The qualities and responsibilities

of a good health care provider

to the client, society and the
profession
Philosophy of Nursing

 A philosophy of nursing is a statement, sometimes written, that declares a

nurse’s beliefs, values, and ethics regarding their care and treatment of
patients while they are in the nursing profession.
 It can make a significant impact on the lives of many. Being so, there are
certain qualities that are necessary to be an amazing nurse: compassion,
honesty, and respect.
1. Compassion: Compassion is a must-have quality when it comes to nursing.
A nurse without compassion treats only the diagnosis, and a person’s health
is made up of more than one component: physical, social and mental
wellbeing. Being able to empathize with patients, builds rapport, and
creates an environment that is inclusive of the physical, social, and mental
aspects of health.

2. Honesty: Being honest, builds trust and credibility with the patient. Patients
are more cooperative with health professionals they deem trustworthy.

3. Respect: Respect is another quality that builds rapport with the patient.
Patients want to be treated with dignity and involved with their treatment.
Objectives of Nursing

• Maintain and promote wellness, prevent illness, care for and

rehabilitate the sick of disabled through the human science of nursing.
• Reduce stress. .Provide comfort to the client during diseases process
Provide service to individual families and societies.
• Work independently with other health workers assisting the client to
gain independence as quickly as possible.
• Develop interaction between nurse and client. Focus on a man a
living unity and man’s qualitative participation with experience.
Characteristics of Nursing
• Nursing is caring. Nursing involves close personal contact with
the recipient of care.
• Nursing is concerned with services that take humans into
account as physiological, psychological, and sociological
organisms.
• Nursing is committed to promoting individual, family,
community, and national health goals in its best manner
possible.
• Nursing is committed to personalized services for all persons
without regard to color, creed, social or economic status.
• Nursing is committed to involvement in ethical, legal, and
political issues in the delivery of health care.
Nature And Scope Of Nursing Practice

• Nurses contribute to health care within a multidisciplinary

team. They are individually accountable for their actions
and practice within a statutory regulatory framework
established to protect the public and assure the quality of
nursing services. The role of the nurse is constantly
changing and developing.
A. Nature of Nursing Practice

1. Helps individuals, families and communities to

achieve and maintain good health
2. Supports, assists and cares for people during
illness or when their health is threatened
3. Enhances people's ability to cope with the
effects of illness and disability
4. Ensures, as far as possible, that death is dignified
and free from pain.
B. Scope Of Nursing Practice

• The scope of nursing practice is defined as the range of

roles, functions, responsibilities, and activities which
registered nurses are educated and authorized to
perform.
• The Scope of Nursing Practice describes the “who,”
“what,” “where,” “when,” “why,” and “how” of nursing
practice.
• The broad scope of nursing practice reflects all of the
roles and activities undertaken by registered nurses to
address the full range of human experiences and
responses to health and illness. This includes: health
promotion, health protection, health maintenance,
health restoration, rehabilitation, and palliation.
 QUALITIES OF NURSE

1. Communication Skills: Solid communication skills

are a basic foundation for any career. But for nurses,
it’s one of the most important aspects of the job. A
great nurse has excellent communication skills,
especially when it comes to speaking and listening.
2. Emotional Stability: Nursing is a stressful
job where traumatic situations are
common. The ability to accept suffering
and death without letting it get personal
is crucial.
4. Flexibility: Being flexible and rolling with the punches is a
staple of any career, but it’s especially important for nurses. A
great nurse is flexible with regards to working hours and
responsibilities. Nurses, like doctors, are often required to work
long periods of overtime, late or overnight shifts, and
weekends.
5. Attention to Detail: Every step in the medical field is one that
can have far-reaching consequences. A great nurse pays
excellent attention to detail and is careful not to skip steps or
make errors. From reading a patient’s chart correctly to
remembering the nuances of a delicate case, there’ s
nothing that should be left to chance in nursing. When a
simple mistake can spell tragedy for another’s life, attention to
detail can literally be the difference between life and death.
6. Interpersonal Skills: Nurses are the link between doctors and
patients. A great nurse has excellent interpersonal skills and works
well in a variety of situations with different people. They work well
with other nurses, doctors, and other members of the staff. Nurses
are the glue that holds the hospital together.
7. Physical Endurance: Frequent physical tasks, standing for long
periods of time, lifting heavy objects (or people), and performing
a number of taxing maneuvers on a daily basis are staples of
nursing life. It’s definitely not a desk job.
8. Problem Solving Skills: A great nurse can think quickly and
address problems as — or before — they arise. With sick
patients, trauma cases, and emergencies, nurses always need
to be on hand to solve a tricky situation. Whether it’s handling
the family, soothing a patient, dealing with a doctor, or
managing the staff, having good problem solving skills is a top
quality of a great nurse.

