Running head: PERSONAL PHILOSOPHY OF NURSING 1

Personal Philosophy of Nursing

Sammy Barock

Bon Secours Memorial College of Nursing

Synthesis for Nursing Practice

NUR 4140

Dr. Christine Turner

March 31, 2019

“I pledge.”
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Personal Philosophy of Nursing

My personal philosophy of nursing is shaped by my beliefs, values, and experiences and

is reflected in my nursing practice. It serves as the foundation for all my behaviors and decisions

and guides the way I care for and interact with my patients. Altruism, integrity, and caring are a

few of my personal values that I am constantly trying to emulate in my nursing practice. I also

strongly believe in treating all patients equally and not letting personal opinions affect the way I

care for my patients, so tolerance and respect for differing beliefs is a top priority for me as a

nurse. My personal philosophy of nursing has also largely been influenced by my past

experiences that helped me recognize my calling to the nursing profession as well as my clinical

experiences throughout nursing school.

Definition of Nursing

Although all nurses are required to perform very similar duties and share many of the

same responsibilities when caring for their patients, I believe that each individual nurse holds

their own personal definition of what nursing means to them. I think that my personal definition

of nursing that I have developed has been shaped by both my nursing education in the Bon

Secours program and my own past experiences. In my opinion, nursing is providing the best

quality holistic care to all people regardless of their age or stage of health. Nursing includes

anything from encouraging the maintenance of health in those who are healthy, preventing

illness in those who are at risk, or supporting the healing and optimal level of comfort in those

who are sick. Nursing involves promoting the healing of the patient’s whole self, including their

mind, body, and spirit. I believe that nursing is not merely a profession, but a true calling.

Like we are taught throughout our time as students in the Bon Secours program, I believe

that caring, compassion, and service are three principles that are critical to my definition of
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nursing. I believe that caring is essential to the definition of nursing because in our practice as

nurses, we must constantly display loving kindness in helping those who are unable to care for

themselves. We must create a healing environment that supports their individual needs and is

respectful to their culture. Compassion is another indispensable element of nursing because

being compassionate towards our patients can help us develop more trusting relationships with

them and instill hope. I believe that service is another vital component to the definition of

nursing. I believe that nursing goes beyond the bedside and it is important that we as nurses also

act as servant leaders and do all we can to serve our communities and bring help to those in need.

Personal Philosophy

My personal philosophy of nursing is constantly reflected in my nursing practice through

my relationships with my patients, my interactions with the interprofessional team, and my

ethical standards. In my nurse-patient relationships, I always focus on having a nonjudgmental

attitude and being respectful of beliefs that may differ from my own in order to provide the same

quality care to all of my patients. I try to be altruistic by showing genuine caring and compassion

without expecting to gain anything in return. I do my best to be an active listener and be fully

present for my patients, making sure to push whatever I have going on in my personal life aside

and not let it affect the care I provide. I also work to build trusting relationships with my patients

and serve as an advocate for them whenever I can.

In my interprofessional relationships, my main goal is to always keep the patient’s best

interests at the forefront. I try to treat everyone with kindness and respect and always be open to

what I can learn from others. I always focus on using effective communication techniques and if

an issue ever arises, I make sure to address it directly in a professional, non-confrontational

manner. My ethics are also incorporated into my personal nursing philosophy and influence my
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nursing practice. Because I consider integrity to be a vital characteristic of all nurses, I ensure

that I am always holding myself accountable to very high standards of quality and delivering

care the same way I would if someone was watching. I avoid taking any shortcuts, ask questions

when I am uncertain, and make sure I am practicing according to my intrinsic morals at all times.

Values and Beliefs

When I wrote my original Personal Philosophy of Nursing paper in NUR 1100, I

discussed how caring, altruism, and integrity were three of the values that I considered to be

most fundamental to the nursing profession. I also talked about how I strongly believe in being

tolerant and respectful of those with differing opinions from my own and not allowing my

personal opinions to influence the way I view a patient’s situation or provide care. Now, almost

three years later after completing countless clinical hours, I think the values and beliefs that I

previously held have not changed and have only gotten stronger.

In addition, I have now come to recognize a few other values that I consider to be very

important in nursing, including compassion and service. I believe compassion is an essential

quality for nurses to have because by showing kindness and empathy towards our patients we

can help cultivate a more trusting nurse-patient relationship, help our patients feel more

comfortable opening up and expressing their feelings, and help them have faith and hope. I have

also now come to realize the significance of service in nursing practice throughout my time at

Bon Secours. As nurses, we have the potential to make a major impact on our communities, on a

local level or beyond. We have many unique opportunities to make a difference when we make it

a priority to engage in service and commit ourselves to helping those in need. Through my

experiences in nursing school, especially my Population Global Health Practicum, I now better
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recognize the importance of service and hope to seek out similar opportunities in the future when

I am practicing as a registered nurse.

