Nursing: A Journey of Compassion and Commitment - Free Report Example

Did You Have a Moment That You Realized That You Wanted To Be a Nurse?

A nursing career has been my greatest inspirational journey, which can be traced back to my tender age. Frequently, a question was asked us, as children, on what we wanted to be when we grew up, I could insist on giving at least three answers; teacher, pilot, or nurse. At first, it did not seem very clear since I always believed these were the only professions we existed. The norm was that most of my neighbors in childhood were either nurses, doctors, accountants, teachers, or police officers. Professionally, my father was a banker while my mum was a teacher. This meant that growing up in such a family, my judgment would be biased towards my parents’ professions. However, this could not entirely be the case since I could access digital media in advertisements where the idea of being a pilot originated. Nevertheless, the thought of being a pilot terrified me since I realized that I am afraid of heights while being a teacher involved working hard and dealing with unruly students with little pay at the end of the month.

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What Happened – Was There an Event That Made You Think About Becoming a Nurse?

The most defining moment that made me choose to join nursing besides parental footsteps followed an experience at a tender age. I had a diabetic neighbor who succumbed to diabetes due to a lack of care and a flawed working health system, resulting from staff negligence and nurses’ strikes. Caring for diabetic patients is not easy. It demands special care, which, if not provided, a patient would be susceptible to other diseases like stroke. This special care may include proper diet, exercising as well, and blood pressure monitoring.

Was the Experience a Positive One or a Negative Experience?

Nursing is much more than a job; but a calling for me. It subjects both negative and positive experiences. It takes a special kind of compassionate personality beyond vigorous educational training to succeed in it. Growing up knowing that a neighbor I knew succumbed to a manageable disease was a negative experience. However, the thought of knowing that having a working health system with enough specialists could have helped alleviate such experience was motivation enough to join nursing.

How Did Your Experience Make You Feel, and Why?

After such a traumatizing experience at a tender age, it is not easy to reconcile a neighbor's death and many others, which could have been prevented if the healthcare system worked correctly with nurses available in every neighborhood. Out of the fear of seeing other incidents re-occur and constant talks by patients about some life-saving nurses they treasure, I developed an interest in learning more about nursing to save lives in society. Therefore, I yearned to make a difference and be who patients remember made a difference in their lives.

Over the years in the nursing profession, I have learned how to care about myself and others, be an effective communicator to understand my patient's needs, share their feelings, and take proper medication dosage admiration. Dynamics in nursing has raised my self-awareness towards my work environment, solved emerging healthcare problems, and respected patients, their families, and coworkers. Lastly, it has enabled me to maximize my concentration, and performance, and develop a sense of curiosity in learning a new method of saving lives.

Do You Think That Nurses Have Shared Beliefs and Values?

As critical healthcare service providers and healthcare system members, nurses are responsible for giving care to patients and clients based on ethical issues. An article by Reins College suggests that nurses have a set of beliefs and values that go beyond religion, culture, patient’s race, or economic status to ensure unbiased care Reg20 \l 1033 (Regis College, 2020). The recognition of these ethical values helps nurses have a mutual understanding of patient treatment internationally.

What are These Beliefs and Values?

As a nurse, I have to care and promote human dignity, adherence to social justice, make autonomous decisions, take care of patients, build the human relationship, trust, and sympathy towards patients (Shahriari et al., 2013). These beliefs and values may include professional competence, social justice, autonomy in decision-making, and respect for human dignity.

Professional Competence

Individual and professional competency is a crucial aspect of nursing ethical values. During training a nurse, personal competency and development are acquired through up-to-date knowledge on caregiving, clinical skills, and practical experience during the apprenticeship. These skills help them to grow and advance in caregiving and adopt new technology. As a nurse, I can quickly examine my patient's medical background, thus providing accurate, evidence-based care and contributing during meetings with other healthcare professionals, hence enriching their knowledge and enhancing my interpersonal and inter-professional skills.

Social Justice

Social justice is the critical pillar of caregiving. As a nurse, I value focus on patients’ equal access to health services and being treated fairly regardless of their social, cultural, or financial status. In other cases, this may include providing exceptional care to victims of assault and domestic, hence ensuring their fundamental right to access health I guaranteed. The natural rights to health are not dependent on the government or cultural laws. Social justice in society provides adequate healthcare distribution even for the community's vulnerable populations and the privileged population CITATION Smi19 \l 1033 (Smith, 2019).