9. Quick Response: Nurses need to be ready to respond

quickly to emergencies and other situations that arise. Quite
often, health care work is simply the response to sudden
incidences, and nurses must always be prepared for the
unexpected. Staying on their feet, keeping their head cool in
a crisis, and a calm attitude are great qualities in a nurse.
10. Respect: Respect goes a long way. Great
nurses respect people and rules. They remain
impartial at all times and are mindful of
confidentiality requirements and different cultures
and traditions. Above all, they respect the wishes
of the patient him- or herself.
QUALITIES OF NURSE Mnemonics of NURSE
N – Noble/ Nurturing
U – Understanding/Usefulness
R – Reliable/Respectfulness
S – Selfless/Smart
E – Empathy/Efficiency
ROLE & FUNCTIONS OF NURSE

1. Caregiver
2. Communicator
3. Teacher
4. Client advocate
5. Clinical & Ethical Decision Maker
6. Counsellor
7. Change Agent
8. Leader
9. Manager
10. Research consumer
Virtues, Vices, and Habits of a Health
care Provider
 A virtue is a habitual and firm disposition to do
the good. It allows the person not only to perform
good acts, but to give the best of himself.
The virtuous person tends toward the good with
all his sensory and spiritual powers; he pursues the
good and chooses it in concrete actions.
The Cardinal Virtues
1. Prudence (practical wisdom)
2. Justice
3. Fortitude (courage)
4. Temperance (self-control)
Cardinal Virtues- came from the latin word
“Cardo” which means “hinge”
- Are natural virtues are habits which we
acquire through constant repetition of
actions which is also known as moral virtues.
Cardinal virtues are the most fundamental
virtues because they are hinged upon all
other virtues they are linked with.
Prudence (Practical Wisdom)
• The virtue that disposes practical reason to discern our true good in every
circumstance and to choose the right means of achieving it.
• “Right reason in action“ – St. Thomas Aquinas & Aristotle
• Central virtue of medicine: It is the habitual disposition to make right choices in
complex clinical situations.

Justice
• The moral virtue that consists in the constant and firm will to give their due to
God and neighbor.
• Justice toward men disposes one to respect the rights of each and to establish
in human relationships the harmony that promotes equity with regard to persons
and to the common good.
Fortitude (Courage)
• The moral virtue that ensures firmness in difficulties and constancy in
the pursuit of the good.
• Enables one to conquer fear, even fear of death, and to face trials
and persecutions. Temperance (Self-control; Moderation)
• The moral virtue that moderates the attraction of pleasures and
provides balance in the use of material goods.
• It ensures the will's mastery over instincts and keeps desires within the
limits of what is honorable.
Some of the virtues entailed by professional commitment
and the outcomes which actualize that commitment are:
1. Fidelity to trust
2. Benevolence
3. Intellectual honesty
4. Courage
5. Compassion
6. Truthfulness
Vices of a Health Care Professional

