It is important for people goi…

It is important for people going into any profession to develop a personal philosophy about their chosen career to help them develop ideas about what they find important about said career. Developing a personal philosophy can help guide a developing professional into the type of nurse they would like to become. For this assignment I was asked to discuss two concepts that I would include in my personal philosophy. For the purposes of this paper and developing a nursing philosophy, I decided that the two things I find most valuable and strive to achieve as a student nurse and later as a working nurse are compassion and being knowledgeable.

CompassionTo be compassionate means to be kind, caring and willing to help other, especially those who are having a difficult time for any reason. Nurses see patients when they are at their worst or when they are weak and unsure of what will happen next.

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Some patients have a whole large family in the hospital or room with them while others have no one at all. Some patients may be dealing with the blow of receiving bad news or the stress of being the only income for a family. Nurses never know what they are walking into when they enter the hospital to go to work or even when they enter a room to take care of a patient. Empathy is part of compassion and nurses need to be able to empathize with patients and families. When a nurse is able to put themselves in the patients shoes they are more able to understand what the patient is feeling and can be more open to receiving input from the patient of family.

Compassionate nurses take the time to listen to their patients, even when they are busy. A nurse who takes the time to talk with her patients is not only building trust but may also learn information he/she might not have received otherwise. In the hospital, patients and families may feel as though they don’t have control over very much and this may be frustrating to some. Having a nurse who listens and does what he/she can to accommodate patient requests or even just answer questions that patients or care givers may have helps to put the patient and their family at ease and build trust between the nurse and the patient. Another part of compassion is checking on the patients to see if they need anything. If patients feel the nurse truly cares about their well-being and recovery then they are more likely to tell the nurse about any new symptoms or call the nurse for help if it is needed. Nurses should be the embodiment of compassion for all of the many patients they will see every day.

A nurse who has compassion for her patients makes this usually difficult time at least a little better for everyone involved. Knowledge To have useful knowledge of something is to have learned information and to be able to apply the information to a situation in which it would be useful. One would hope that most people would have a basic knowledge for how to take care of themselves but that basic knowledge only goes so far. Nurses must have a more in-depth, intimate knowledge of the body, how it works and interventions that need to take place in order to help patients regain or optimize their health. Nurses who do not have this knowledge potentially put people lives in danger just by showing up to work. Nurses on the people on the floors of hospitals 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and they are the ones performing most of the interventions. If a critical situation emerges nurses are usually the first ones in the room and must know how to respond when there is a person in the bed whose life depends upon his/her knowledge and skills.

Nurses must be able to speak knowledgeably about procedures, diseases, medicines, risk factors and more to both the patients and their families. Being able to do this along with answering questions that they may have builds trust and confidence that they are getting the best care possible. When patients and families can relax knowing they are being taken care of they have more energy available to focus on healing. In conclusion, nurses have a difficult job that requires many different skills. In nursing, unlike many other careers, one must have the knowledge and skills but that alone is not enough, one must also be compassionate and able to build new relationships with people every day.