Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Chelsea Tramel
NURB-3030
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The purpose of this paper is to inform the reader of the author’s personal
definition of nursing, personal considerations regarding the mission of nursing, and personal
goals for the practice and contribution to nursing. The purpose of this paper is also to inform the
reader why nursing is a profession and about significant nursing theorists. It is to also inform the
reader how the concept of caring fits into nursing and about the authors personal experiences
If there were to be a survey conducted in which random people, not in the medical field,
were asked their view point on the role of nursing, one comment that might be heard could be
they take care of people when they are sick. While this is true, nurses do much more than care
for sick. The International Council of Nurses says a definition should be made by national
nursing organizations. (RCN 2005) The Royal College of Nursing has come up with a definition
of nursing that was researched and evaluated for eighteen months. (RCN05) They noted a
definition of nursing is crucial in being able to control, fund, research, teach, or put into a policy
Nursing is the use of clinical judgment in the provision of care to enable people to
improve, maintain or recover health to cope with health problems and to achieve the best
possible quality of life whatever their disease or disability, until death.
group, or community in a safe ethical manner. It is the use of critical thinking and competent
nursing in the clinical setting in order to prevent or decrease disease or illness. Nursing is an
manage it. Nursing is comforting the client and ensuring they will trust their care providers.
In the late eighteen hundreds the question was raised to have of a nurse become
registered with the state of Georgia. (Helmstadter 07) Nurses had not been recognized as a
profession and by having them registered it would establish nursing as a profession. Helmstadter
comments, Florence Nightingale, the frontier of nursing, protested against the idea of nurses
registering. She also acknowledges, she (Nightingale) felt nurses were not educated enough and
clinically competent to be established. Nightingale felt the state registration was too focused on
raising the nurses in a social since; the board wanted to exclude the working – class women and
only allow ladies to take part in the profession. (Helmstadter 07) She did not want nursing to
have a discredited reputation rather she wanted nursing to be looked at as competent people
working in the clinical setting, being well educated, and having the appropriate moral character
In present day, nursing has overcome milestones from the earlier years. Nursing is
considered a profession today, because nursing experts have persevered and fought for the rights
of current nurses. It is a constant uphill battle for nurses to have some of the same rights as
doctors. In this time, advanced practice nurses (APNs) have prescriptive authorities, although
they are limited on some prescriptive rights. (OJIN 2007) In 1985, Dr. Haifdan Mahler,
Director General of the World Health Organization commented that if millions of nurses in a
thousand different places, come together as one force and speak of the same ideas and
convictions, than they could be a dominant force for change in the nursing community. He also
noted that he could see nurses around the world coming together to bring it about. (OJIN 2007)
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Caring is the base of nursing. Nursing includes empathetic caring which means
understanding how a person feels without sympathy being involved. One can not be taught how
to care, it is a gift and talent. (Hudacek 2008) There are seven components of caring in which
caring alone is one of the components. Compassion is an element of caring which goes beyond
hands on skills and involves an empathetic approach of alleviating pain and suffering. In order
to show compassion the nurse must be available emotionally and physically. Spirituality is a
sensitive topic for nurses and the patients they are caring for at any given time. Many people
have different beliefs and spiritual practices, and the nurse must appreciate their beliefs and
modify their practice to accommodate the patient. Nurses work with a variety of different
caring. Nurses must educate and carryout health promotion throughout communities.
Providing comfort is another element of the seven steps of the caring model. Some
patients fight to stay alive and while nurses are witnesses to this, they must provide the most
circumspect comfort to all patients and their support groups. Crisis intervention and critical
thinking is the sixth element of caring. Hudacek notes, nurses speaking of experiences where in
critical care settings they needed to obtain visual clues and intuition that at times resulted in life-
saving opportunities. Going the extra distance is the final step in caring. Hudacek comments,
this step involves the nurses focusing on going to extraordinary methods to provide the best
possible care for patients. It acknowledges that some nurses outlined details of enormous giving
to help patients and their support groups to maneuver through difficult times.
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Personal Considerations Regarding the Mission of Nursing
The mission of nursing is to provide care for the community using the theories of nursing
to guide and direct their own beliefs, and the nursing standards stated by credited nursing
organizations such as, The American Nursing Association and The International Council of
Nursing, with ethical judgment. In 1893, Florence Nightingale’s mission statement for nursing
was,
I solemnly pledge myself before God and in the presence of this assembly:
To pass my life in purity and to practice my profession faithfully. I will abstain from
whatever is deleterious and mischievous and will not take or knowingly administer any
harmful drug. I will do all in my power to maintain and elevate the standard of my profession,
and will hold in confidence all personal matters committed to my keeping, and all family affairs
coming to my knowledge in the practice of my profession. With loyalty will I endeavor to aid the
physician in his work and devote myself to the welfare of those committed to my care. (QUAN
2006)
Shelly Cohen explains that today health care leaders realize having a mission statement does not
mean the employee will be able to apply the statement to their everyday care of patients. She
noted the statement should have direction and general goals of the organization. She then goes
on to comment that the leader of the organization should however encourage and support their
staff in understanding the direction of the statement. The author goes on to give different
example questions to ask the staff to ensure the higher management will be able to uphold the
organizations mission.