Nurse Patient Encounter

The Bon Secours Professional Practice model is based on Jean Watson’s ten caritas

processes (“Nursing,” 2019). Throughout my time as a student nurse, I have tried to incorporate

these processes into my nursing practice as much as possible. In one particular encounter with a

patient, I can specifically recall using several of these processes. During my immersion this

semester, I was caring for a patient who had constant profuse bleeding from painful sores in her

mouth and from her nose. She was severely thrombocytopenic but not responding to platelet

transfusions so the bleeding would not stop. Because she was stable and maintaining her airway

without difficulty, the ENT physicians did not want to try any intervention that would cause

trauma and risk additional bleeding and hoped to get her transferred as soon as possible to

another facility where her rheumatologist was located.

The patient was miserable and in a lot of pain and discomfort so our nursing care that

shift revolved around trying to make her as comfortable as possible given the circumstances. We

covered the patient with towels and washcloths to try to contain the blood and stocked her rooms

with numerous extras. We gave her a basin to spit and blow her nose into and set her up with two

different types of suction devices. We constantly changed her gown and linens whenever they

got bloody and wiped the blood off of her body as well as we could. We provided pain

medication, ice packs, viscous lidocaine mouthwash, sips of water, back rubs, and

encouragement while remaining at the bedside as much as possible, joining her in prayer, and

checking on her frequently. In doing all these nursing interventions, we incorporated several of

Watson’s caritas processes including assisting with physical, emotional, and spiritual human
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needs, practicing loving kindness, nurturing individual spiritual beliefs and practices, developing

helping-trusting relationships, promoting and accepting the expression of negative and positive

feelings, instilling faith and hope, using creative problem solving methods, and creating a healing

environment (“Nursing,” 2019).

Role as a Change Agent

Throughout this semester in the practicum portion of the NUR 4140 course, I have been

working with a group of my peers to design a quality improvement project that analyzes and

presents a solution to a real-world issue. My group’s focus for this project has been on new

graduate resilience and our location of interest was St. Mary’s Hospital. Through researching the

literature and communicating with nurse leaders and new to practice nurses themselves, we have

identified a root cause of this issue as well as many other contributing factors and have been

working to develop a plan for an anonymous online group that we can implement as a resource

to help increase new graduate resilience.

In exploring this topic, I have discovered what a huge issue new graduate resilience is in

the real world. I have seen how through teamwork, communication, and collaboration it is

possible to develop quality improvement projects to identify the root causes of these issues and

implement changes to combat them. Through this practicum experience, I am now more

motivated to take on my role as a change agent and be more involved in future quality

improvement projects similar to this because there is a large potential to make significant

improvements to many important issues by going through this process.

Benner’s Theory

According to Patricia Benner’s theory (2001), the Dreyfus model of Skill Acquisition can

be generalized to nursing to provide a useful tool for understanding the differences between the
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novice and experienced nurse. Benner believes that similar to when acquiring a new skill, nurses

pass through five levels of proficiency as they develop clinical knowledge and progress through

their careers as clinical nurses. These five stages are as follows: novice, advanced beginner,

competent, proficient, and expert.

As a second semester senior nursing student who is two shifts away from completing my

clinical immersion and is about a month and a half away from graduating, I would say that the

advanced beginner stage of skill acquisition most adequately represents my current stage of

development. I have had enough clinical experiences to be able to recognize meaningful aspects

but sometimes have difficulty judging relative importance and setting priorities. I still need to

concentrate on remembering the rules I have been taught, and I have not yet reached competency

in some areas so I will continue to benefit from having the support of a preceptor until I have

completed orientation for my first job as a registered nurse (RN) and am ready to function

completely on my own (Benner, 2001).

Action Plan for Moving Forward

As I begin orienting to my new job as an RN and transitioning into my new role as a new

graduate nurse, I plan to work hard to move forward and advance to the next level of skill

acquisition: competency. I hope that within the next couple years I will progress to the point

where I view my actions in terms of the long-term plan and I am more organized and efficient. I

will work to achieve a feeling of mastery and feel more confident in my ability to take on

whatever challenges my patient assignment may present on any given day. As I move forward, I

hope to reach a level where I am able to coordinate the complex demands of multiple patients

with ease and employ appropriate decision-making skills (Benner, 2001). In order to cope with

the many stressors that come along with being a new graduate nurse, I will utilize the strong
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support systems I have in my friends and family, make sure to take care of myself by staying

hydrated and well-rested and eating a healthy diet, and take time to relax when I need it. In the

long term, I plan to participate in the Professional Nurse Advancement Program to climb the

clinical ladder and advance in my nursing career.

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References

Benner. P. (2001). From novice to expert. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc.

Nursing. (2019). Retrieved March 31, 2019 from https://bonsecours.com/richmond/jobs-and-

education/nursing