Philosophy of Nursing Paper
Philosophy Intro
NURS 491 H: Role Transition
Assignment Purpose: The purpose of this assignment is to enable the student to rediscover his or her personal philosophy of nursing as it exists upon the completion of the baccalaureate nursing program.
Approach to Assignment: I approached this assignment to reflect on the evolution of my nursing philosophy from the onset of my baccalaureate experience until now, the point of graduation preparation. Specifically, I discuss how I previously defined nursing compared to how I define it now as I prepare to enter the workforce as a new grad nurse, and how this definition is reflected in my personal philosophy and evolving nursing theory.
Reason for Inclusion:
Domain 1: Knowledge for Nursing Practice. Identify concepts, derived from theories from nursing and other disciplines, which distinguish the practice of nursing.
In my philosophy text, I discuss the influences of Florence Nightingale’s Environmental Theory and The Neuman Systems model coupled with New Urbanist ideology to distinguish the practice of nursing as an institution needing a theoretical evolution for the benefit of its progeny.
I share how concepts from Jane Jacobs’s ideology (cities are complex, adaptive systems and environments shape people’s outcomes) align with Nightingale’s concepts of health being a product of system components (patient physiology, nursing care, and the care environment).
Domain 7: Systems-based Practice. Recognize the impact of health disparities and social determinants of health on care outcomes.
In my philosophy paper, I discuss the role of the critical care nurse to recognize that critical illnesses are inextricably linked to social determinants of health (SDOH) and ICU patients and families are faced with the reality of the reasons why they end up in our care (Ramadurai et al., 2022).
In addition, I stress that the critical care nurse must not only possess the knowledge of SDOH but have the wisdom to realize how critical illness places higher demands on the environments and systems which house the acutely ill and how traditional theoretical models fail to appreciate how marginalization strains these systems, thus threatening patient safety and contributing to poor health outcomes.
Domains 5 (Quality and Safety) and 6 (Interprofessional Partnerships). Articulate the nurse’s role as a member of the interprofessional team in promoting safety and preventing errors and near misses.
I share how my emerging Relational Systems Theory in Critical Care Nursing asserts that critical care nurses are uniquely positioned as leaders in controlling the internal (pathophysiological and biological) and external (environmental and interpersonal) systems that contribute to a patient’s acuity status and are the “eyes on the unit” championing for patients through communication and advocacy with upstream (new admits from the Emergency Department or Surgical Suites, Anesthesia) or downstream (Long-Term Acute Care (LTAC) facilities, hospice) components of the greater interprofessional network.
Domain 10: Personal, Professional, and Leadership Development. Explores personal philosophy of nursing and educational goals at the beginning and end of the program.
I consider this assignment especially noteworthy because it merges my formal urban planning education with my nursing education and my lived experiences existing as a multihyphenate minority, showcasing my evolution through the process. I witnessed a shift within myself: from entering nursing school to learn how to do the job of a nurse, to encompassing the essence of nursing as a calling. And with it, my educational goals now include attending graduate school and gaining a doctorate-level clinical foundation for advancing my practice within the critical care space, then pursuing a Ph.D. degree in Nursing to further elevate the discourse and my evolving nursing theory in academia.
I maintain a critical perspective on the traditional pioneers of urban planning and nursing, recognizing how colonialism and patriarchy are encoded within the foundational bodies of knowledge for both disciplines. For example, the theoretical systems that propelled Jane Jacobs and Florence Nightingale to the forefront of their respective fields were colonialist and patriarchal; thus, their theoretical frameworks were encoded with these oppressive core values, and so too were the discourse for urban planning and nursing pedagogy.
From this baccalaureate nursing experience, arose within me the intuitive understanding of a need for a revision of the theoretical discourse...and thus the Relational Systems Theory in Critical Care Nursing was born. This represents a novel theoretical framework with accommodation for a contemporary intersectional healthcare environment.
References
American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN). (n.d.). Domains & Concepts. The essentials. https://www.aacnnursing.org/essentials/tool-kit/domains-concept