Running head: PERSONAL PHILOSPHY 1

Personal Philosophy

Elisabeth Alt

Dr. Christine Turner, PhD RN

Synthesis for Nursing Practice NUR 4140

Bon Secours Memorial College of Nursing

October 27, 2019

Honor Code: “I pledge.”

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Introduction

The word philosophy has many definitions. According to the Merriam-Webster

Dictionary, “philosophy” is defined as: “all learning exclusive of technical precepts and practical

arts… the pursuit of wisdom… a search for general understanding of values and reality by

chiefly speculative rather than observational means… an analysis of the grounds of and concepts

expressing fundamental beliefs… a theory underlying or regarding a sphere of activity or

thought… the most basic beliefs, concepts, and attitudes of an individual or group,” (philosophy,

2019). In this paper, I will be discussing the values and beliefs that have formed my personal

philosophy of nursing and how that philosophy will shape my future as a Registered Nurse.

Definition of Nursing

Nursing is an integral part of any healthcare system. It encompasses education, service,

health promotion and prevention, care for the sick and dying, for the mentally and physically ill,

along with welcoming new life into the world. With the completion of a formal educational

program, a nurse has the ability to walk into a setting, assess an individual, and decide the best

course of action for their care. Nursing is a profession that is governed by the heart and the mind.

Care for a person does not end when the body is stable or healed, nursing includes management

of the body, mind and spirit.

Personal Philosophy

As a woman, I have always felt an inherent desire to nurture. My childhood was spent

comforting others who had gotten hurt on the playground, befriending children who were lonely

or outsiders, nursing sick animals back to health, helping tend to my aging grandparents or

nursing my mother through her difficult cancer treatments. It has been in my nature to comfort,

heal, help, and assist in any way that I can.

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As I have grown older and my role has changed into that of a wife and mother, I have

seen these natural qualities develop into something more. Instead of bringing a friend with a

scraped knee to the school nurse, I found myself rocking babies with croup at 3 am in a hot

steamy bathroom. I held my daughter’s tiny hand as she got a CT Scan after a concussion. I have

nursed my husband through multiple surgeries, recoveries, and the subsequent physical therapies.

I have supported one of my dearest friends through an especially difficult period of mental

illness and marital struggles. Each of these, along with countless other experiences, helped me to

realize that I have had the same calling in life all along, it just took time to recognize it.

Learning to translate the inherent desire to nurture others from a familial and friendship

standpoint into a professional one has been a learning curve. How do I take the same care and

compassion I have for my closest friend, family member or child, and show the same care and

compassion for someone else, or someone else’s child?

In the Holy Bible, Christ taught, “For I was an hungered, and ye gave me meat: I was

thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: Naked and ye clothed me: I

was sick and ye visited me: I was in prison and ye came unto me. Then shall the righteous

answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungered, and fed thee? Or thirsty, and gave

thee drink? When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? Or naked, and clothed thee? Or when

saw we thee sick, or in prison and came unto thee? And the King shall answer and say unto

them, Verily I say unto you, inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my

brethren, ye have done it unto me.” (Matthew 25:34-40, King James Version).

This is my personal nursing philosophy… “inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the

least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.” (Matthew 25:40, KJV). When I find, myself

changing bed linens for a patient, when I comfort a mother after her child receives a life-altering
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diagnosis, or when I prepare one of my smallest patients and their family for a surgical

procedure, I am doing these things with love, compassion, empathy, and reverence. Reverence

for the sacred duty to care for another person; empathy for their pain and suffering; compassion

for their situation; and most of all, love for another one of God’s children that I have been given

the stewardship to care for. As a nurse, I will have the responsibility to treat every man, woman,

and child that I come in contact with, not only in the way that I would want to be treated, but in a

way that reflects being in the service of God.

Values and Beliefs

I have a personal list of values that I strive to stand for in my daily life, though I often fall

short. As a child, I was taught these values and I still hold myself to them as an adult. They are

faith, divine nature, individual worth, knowledge, choice & accountability, good works and

integrity. Each of these values has a deep meaning to me and has shaped part of who I am. Just

like I have built the foundation of my life on these values, as I move into a new phase of my life

as nurse, these values continue with me and shape my interactions with everyone I serve and care

for. Not only do I see my own self in these values, I can also see many of these, such as the

divine nature, choices, and integrity in others. These values and my belief in their worth and

contribution to my life have stayed consistent and will continue to do so.

Nurse-Patient Encounter

I have had the privilege of completing my immersion experience in the Mother-Infant

Unit at St. Francis Medical Center. Each day, I get to bring families into my care who have just

welcomed new life in the world mere hours before. It is such a sacred privilege to care for

mothers and their babies during this difficult and exciting time of transition in their lives.
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One particular family was a joy to care for. They had just delivered their first child, a

little boy with a shock of dark hair, and perfect features. During their admission, we realized that

they had requested to circumcise their baby boy. Through experience with other patients with the

same cultural background, I knew that it was quite unusual for this family to request a

circumcision. With this being such a dramatic, permanent, and body-altering procedure, I called

in a translator as English was not their primary language. Though their English had been nearly

perfect up to that point in their stay, I wanted to be absolutely positive that they understood the

consent form they were signing and exactly what the procedure entailed. In the end, after careful

consultation from their midwife during the mother’s pregnancy, they had decided to go ahead

with the circumcision, even though it wasn’t their cultural norm. I am grateful that I listened to

my instinct and made sure to protect their cultural differences.

In this situation, it would have been easy to use the blue phone, a translating call on a

personal cell phone, or bring a circumcision consent to the patient in their primary language.

