I believe that having a personal philosophy of nursing is important because it helps overcome difficulties occurring in the nursing practice, prevent occupational burnout, and stay motivated to provide high-quality care. My philosophy of nursing is based on the view that patients are primarily people with their special needs rather than impersonal subjects seeking treatment for various illnesses. I believe that treating diseases is only a part of nursing; apart from that, nurses are responsible for educating patients, motivating them to engage in their treatment, and facilitating their access to health care and social services.
The philosophy of nursing is closely related to the metaparadigm of nursing. According to McEwen and Wills (2019), metaparadigm refers to “major philosophical orientations or worldviews of a discipline, the conceptual models and theories that guide research and other scholarly activities, and the empirical indicators that operationalize theoretical concepts” (p. 65). There are four concepts of the nursing metaparadigm: person, health, environment, and nursing (McEwen & Wills, 2019). In my opinion, the concept of person implies that each patient is unique, with distinctive beliefs, values, needs, and cultural backgrounds; therefore, each patient requires a personalized approach to care. I would define the concept of health as the state of physical, psychological, and spiritual well-being. The concept of environment is related to the setting in which the patient is placed, and it should be safe and contribute to the patient’s recovery. Finally, the concept of nursing refers to nursing skills, knowledge, experience, and personal qualities that help a nurse to provide high-quality patient care.
There is one concept that I would add to the nursing metaparadigm. This one is social justice, which has been proposed by scientists because of its relatedness to the other four concepts (McEwen & Wills, 2019). Social justice issues, such as disparities in earnings, power distribution, health care, education, shelter, and other living conditions, resulting in poor health outcomes in the disadvantaged population (Perry et al., 2017). Using interprofessional collaboration, nurses can address social justice issues, thus, improving patient health outcomes (Perry et al., 2017). Therefore, the nursing profession would benefit from introducing the concept of social justice in the nursing metaparadigm. I would not eliminate any concept from the existing metaparadigm of nursing because, in my opinion, each of the four concepts is essential for the nursing practice.
References
McEwen, M., & Wills, E. M. (2019). Theoretical basis for nursing (5th ed.). Wolters Kluwer.
Perry, D. J., Willis, D. G., Peterson, K. S., & Grace, P. J. (2017). Exercising nursing essential and effective freedom in behalf of social justice. Advances in Nursing Science, 40(3), 244-262. Web.