VICE -is a practice or habit that is considered immoral,

depraved and/ degrading in the associated society.
1. FRAUD
• Fraud means trying to trick someone in order to gain an advantage.
• In a broad strokes definition, fraud is a deliberate misinterpretation which causes
another person to suffer damages, usually monetary losses.
• Most people consider the act of lying to be fraudulent, but in a legal sense lying is
only one small element of actual fraud.
• A salesman may lie about his name, eye color, place of birth and family, but as
long as he remains truthful about the product he sells, he will not be found guilty of
fraud. There must be a deliberate misrepresentation of the product's condition and
actual monetary damages must occur.
• Types of fraudulent acts
o Types of fraudulent acts Fraud can be committed through many media,
including mail, wire, phone, and the Internet (computer crime and Internet fraud).
PRIDE
• Pride is excessive belief in one's own abilities, that interferes with the
individual's recognition of the grace of God. It has been called the sin
from which all others arise.
• Pride is also known as Vanity.
• One definition of pride in the first sense comes from St. Augustine: "the
love of one's own excellence". In this sense, the opposite of pride is
either humility or guilt; the latter in particular being a sense of one's own
failure in contrast to Augustine's notion of excellence.
• Pride is sometimes viewed as excessive or as a vice, sometimes as
proper or as a virtue. While some philosophers such as Aristotle consider
pride a profound virtue, most world religions consider it a sin.
GREED
• Greed - like lust and gluttony - is a sin of excess. Greed is inappropriate
expectation. However, greed is applied to a very excessive or rapacious desire and
pursuit of wealth, status, and power. 8
• St. Thomas Aquinas wrote that greed was "a sin against God, just as all mortal sins,
in as much as man condemns things eternal for the sake of temporal things." In
Dante's Purgatory, the avaracious penitents Purgatory, were bound and laid face
down on the ground for having concentrated too much on earthly thoughts.
("Avarice" is more of a blanket term that can describe many other examples of
greedy behavior. These include disloyalty, deliberate betrayal, or treason,
especially for personal gain, for example through bribery.)

• Scavenging and hoarding of materials or objects, theft and robbery, especially

by means of violence, trickery, or manipulation of authority are all actions that may
be inspired by greed. Such misdeeds can include simony, where one profits from
soliciting goods within the actual confines of a church.
Basic Ethical Principles
BASIC ETHICAL PRINCIPLE
1. Principle of Stewardship
• Stewardship requires us to appreciate the two great gifts that a wise
and loving God has given: the earth, with all its natural resources and
our own human nature, with its biological, psychological, social, and
spiritual capacities.
• This principle is grounded in the presupposition that God has
absolute Dominion over creation, and that, in so far as human beings
are made in God’s image and likeness (Imago Dei), we have been
given a limited Dominion over creation and are responsible for its care.
• The principle of stewardship includes but is not reducible to concern
for scarce resources, rather, it also implies a responsibility to see that
the mission of Catholic health care is carried out as ministry with its
particular commitment to human dignity and the common good.
2. Principles of integrity and totality
• These principles dictates that the well-being of the whole person must be
taken into account in deciding about any therapeutic intervention or use of
technology.
• Therapeutic procedures that are likely to cause harm or undesirable side
effects can be justified only by a proportionate benefit to the patient.
• INTEGRITY refers to each individuals duty to “preserve a view of the whole
human person in which the values of the intellect, will, conscience and
fraternity are pre-eminent”
• TOTALITY refers to the duty to preserve intact the physical component of the
integrated bodily and spiritual nature of human life, whereby every part of the
human body “exists for the sake of the whole as the imperfect for the sake of
the perfect”.
3. Principle of Double Effect
Double Effect- An action that is good in itself that has two effects--an intended
and otherwise not reasonably attainable good effect, and an unintended yet
foreseen evil effect--is licit, provided there is a due proportion between the
intended good and the permitted evil.

