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Nursing Philosophy

Samantha Gumpman

NUR300-2W1 RN to BSN Transition

Mrs. Bowie

February 21, 2021

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It is the professional nurse’s job to deliver safe, exceptional care to our patients and their

families. Delivering safe care means staying current on core nursing skills, advancing

technology, and knowing how to handle many ethical issues that nurses experience daily.

Nursing practice is ever changing to benefit the patient. As a nurse I am committed to lifelong

learning. Yearly education in the workplace consists of simulations for emergencies that may not

happen all the time, training on new equipment and computer technology. A BSN is required at

my job and will open more job opportunities and I can continue my education even further to

become a certified nurse midwife or nurse practitioner if I chose to do so. I am committed to the

safety of my patients and staying current on my education to ensure my patients receive the best

care.

When I was 18 years old, I was in a car accident and spent a lot of time in the hospital

and doing physical therapy. I broke the C2 in my neck, several ribs, collar bone, and injured my

back. I was in an upper body cast for my collar bone that wrapped under my arms and around my

chest and a neck brace for my neck. I will never forget the nurse that got me out of bed for the

first time. She used dry shampoo, washed, and brushed my hair, assisted me in brushing my teeth

made sure my room and bathroom were tidy and changed my linen while I sat up in the chair.

After being stuck in bed for 9 days without a shower or brushing my teeth or washing my hair

what this nurse did for me meant everything to me. Out of my whole hospital stay this is what I

remember. I looked at this nurse and said thank you, I want to be a nurse like you, I want to do

what you did for me to help other people. I will never forget the nurses compassion she had for

me. Once I recovered, I started school to get my CNA license and shortly after started nursing

school. In nursing school, we were taught the basics first and how the basics made the most

impact on our patients and I can truly relate to this.

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Florence Nightingales nursing philosophy, her focus being primarily on the patient and

the environment, if the patient had good nutrition, rest, warm, clean environment this would

promote healing (Florence Nightingale 2019). Florence Nightingales philosophy is the philosophy I

relate to most because of my personal experience of being the patient. In my personal experience

I remember the nurse that got me out of bed, washed my hair, cleaned me up, made sure my

room was tidy, and to help me feel like a person again. Nightingale was a nurse for wounded

soldiers and realized that many patients were dying of other causes other than their injuries, so

she decided to make a change (Florence Nightingale 2019). We value Florence Nightingale and that

is the foundation of nursing today.

The importance of personal wellness, physical, emotional, and spiritual wellness is

essential in caring for other people. Nurses must take care of themselves before they can be

capable of taking care of another human being. Florence Nightingales theory focuses primarily

on the patient and the environment. Do you think if the patient has a disorganized wreck of a

nurse that they are going to properly heal? Same applies if you have an obese nurse trying to

educate you on diet and exercise, the patient is more likely to take the education in from

someone who practices what they preach. “Nurses give their best care when they are operating at

their own peak wellness” (QSEN competencies: A bridge to practice : NURSING made incredibly easy).

Empathy and compassion are critical components of nursing. These two suffer if the nurse is

experiencing burn out. If you are stressed and tired you are not going to deliver 100% care. I

learned this by working nightshift and having to stay up during the day with my children. I go to

work after a full day of being a mom to my kids there is no way I can operate at 100% by the

time I get to work. I definitely do the best I can but I imagine being a much better and alert nurse

if I had some sleep before my long night shifts at the hospital.

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Conflict is bound to arise when getting a group of diverse people together, and that is

expected, however, figuring out your personality type and how you handle conflict is important.

My style of conflict management is going off rules, regulations, and policies to back my

standpoint on an issue. My conflict management style is competing. If I think something is right

and can be backed with evidence, then I am going to push for that and make minimal room for

negotiation. When I think something is right, I have a hard time keeping an open mind and

listening to others point of view. This could positively or negatively affect my nursing practice.

This type of conflict management style could be positive because it makes me a strong advocate

for my patient. When I think something is right, I won’t let it go. Regarding the case study we

did in this course when the nurse had to continue to call the physician about the blood pressure

and did not want to challenge the physician even though she knew something was not right and

the patient ended up becoming unresponsive. I like to believe I would have been more persistent

and demanded the physician come lay eyes on his patient. However, I think this could also

negatively affect my nursing practice. You must be open minded when working and

collaborating with coworkers and other disciplines. If you are so focused on what is right and not

listening or respecting your coworkers, this could leave room for conflict.

As nurses we all strive to deliver safe nursing care to our patients. There are

QSEN competencies that help us strive to give the best care to our patients. The 6 QUSEN

competencies being patient centered care, teamwork and collaboration, evidence-based practice,

safety, and informatics (QSEN competencies: A bridge to practice : NURSING made incredibly easy) .

These 6 competencies guide my nursing practice in many ways. With my specialty being

Women’s Services, we base our nursing care around the patients wants and wishes. Some

patients come in with a birthing plan that we are to follow. Before Covid we had some patients
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that brought their whole family in for the birth of their baby and we had to work around them.

Being in Womens Services we work closely with social work, anesthesia, and dietary. We

consult social work for all our patients whose urine drug screens are positive, and our first-time

moms. Anesthesia also works closely with our patients who receive an epidural for pain control

during labor, and our moms who must have a cesarean section. Our patients work directly with

our dietary department and our hospital has room service for our patients where they can order

whatever they want whenever they want. Our policies and procedures at our hospital are

developed using evidence-based practice. Meaning there is evidence form studies of why we are

doing what we are doing. Safety in the Womens Service department is a little different than

other departments in the hospital. A big safety issue on our floor is fall safety for infants. I

educate my patients to not fall asleep holding their baby, back is best and in a crib with no other

blankets, pillows or stuffed animals. We also get our patients out of bed for the first time with a

nurse so we can see how the patient is walking and how their bleeding is and assess whether they

are symptomatic from losing blood. We also have a security system for the moms and babies.

The mom and baby where a security tag where if the baby is taken out of the mother’s room and

is near a elevator or stairwell the alarm system goes off and locks down all the doors and

elevators on our unit and the unit below us, labor and delivery. Informatics play s a huge part in

my nursing practice. Our obstetric doctors’ offices have the same computer system as we do and

when the patient comes to deliver all the patient’s history and notes and obstetric visits and lab

results are already in our computer system. All of the QSEN competencies are used in the

hospital I work for and help us to deliver the best care for patients.
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References

Assistant Professor of Nursing • The College of New Rochelle • New Rochelle. (n.d.). QSEN
competencies: A bridge to practice : NURSING made incredibly easy. Retrieved February
14, 2021, from
https://journals.lww.com/nursingmadeincrediblyeasy/fulltext/2012/09000/qsen_competenc
ies__a_bridge_to_practice.1.aspx

Consul personality. (n.d.). Retrieved February 05, 2021, from

https://www.16personalities.com/esfj-personality

Florence Nightingale. (2019, September 18). Retrieved February 21, 2021, from https://nursing-
theory.org/nursing-theorists/Florence-Nightingale.php

Masters, K. (2020). Role development in professional nursing practice (5th ed.). Burlington,

MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning.