Running head: PROFESSIONAL NURSING PHILOSOPHY

PROFESSIONAL NURSING PHILOSOPHY

Michelle Mcknight

Delaware Technical Community College

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I would first like to reintroduce myself, my name is Michelle Mcknight, I am a graduate

of Del Tech Nursing program. I am employed by Christiana Care. I have been a nurse for a little

over a year. Taking this course has made me really think about want nursing means to me, after

reading about the different nursing theories, I believe that the theory that correlates with my

personal nursing philosophy is Jean Watson’s Theory of Human Caring. We learn from one

another how to be human by identifying ourselves with others, finding their dilem-mas in

ourselves. What we all learn from it is self-knowledge (Watson,1985,pp 59-60 ). According to

her theory, caring can be demonstrated and practiced by nurses caring for patients .

As nurses we must look at our patients as a whole, and treat them as such. The energy

that we present has an effect on their healing process whether its physical or mental. We must try

to give positive energy and vibes to promote healing, negative energy can have a negative effect

on our patients and prolong their healing process. Like I stated in my opening statement, I’ve

been a nurse for a little over a year, and the one thing that I have noticed is that new nurses

seems to be more patient and more tolerant of the needy or more difficult patients, I'm not sure if

its because they have been doing this for a long time and they are burnt out ,or if it's that with

experience they have learned to set boundaries. Whatever the case may be we must remember to

always be professional and treat each and every patient with dignity and respect.

When I think about life long learning, this term is self explanatory, we learn something

new each and everyday of our lives, working in the medical field things are changing literally on

a daily basis, because of evidence based practices what may have worked a few years ago can

change tomorrow. Back in 1989 when I became a mother we were taught to put our newborn

babies to sleep on their stomachs, but now research has proved that to be a big mistake. Because
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things are constantly changing we as nurse have to educate ourselves on evidence based research

constantly, we must practice intellectual humility for the welfare of our patients.

A few weeks ago we did a reflection on the 5 components of wellness, sad to say the

reality of this is that I realized I was taking care of everyone but myself. After I became a mother

I put all of my time and energy into being a mother and not taking care of me, I stopped

exercising, I started eating unhealthy and before I realized it I had spiraled out of control

mentally and physically. My social life has also taking a hit for the last 5 years , I was in Nursing

school and working full time for the last 4 years, so there was little time for a social life. Now

that I am working the midnight shift and 12 hour evening shifts, it's hard to find balance. I’m

really trying to take better care of myself so I can be the best me, so I can be the best person for

my patients and the people that depend on me.

A couple of weeks ago we did a personality test and I got adventure, which I was really

surprised, however after reading what an adventure was it really summed me up pretty good.

Although when I think of an adventure I think of a very outgoing person . I am very much an

introvert, I am very uncomfortable being in a crowd of people, and I have trouble giving people

my idea on projects for fear of rejection. The one thing that I try to avoid is conflict, I have

always been known as a people pleaser aand it's very frustrating.This is something I am

currently working on, because as nurses we have to become leaders. Leaders means exactly what

it says “we lead”, as nurses we need to delegate to unlicensed personnel as well as our peers. As

leaders we can not please everyone and this is something I’m also working on, because

leadership means taking the lead and doing things that is in the best interest of everyone, and not

everyone is going to like the decisions that we make and we have to accept that. Last week we

read a story on a patient Mr. Orange ,when I think about this story this could have very well
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been my situation as a new nurse, I feel very uncomfortable challenging a resident about as

patient. But because of issues like this many patients could end up like Mr. Orange! As nurses

we must ALWAYS advocate for our patients because in most cases we know them better than

the residents and attending physicians so if we think that there is a problem we must not back

down , we must push and advocate for our patients to avoid situations like this.

Lastly I would like to say I have learned a lot from this course and it has made me want

to do better as a nurse and as a human being, I realized that leadership is a must, and that we are

here to take care of our patients,to protect them and to be their voice, no matter how

uncomfortable a situation may be we must advocate for them. Although I’m uncomfortable with

conflict sometimes it's necessary for the safety and protection of our patients and that at the end

of the day its the patients that matter and not hurting others feelings. Also I’ve learned that first

and foremost we must take care of ourselves in order to take care of someone else.

Reflecting on my nursing philosophy It has been almost four years since I became a nurse. In

such a short span so much has changed, from the way we greet our patients to the interaction

we have with them. When I started this program a few years ago, I took the Nursing 300, and

we learned about several different philosophies, the one that resonated with me was Jean

Watson’s. Jean Watson’s Theory of Human Caring, states that we learn from one another how

to be human by identifying ourselves with others, finding their dilemmas in ourselves. According

to her theory, caring can be demonstrated and practiced by nurses caring for patients. During

these last two years it has been very difficult to follow her theory for a number of reasons, the

first being the Covid Pandemic, it’s hard to greet our patients with a smile when they cannot see

us behind the surgical mask that we are required to wear at all times. Another reason is the

nurse-to-patient ratio, since the pandemic we have been working with bare bones, we are
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limited to the time we get to spend with our patient, and because of that the quality of care we

are capable of providing is suffering. Although these are trying times in the nursing field, I still

hold true to Jean Watson’s Theory. As nurses we must look at our patients as a whole, and treat

them as such. We must try our best to give them positive energy regardless of what’s going on

around us because, the energy that we present has an effect on their healing process whether

its physical or mental. My philosophy and my leadership style go hand and hand, I believe in

Transformational leadership. Transformational leadership is a leadership style in which leaders

encourage, inspire and motivate employees to innovate and create change that will help grow

and shape the future success of our workplace. They also focus on transforming their staff to

support each other as a whole, and during this crisis of working short staffed we need to support

each other for the wellbeing of our patient as well as our own wellbeing.

Jean Watson, R. (2008). Assessing and Measuring Caring in Nursing and Health Science:

Second Edition. New York, NY: Springer Publishing Company.

Jean Watson, R. (2011). Measuring Caring: International Research on Caritas as Healing. New

York, NY: Springer Publishing Company.

Watson, J. (2008). Nursing: The Philosophy and Science of Caring, Revised Edition. Boulder,

CO: University Press of Colorado.

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Watson, J. (2011). Human Caring Science. Burlington, MA: Jones & Bartlett Publishers.
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