Question

Write a paper applying a nursing philosophy to nursing practice.

Explanation for grading the reflection paper follows:

Grading Components

Reflect on what is important to you as an individual and as a nursing student. Think about what you believe and what you value. Develop a paper that includes the following:

• Personal Values (4 points): Identify three values and beliefs that are important to you personally.
• Professional Values (4 points): Identify the values and beliefs that are important in nursing practice and why you feel they are important.
• Alignment of Values (3 points): Describe where your personal values or beliefs align with the values and beliefs in nursing practice.
• Nursing Theory (6 points): Identify a nursing theory that resonates with your personal belief system
• Conclusion (5 points): Based on your personal and professional beliefs and values, explain how these can make a difference in your patient's lives.
• Scholarly Writing (3 points)

Answer 1

1) Your philosophy of nursing captures your intrinsic beliefs and goals within the nursing profession. Defining your philosophy provides you with a deeper connection to those beliefs. It can help shape you as a nurse and provide direction for which skills and specialties you want to focus on strengthening. Your philosophy will play a role in every nursing job you have.
Your profession and experiences will continue to shape your philosophy, so it may change as you progress in your career. That’s okay. Many nurses update their philosophy of nursing as their insights and careers evolve.
The ability to pay good attention, the confidence to work on your own if necessary and a desire to continue learning and growing in the profession are also good assets. While there are many things you will learn as a nursing student, much of what you learn will be gained from experience. As a student nurse, you will work to promote, maintain and restore the health of patients by following the clearly laid out hospital procedures. Because the scope of student nursing practice is limited, you will often need approval before you can administer any care to patients.Successful nursing students are driven and goal oriented. They realize that in order to stay motivated, they must set goals for themselves. For example, they may have the goal to increase their career options, provide for their family or make a positive impact in the lives of their patients.
2) In the present study, the most important professional values according to the nurses were maintaining confidentiality of patients, Safeguarding patients right to privacy, assuming responsibility for meeting health needs of culturally diverse population, and accepting responsibility and accountability for their own practice respectively. Consistent with the present study results, these values were identified as the most important nursing professional values in other studies conducted by Gallegos and Sortedahl,Clark,Schank and Weis, as well as Shahriari et al. One reason for this might be the fact that nurses mainly consider values that are directly related to nursing care and nurses' daily clinical work. Another reason might be people’s high expectations from nurses concerning such values so that Leners et al. reported this case in their study.Furthermore, they believed that these values might inherently exist in individuals with tendency towards nursing profession.In the present study,certain values were less important based on the nurses perspective, such as recognizing role of professional nursing associations in shaping health care policy, Participating in nursing research and or implementing research findings appropriate to practice,Participating in public policy decisions affecting distribution of resources, and Participating in peer review, respectively. In several studies, these items are among the least important values, but the priority and ranking of these values are different with the present study. Probably, there are several factors that nurses not willing to accept all the values equally such as personal beliefs and attitudes, conditions and factors pertaining to the working environment, working pressures and organizational culture, level of organizational support, awareness, educational programs, and level of motivation and interest can affect the prioritization of professional values. Perhaps, another reason for the low importance of the foregoing values might be insufficient emphasis on emotional learning by university educators and teachers at the time of the formation of professional values in the affective domain of learning. If these values are not encouraged or noticed during academic education, they might fully not accepted. Leners et al. stated that the above mentioned values are related to the collaborative and social activities in nursing and healthcare organizations.Therefore, there is low awareness regarding their direct relationship with the promotion of nursing profession.
Core values of nursing include altruism, autonomy, human dignity, integrity, honesty and social justice. The core ethical values are generally shared within the global community, and they are a reflection of the human and spiritual approach to the nursing profession.