When there is a clash between the two universal norms of "do good" and
"avoid evil," the question arises as to whether the obligation to avoid evil
requires one to abstain from a good action in order to prevent a foreseen but
merely permitted concomitant evil effect. The answer is that one need not
always abstain from a good action that has foreseen bad effects, depending
on certain moral criteria identified in the principle of double effect. Though
five are listed here, some authors emphasize only four basic moral criteria (the
fifth listed here further specifies the third criterion):
1.The object of the act must not be intrinsically contradictory to one's
fundamental commitment to God and neighbor (including oneself), that is, it
must be a good action judged by its moral object (in other words, the action
must not be intrinsically evil);
2.The direct intention of the agent must be to achieve the beneficial effects
and to avoid the foreseen harmful effects as far as possible, that is, one must
only indirectly intend the harm;
3.The foreseen beneficial effects must not be achieved by the means of the
foreseen harmful effects, and no other means of achieving those effects are
available;
4.The foreseen beneficial effects must be equal to or greater than the
foreseen harmful effects (the proportionate judgment);
5.The beneficial effects must follow from the action at least as immediately as
do the harmful effects.
4. Principle of Cooperation
 Along with the principles of double effect and toleration, the principles of
cooperation were developed in the Catholic moral tradition as a way of
helping individuals discern how to properly avoid, limit, or distance
themselves from evil (especially intrinsic evil) in order to avoid a worse evil
or to achieve an important good. In more recent years, the principles of
cooperation have been applied to organizations or "corporate persons"
(the implication being that organizations, like individual persons, are moral
agents). Like the principle of double effect and some other moral
principles, the principles of cooperation are actually a constellation of
moral criteria:
MAJOR BIOETHICAL PRINCIPLES
1. Respect for Autonomy
• Any notion of moral decision making assumes that rational agents are
involved in making informed and voluntary decisions.
• In health care decisions, our respect for the autonomy of the patient would,
in common parlance, mean that the patient has the capacity to act
intentionally, with understanding, and without controlling influences that would
mitigate against a free and voluntary act.
• This principle is the basis for the practice of "informed consent" in the
physician/patient transaction regarding health care.
• Personal liberty of action in which the individual determines his/her own
course of action in accordance with a plan chosen by him/herself; self-
determination. Implies independence and self-reliance, freedom of choice,
and ability to make decisions. Cannot exist in a vacuum but must be
acknowledged and respected by others.
2. The Principle of Nonmaleficence
• The principle of nonmaleficence requires of us that we not intentionally
create a needless harm or injury to the patient, either through acts of
commission or omission.
• In common language, we consider it negligence if one imposes a careless or
unreasonable risk of harm upon another. Providing a proper standard of care
that avoids or minimizes the risk of harm is supported not only by our commonly
held moral convictions, but by the laws of society as well.
• In a professional model of care one may be morally and legally blameworthy if
one fails to meet the standards of due care. The legal criteria for determining
negligence are as follows:
1.the professional must have a duty to the affected party
2.the professional must breach that duty
3.the affected party must experience a harm
4.the harm must be caused by the breach of duty

• This principle affirms the need for medical competence.

• It is clear that medical mistakes occur; however, this principle articulates a
fundamental commitment on the part of health care professionals to protect their
patients from harm.
• Do no harm. Includes:
* Deliberate harm - - always impermissible
* Risk of harm - - what degree of risk is permissible?
* Harm that occurs during performance of beneficial acts.
3. The Principle of Beneficence
• The ordinary meaning of this principle is the duty of health care providers to be
of a benefit to the patient, as well as to take positive steps to prevent and to
remove harm from the patient.
• These duties are viewed as self-evident and are widely accepted as the proper
goals of medicine. These goals are applied both to individual patients, and to the
good of society as a whole.
• For example, the good health of a particular patient is an appropriate goal of
medicine, and the prevention of disease through research and the employment
of vaccines is the same goal expanded to the population at large.
• It is the duty to help others further their important and legitimate interests when
we can do so with minimal risk to ourselves. Includes:
* The duty to confer benefits and actively to prevent and remove harm.
* The duty to balance the good it is possible to produce against the harm
that might result from doing or not doing the good.
4. The Principle of Justice
• Justice in health care is usually defined as a form of fairness, or as Aristotle once
said, "Giving to each that which is his due." This implies the fair distribution of goods
in society and requires that we look at the role of entitlement.
• The question of distributive justice also seems to hinge on the fact that some
goods and services are in short supply, there is not enough to go around, thus some
fair means of allocating scarce resources must be determined.
• Criteria for distributive justice:
1.to each person an equal share
2.to each person according to need
3.to each person according to effort
4.to each person according to contribution
5.to each person according to merit
6.to each person according to free-market exchanges
• One of the most controversial issues in modern health care is the question
pertaining to "who has the right to health care?"
• The duty to give to the other what that person is due or owed what he/she
deserves or can legitimately claim. Involves rights or claims that must be balanced
against each other.