be asked, Why is that nurse wearing a Doctors stethoscope? Ideally it would be nice for

doctors to respect our occupation even with late night phone calls concerning patients because

we are the ones who spend 8-12 hours out of the day giving care to the patient and we know that

there is something wrong, and notice a critical lab value that needs to be addressed. I would like

the doctor-nurse game to come to an end actually.

Challenges come everyday in the medical field, the one thing constant about nursing is

that it is always changing. We have new technology, new medications, new equipment, new

standards and protocols to follow doing our job. Some changes although have evidence based

decisions make tasks go a little longer, causing doctors to become irritated with having to wait

for something and it becomes a ripple effect, finding a balance to how things are supposed to be

would be key for nurses to do.

My professional development goals are to be a Nurse Practitioner, providing safe and

effective care, promoting a good relationship with my patients, and being a leader that people

look up to. I believe as a leader they need to lead by example, you cannot hold nurses to

expectations that we are not meeting ourselves. We need to be the nurse that other nurses want to

be like.
MY PHILOSOPHY 6
References

Defining a Profession. (2013). Retrieved from

http://www.elearnportal.com/courses/nursing/transition-to-professional-

nursing/transition-to-professional-nursing-defining-a-profession

What is Nursing? (2015). Retrieved from http://nursingworld.org/EspeciallyForYou/What-is-

Nursing