Introduction
A nurse’s mission is to serve patients and address their needs, providing holistic and high-quality care. This purpose of a nurse’s work, knowledge, and experience usually form the development of a specific personal philosophy of nursing. However, it is also important to note that a nursing philosophy is not a stable notion, and it evolves along with a person’s development and growth as a professional. In this paper, it is necessary to discuss the development of the personal philosophy of nursing and analyze how it has changed with a focus on the concepts of the nursing metaparadigm.
Development of the Personal Philosophy of Nursing as Art and Science
The personal philosophy of nursing has evolved as a result of receiving theoretical knowledge, nursing practice, and observing different nursing cases involving patients and other healthcare professionals. The theoretical knowledge and courses have allowed for creating a system for the philosophy and formulating its key concepts. However, the practice contributed to adding more details and notions to the philosophy, which were further discussed and defined concerning the theoretical knowledge. From this perspective, it is possible to state that philosophy has developed as both art and science. The reason is that the philosophy is dependent on the knowledge from research and clinical studies, guidelines, and articles and the experience and nursing practice (McEwen & Wills, 2019). This approach has led to designing the holistic vision of nursing care and its role in a patient’s life.
Ideas that Challenged Values and Assumptions or Caused a Conflict
Some ideas presented in nursing theories have affected personal values and assumptions, and other ideas have caused a certain conflict and disagreement. The personal assumptions related to viewing a human being in a nursing process have been affected when examining Johnson’s Behavioral System Model and Neuman’s Systems Model. These theories have influenced the personal vision of a patient or a human being as a complex system, whose needs should be addressed by caregiving (Alexander et al., 2020; Işik & Erci, 2020). Some ideas caused personal conflict, and they were associated with the Modeling and Role-Modeling (MRM) theory. Although this theory is discussed as widely applied to nursing practice and clinical settings, its complex structure based on the ideas of holism, self-care, role-modeling, and adaption seems to be less clear than other theories (McEwen & Wills, 2019). The conflict is that, on the one hand, this theory is widely used in curricula for nurses, but on the other hand, the theory is complex and repeats other models. This fact makes the MRM theory difficult for an application to practice.
Actions to Illustrate the Personal Nursing Philosophy
Actions that can illustrate the personal philosophy of nursing are associated with cases from practice. For example, the development of the philosophy has allowed for paying more attention to patients’ complex needs and eliminating stressors for them. Previously, the role of stressors and some external negative stimuli on the quality of care and healing was not taken into account. Therefore, now it is important to ensure that all negative factors that can have an impact on a patient’s state at the hospital are removed or overcome, and a patient can concentrate on health-seeking behaviors.
Metaparadigm Concepts and Changes in the Personal Nursing Philosophy
It is possible to state that the developed theoretical knowledge has caused some changes in the personal philosophy of nursing. The main changes are observed in the definitions of the four concepts of the metaparadigm of nursing. Therefore, it is necessary to rewrite the definitions to reflect the most current views regarding the holistic care related to nursing and the role of a patient and a nurse in this process. Thus, a person was defined as a client requiring assistance and holistic care to improve health. Now, a person should be defined as a social, physiological, psychological, cultural, and spiritual system that has some needs to address. Health was viewed as a harmonious state of a person’s well-being. Now, health should be defined as a positive state of a person’s wellness, stability, and control.
Furthermore, the environment was regarded concerning conditions and factors having positive and negative effects on a patient’s health. This definition was changed to accentuate that the environment is a complex of different external stimuli, as well as drivers and stressors, which influence a person’s systems stability. Finally, nursing as the practice of caring for an individual to achieve harmonious well-being was also redefined. Thus, nursing should be viewed as the process of evaluating environmental factors for a patient to decrease their negative impacts and providing holistic and empathetic care to address a person’s needs.
Conclusion
The paper has presented the personal philosophy of nursing with a focus on the changes that have been made because of progress in developing theoretical knowledge. The main concepts of the personal philosophy have been reformulated to reflect the current views influenced by the ideas of nursing theorists. As a result, the current version of the personal nursing philosophy directly reflects personal views and beliefs regarding nursing based on theory and practice.
References
Alexander, G., Narayan, M., & Sadan, V. (2020). Community-based care of HIV/AIDS-affected family in India using the behavioural system model. Indian Journal of Continuing Nursing Education, 21(1), 27-31. Web.
Işik, K., & Erci, B. (2020). The effect of home care based on the Neuman systems model on symptomatic relief and quality of life in patients undergoing hemodialysis. African Health Sciences, 20(4), 1809-1816. Web.
McEwen, M., & Wills, E. M. (2019). Theoretical basis for nursing (5th ed.). Wolters Kluwer.