Precise and Accurate Care

Providing precise and accurate care is essential in nursing as it can prevent diseases and promote the patient's health and safety. Precision health involves personalized healthcare on the patients’ unique composition in the context of their lifestyle, family background, cultural, environmental, and social influences as it affects their well-being and optimal health (Thoma et al., 2020). With my nursing and clinical skills knowledge, I can relieve their pain and suffering by making a routine history risk assessment of patients to determine the root cause of the health problem they are undergoing, thus promoting patient health.

Autonomy in Decision Making

Autonomy in decision-making is also essential in nursing and helps sustain and save lives. Knowing precise health can help align the patient's test results to the most appropriate treatment and risks involved, enabling nurses to translate the medical terminology into information understood by patients and their families. As a professional nurse, I can either accept or reject treatment, care, or intervention if I believe it is fit or unfit for my patient. Besides, I can give appropriate advice or information on the subject matter to the patient or their families on diagnosis, treatment, or illness prevention.

Respect for Human Dignity

Respecting human dignity is the most treasured ethical value in the nursing profession. Individuals such as patients, their families, and society should be respected as stipulated in nursing ethics. Respect for dignity refers to respecting patients' beliefs, and intrinsic human values, preserving their cultures and privacy when conducting clinical procedures, communicating with the patients and their families, and understanding their needs. For instance, as a nurse, I should practically cover patients’ body parts if exposed when in the wards and keep patients’ records and secrets confidential.

Responsibility

Nurses have a responsibility towards their patients. As a nurse, I commit to performing my duties, including conducting physical examinations, recording my patients' medical history and symptoms, monitoring their health, and recording vital signsCITATION Gwy20 \l 1033 (Gwynedd Mercy University, 2020). I can also collaborate with other teams to plan their care, operate medical equipment, educate patients on illness management, champion patient rights, and respect their decisions. My ethical values dictate that I will be accountable for my actions and duties and give evidence-based care and clinical care.

Sympathy

Sympathy is a nursing ethical value endowed with understanding patients’ and their families’ needs when giving care. It is an emotional reaction and attachment of pity toward the patient or family's misfortune, especially those who may be suffering unfairly. As a nurse, I can show sympathy to the bereaved family members in cases where death has occurred. Most healthcare providers have also learned to show empathy to their patients since, more often, a pity-based response may upset the patient's CITATION Gue19 \l 1033 (Guerrero, 2019).

Human Relationship

Human relationship is the epitome of nursing as a profession. Over time, I have learned to build trust, and have mutual respect and reliance while maintaining patient privacy and confidentiality, either verbally or non-verbally. To develop a human relationship with my patient, I have to be friendly, be honest to create a mutual understanding and have empathy.

Will Your Life Experience Make You a Better Nurse? How?

Our coursework as nurses is very intense, with numerous new skills being learned at the workplace. This has allowed us to transform from students to nursing professionals since we can transfer our nursing education from hospital-based apprenticeship to real-life situations CITATION Sto04 \l 1033 (Stockhausen, 2004). The clinical experience gained as a student in nursing and caring always shapes us to be better professionals.

My motivation towards becoming a nurse has its anchoring in taking care of others. Caring for others significantly impacts people’s lives since families have confidence that their patients will be treated since the healthcare system has enough personnel. The Policy, Politics, and Nursing Practice Journal report (Nurse Journal, 2020), suggests that nursing as a profession has been projected to grow by more than 15% due to demand for a specialist making it a stable industry to work in. With a healthcare system with enough personnel, I have a chance of being job secure and can save lives through volunteering among the less fortunate. Nursing also offers one a chance to get financial aid opportunities to pursue education, choose specialists in physician clinics, work as a neonatal nurse practitioner, and even anesthesiology.

How Will You Apply What You Have Learned From This Reflection as You Become a Nurse?

On my self-reflection journey, I have been using my everyday experiences to learn to be a better nurse. I usually do not dwell on bad experiences that occur as I practice but on the small or big success stories during my profession. The many opportunities that may prompt my reflection include holding discussions with other clinical staff about critical incidents and lessons from them, having a team meeting, reading nursing, and other related journals, and focusing on compliments and complaints from our patients and clients.

References

Regis College. (2020). Why nursing values and beliefs are important in achieving career success. https://online.regiscollege.edu/blog/why-nursing-values-and-beliefs-are-important-to-achieving-career-success/

De Montfort University. (2020). Profession: Nursing. http://tiger.library.dmu.ac.uk/bitstream/handle/123456789/52/Profession%20Outline%20Nursing.pdf?sequence=35

Guerrero, J. G. (2019). Nurses towards end-of-lifer situations: Sympathy vs. empathy. Open Journal of Nursing, 278-293. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/331714215_Nurses_towards_End-of-Life_Situations_Sympathy_vs_Empathy