My philosophy of nursing is centered on giving a healing touch, driven by empathy, to my patients and their family members. Obviously, a genuine interest in my patients always guides me to give first priority to their welfare, regardless of my pressing personal problems or the compensation I receive from my employer. Secondly, I believe being trustworthy to my patients is the best way I can serve them; my trustworthiness in turn will help my patients and their dear ones to take the best possible decisions in the process of recovering from their illness. Therefore, as a nurse practitioner, I shall always be guided by this important question: “am I always doing the best for my patients?” Thirdly and most importantly, the personal values of integrity and honesty would help me add more value to my practice as these values help my patients to strengthen their bonds with me (Weber, 2016). In brief, aligning my personal values with my professional ethics is the foundation of my nursing ethics.
As a nurse professional aspiring to attain excellence, I exist to take care of cancer patients in the hospital I serve. My personal values of empathy, integrity and honesty will always help me to shape my profession. First and foremost, I initiate the process of healing by lending a pair each of listening ears and healing hands to my patients and their family members, irrespective of their gender, color, religion or other beliefs. As my nursing philosophy and ethics are inspired by my passion to help the sick and the terminally ill, I always care my patients by understanding their needs through active listening. Unconditional love for my patients and their family members, and broad-mindedness to understand their needs from their own perspectives would help me to align my professional goals with the needs of my patients. My deep-rooted cultural values promoted by my parents and the society I grew up in has taught me the importance of understanding others from their own view points, which in turn would help me serve my patients effectively. My spiritual value of trying to find god’s plan in everything that happens to me would guide me to help my patients and their family members find the inner meaning of the illnesses. In other words, as a spiritual caretaker I promote my patients’ welfare through facilitating them in meeting their spiritual needs; this includes suggesting the help of counselors or religious teachers (Baldacchino, 2015).
My passion to serve cancer patients and their family members is continuously nurtured by the good feeling I feel at heart by seeing my patients adopt a positive attitude about life and gradually getting cured of the sickness. My value of being helpful to the diseased and the underprivileged towards getting well binds me morally to keep aside my personal preferences while selflessly serving my patients. Also, my obligation towards providing ethical healthcare to the patients is continuously encouraged by my family and friends who always stand by my decision. My personal values and ethics stem from my determined conviction towards making significant changes in the attitude of the patients who long more for a ‘genuine human care’ rather than the luxury of the state of the art health facilities at their disposal. I am sure that as a healthcare professional I can broaden my view points about caring my patients, thanks to my regular habits of observing my surroundings, self-reflection and the customary insights I take from fellow human beings including my patients and their family members (Grace, 2014). Since prevention is better than cure I always equip myself with the knowledge on diseases, particularly cancer, and ways to avert them, and educate my patients. Towards accomplishing my philosophy of patient care I will understand the values that are predominant in the culture in which I practice. For instance, I will move forward by attaining additional educational programs to learn about the patients or recent developments in healthcare.
On the other hand, empathy, integrity and honesty being three essential values that would keep me in good stead as a healthcare professional, I would be better off if the healthcare organization in which I work recognizes these values and provides a conducive organizational culture to put into practice my values and ethics. I am afraid that an unfavorable organizational culture, for example one that fosters discrimination in the workplace or among the patients, is more likely to throw me off balance and create an ethical dilemma. Similarly, I am likely to face a variety of ethical dilemmas in the workplace, a typical one being whether to reveal the truth to the patient or keep mum as per the moving plea of his near ones. For instance, I always foresee an embarrassing situation in which relatives of a terminally ill cancer patient request me not to reveal the patient his real medical condition. According to me, this would amount to behaving dishonestly with a patient who trusts me and sees me as someone who shows a genuine interest in him. I believe that every patient has the right to know about the real condition of his or her health. As a health care professional who believes in the spiritual rejuvenation and development of my patients, I believe that individuals have two selves, the spiritual and the physical. The spiritual component of an individual is his real permanent self whereas his body is temporary and unreal. Thus I believe hiding the truth about one’s body amounts to lying to his spirit. Besides, the body is only the temporary physical object in which an individual’s valuable permanent self or true spirit resides. My decision making under such situations would surely be motivated by my moral value of being truthful to the spirit and revealing the real status of the physical condition to the patient.
In brief, my professional compass is always guided by my ethical and moral values of serving my patients with a genuine interest in giving them the best care. Their recovery and acknowledgement of the care I provide continue to motivate me. Approaching human life spiritually, I am likely to face an ethical dilemma when I am required to hide the status of one’s physical body since it amounts to denying the magnificence of the eternal spirit of an individual.
References
Baldacchino, D. (2015). Spiritual Care Education of Health Care Professionals. Open Access Religions. doi:10.3390/rel6020594
Grace, P. J. (2014). Nursing Ethics and Professional Responsibility in Advanced Practice. Burlington: Jones & Bartlett Learning
Weber. S. (2016). The moral compass of nursing. Advance healthcare network. Retrieved from http://nursing.advanceweb.com/Article/The-Moral-Compass-of-Nursing.aspx
