Philosophy of Nursing Paper

Nursing is essential in the provision of healthcare services to people who need it whether it is a single patient, a family, or a community as a whole. My name is Diana N. I am a registered nurse who currently works at Simply Healthcare as a case manager. Case management refers to the collaborative process to assess, plan, coordinate, implement, monitor, and evaluate options and services needed to meet the health requirements of a person. It required the usage of available resources and communication not only to promote quality but also to achieve cost-effective outcomes. The personal philosophy addresses different nursing domains such as a person, the environment, and health and the connection between these domains. It is critical to discuss assumptions about nurses and other healthcare professionals, and recipients of nursing care, including a person and the community.

Nursing is a noble profession that forms the backbone of the healthcare industry. Betty Neumann defines nursing as the action that helps people, their families, and communities to sustain optimal levels of wellness with the primary aim of enhancing the stability of the patient-client system through the execution of nursing interventions to minimize stressors ( as cited in Smith & Parker, 2015). The definition shows that nursing exists to help individuals or groups of people achieve maximum wellness. I practice nursing to help promote health, prevent illnesses, alleviate suffering, and make individuals and the community healthier.

Many assumptions form the basis of my personal nursing philosophy. The assumptions primarily concern nurses and other healthcare professionals, patients, and communities. The primary assumption is that patients’ well-being depends on a system with several subsystems that interrelate and interact with each other and are surrounded by the environment. This system is surrounded by the environment, which has many factors that try to destabilize the system’s equilibrium, hence interfere with patients’ wellness. For instance, the environment may include infective pathogens while a patient may suffer from some chemical and structural abnormalities in the body system. However, the body system tries to maintain the equilibrium, thus wellness, through various mechanisms. A good example is an immune reaction to remove a disease-causing pathogen to maintain wellness. Communities form systems with many subsystems (individuals) that need to be healthy for their normal functioning. The assumption, in this case, is that every individual’s health is crucial for the well-being of the whole community, and if some element of the system – be it a separate person, nursing personnel or the environment – disturbs the balance, the community will suffer.

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Nurses and other health professionals have a role to play in helping a patient or a ‘sick’ community achieve wellness. Their role is prevention as an intervention strategy (Smith & Parker, 2015). According to Neuman and Fawcett (2012), prevention can be primary, secondary, and tertiary. The primary intervention is feasible when nurses aim at preventing illnesses through the identification, reduction, and/or elimination of potential or actual risk factors (Masters, 2014). On the other hand, secondary prevention occurs when the problem is present. In this case, nurses and other professionals try to remove the stressing factor (such as a pathogen causing the disease) and treat its symptoms and negative effects. Finally, tertiary prevention aims at enhancing restoration after the problem has been eliminated to return the affected individual back to the normal state. It can also help in restoring functions or limiting disability. Therefore, nurses and other healthcare professionals are majorly concerned with helping individuals and communities to be healthy through prevention as an intervention.

On the other hand, this philosophy has three distinct nursing domains that include a person, environment, and health. A person is like a system with subsystems that react to the influence on health. The physiological subsystem of a person influences a person’s biological functioning, i.e. health. Also, the psychological subsystem refers to all mental processes. For instance, a mentally ill patient is a system whose brain is not functioning well. The brain and its functioning determine the physiological subsystem while its malfunction results in a psychological disorder. All these subsystems affect a person.

The environment refers to the surroundings of a person. The surroundings consist of factors that may interact with the system and may cause a shift in equilibrium, resulting in illness or deprivation of wellness. For instance, Salmonella typhi is a factor in the environment, but while interacting with the human body, it causes disease-typhoid, thus influencing a person. Furthermore, health is wellness, which means that the system and its subsystems function well and in harmony. Health is compromised once the system starts to malfunction. For instance, when infection disturbs the normal functioning of the system destabilizing its balance.

To sum up, all nursing domains are connected. The environment contains factors that influence a person, so it determines the person’s health. Once health is compromised, an illness occurs making the individual suffer. My vision of nursing for the future is to ensure that nursing practice and knowledge are recognized as critical components of society’s healthcare system. Some of the challenges that I am likely to face are overworking due to a shortage of staff resulting in increased workload, and poor working conditions because of the inadequacy of the necessary resources. Furthermore, I have several goals to achieve professional development. The first goal is to gain related experience and develop strong leadership skills. As a good leader, I can participate in policymaking thus help society stay healthy. Finally, I aim at continuing my education.