While many of these things were suggested and available options, I determined that the best

course of action was to use a translator. This experience gave me the motivation to be a change

agent; to stand up for my patient’s rights and to even delay the communication and the timeliness

of the paperwork being completed. Waiting for a translator to be able to visit the unit is not

always an option, but on this day, it was the best option. I insisted my patients got the best out of

their care and they knew that I gone the “extra mile” to ensure their understanding, their wishes,

and cultural beliefs were respected.

The rest of their admission was enjoyable and uneventful. We established trust from the

beginning, and I was able to teach the family and help them care for, feed, and bond with their

new addition. Three weeks later, while working as a Patient Care Technician in the inpatient
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Pediatric Unit at St. Mary’s Hospital, I surprisingly walked into a room to see this sweet family.

They had listened carefully to my discharge teaching and brought their baby boy to the hospital

when something wasn’t right. A dangerous condition was caught and was surgically corrected

right away. It was a special experience to be able to see this cycle come full circle, and to realize

that I truly had positively impacted a patient’s life through my care.

Benner’s Theory

Dr. Patrician Benner is a nursing theorist who developed a model of nursing stages of

clinical competence ranging from “Novice” to “Expert. Dr. Benner’s theory is unique in that it

does not teach nurses how to be nurses. It details stages of learning and the process by which nurses

develop skills and acquire knowledge. (Davis & Maisano, 2016.) Benner’s stages are as follows:

 Stage 1- Novice. In the Novice stage a nurse is just beginning their education or clinical

experiences. They do not have a basis for which to build clinical judgement upon.

Determining prioritization is difficult without strict rules for what comes first and the

procedure to follow next.

 Stage 2- Advanced Beginner. In this stage, a nurse is likely in the first year or two of their

first job. There has been enough involvement in actual clinical situations for the nurse to

begin forming their own processes and judgement. Nurses in this stage should have a

mentor or clinical contact to help set priorities and give them feedback.

 Stage 3- Competent. Competent nurses are beginning to master their skillset. They can

work in an organized and efficient manner. Prioritization becomes easier and the ability to

predict patterns and form deliberate plans based on past experiences develops.

 Stage 4- Proficient. In the proficient stage, nurses are not basing their care off policies and

plans but can predict patterns based on diagnosis and experience. The proficient nurse uses
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a more holistic guide in patient care and can foresee outcomes based on past understanding

and involvement.

 Stage 5- Expert. An Expert nurse is able to assess complex patient situations and determine

the best course of action through practice and knowledge. Intuition and experience lead

their practice.

As a new graduate nurse with a BSN, starting on a unit where I have currently been

employed as a Patient Care Technician for two years, I would place myself in Stage 2- Advanced

Beginner. The last three years have been spent learning skills, theories, practical application, and

leadership to put into practice. I have built a foundation for a nursing career that will be built upon

and serve me well as a nurse. I am looking forward to my orientation and the opportunity to have

a preceptor to teach me, counsel me, and guide me through my first few months as a RN. I do feel

that I have begun to build a groundwork for establishing my own clinical judgement and am able

to begin to prioritize appropriately with minimal guidance.

I anticipate remaining in this stage for the next few years as I establish myself as a nurse.

Moving forward, I will continue to learn, explore, study and grow as a nurse. I will encounter new

diagnosis, new cultural backgrounds, and new patients and their families to serve each day. As I

integrate these experiences into my personal nursing repertoire, I will begin moving into the

Proficient stage. It will be then, that I will be able to take the experiences I have encountered and

use them to better myself as a nurse, prioritizing appropriately, assessing efficiently, and knowing

best how to care for others based on my learned experience.

Moving Forward

As a nurse, wife, mother, ‘sports-mom’, mentor, Sunday School teacher (along with any

other title I may have that day- seamstress, chef, driver, coach, etc.) my days are filled from Sunday
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to Saturday. There is often little time for self-care, yet the most important thing to me is my family.

In all of the time dedicated to school and learning, I have always strived to put my family first. My

“me time” might consist of attending my daughter’s football game to watch her cheer, putting

together snacks for the next days’ soccer game, or working on my Sunday School lesson for the

next week. During the current phase in my life, it is a privilege to care for the young souls that

have been entrusted to me.

In the future, many years ahead, I plan to further my education, possibly in nursing

education, after I have taken some time from studying, to be with my family. I also have set the

goal to volunteer as a photographer for “Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep”, an organization that

provides the gift of remembrance portraits to parents who are experiencing the death of a baby.

Conclusion

Nursing is a taxing career path that has many difficulties. A nurse is not always able to

alleviate a patient’s suffering, to comfort a family member, or prevent further health decline.

Having the conviction of caring for each patient in the same way I would care for my own family

member is what will make the most impact. Not only in my life but in the lives of the patients I

serve.

I have set a high standard for myself. Throughout my life, I have learned the hard lesson

that life isn’t always easy or pleasant. Children rarely follow the paths that their parents hope

they do. Jobs are not always secure. Patients don’t always have pleasant attitudes or want to help

and heal themselves. Often, we find ourselves reassessing and changing course throughout life. I

am certain there will be patients who will test my resolve, who will make me feel anything but

compassion and love; initially. Those individuals are often the ones who cross our paths to teach

us lessons in humility and compassion. Each day I will have the opportunity to minister to the
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sick and afflicted. Sometimes this service will be to a family or friend, more often it will be for a

patient, a stranger. I will strive to always serve my patients to the best of my ability,

remembering always, “inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye

have done it unto me.” (Matthew 25:40, KJV.)

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References

Davis, A., & Maisano, P. (2016, September). Benner's From Novice to Expert. Retrieved from
http://www.nursing-theory.org/theories-and-models/from-novice-to-expert.php.

Philosophy, 2019. In Merriam-Webster.com. Retrieved October 23, 2019 from

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/philosophy