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My Personal Experiences Contributing to My Belief System about Nursing
Nurses should care about what they do, because if they do not it shows in their work, and
it reflects upon the patient. My aunt is a nurse in Texas who works at a high school. When
talking with her it is obvious that she truly loves her job and it brings joy to her life to be around
all those kids. By loving what she does and caring about the kind of health care she can provide
for those kids, it makes the kids feel more comfortable talking with her. They can see that she
I believe nursing is an essential part of the healthcare industry. Nurses should have a
caring and compassionate nature. Their first priorities should always be the safety and well-
being of the patient. They should be competent enough to take care of and educate patients
about their conditions. When I tore my anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) and had to have
surgery, I stayed in the hospital for one night. I remember the nurses being very considerate and
helpful to my family. If my parents had any questions about what they should do to help me or
about my recovery, the nurses would kindly give them information. The nurses cared about their
jobs and one could tell they took it very seriously. They did everything in their power to make
to my nurse practitioner to get my physical each year. I really enjoy going to her for health
problems, because I feel comfortable around her and can talk to her and ask questions. She is
able to answer my questions with ease and I can tell she knows what she is talking about. I have
asked her plenty of questions and not once have I been able to stump her, it seems she has an
answer for everything. I can also tell by her communication and attitude towards me that she
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truly cares about helping me; whether it be to feel better or educating me. My hope for the future
is that one day I can portray all of the qualities of these nurses through my practice.
Education and nursing coincide together. I have always enjoyed mentoring my peers on
topics I may better understand. Seeing their faces when they finally get it is very satisfying. My
mother has been in education for over twenty years and has instilled in me how valuable and
rewarding education can be. I feel more nurses should want to go back and teach. Why not care
enough to give back to the profession itself? When I become more experienced in the nursing
profession I would like to go back and teach. My opinion is, if I can teach patients how to take
medications that I only have knowledge about and no experience with taking, then I should be
able to teach students about something I have knowledge for and personal experience in as well.
By sharing my experiences with other students it would help them correlate different topics and
There are numerous different religions and belief systems world wide in today’s modern
time. Nurses in the United States experience people from several different belief systems. It is
this rising immigration rate into this country that calls for a desperate need for culturally
competent nurses. It is the nurse’s duty to adapt to these beliefs when caring for a patient.
Madeleine Leininger is the creator of the Transcultural Nursing Theory. This liberal humanistic
theory shows a way of thinking through social and human differences as well as race.
(Gustafson 2005)
Influences of culture are displayed by Lieninger’s Sunrise Model. Cutilli noted that
technology, religion, philosophy, kinship, values, beliefs, and lifeways are some of the factors in
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this model. She also exclaimed some other factors including politics, legal system, economics,
education, world view, social structure, healthcare traditions, and education. With this
information about a patients beliefs as well as information on home remedies and folk medicine
of the culture, Cutilli commented it helps the nurse to make wise decisions when it comes to the
patients care. She also noted Lieninger’s three outcomes to these factors which allow the nurse
to give consistent cultural care for health, well-being, or dying. These outcomes include,
providing cultural care that does not conflict with the patient, providing repatterning or the
reconstruction of the beliefs for effective cultural care, and providing care of cultural
accommodation or negotiation with the patient. Lieninger’s model and theory lead the nurse in
considering all aspects of cultural influence that may affect a patient’s care. (Cutilli 2006)
Virginia Henderson spoke of the mind and body as one inseparable entity. She felt that
nurses have a responsibility to the patient and not the doctor. She saw nursing as helping
individuals gain independence towards the activities and performances contributing to the health
The unique function of the nurse is to assist the individual, sick or well, in the
peaceful death) that he would perform unaided if he had the necessary strength,
Tourville and Ingalls annotate that Henderson has four aspects of an individual and
fourteen areas of nursing care. The physical aspect includes areas such as breathing normally,
eat and drink adequately, clear body wastes, move to and maintain a desired position, sleep and
rest, select suitable clothing, maintain a normal body temperature, keep the body clean and well
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– groomed, and abstain from any dangers or injuries. The psychological aspect consists of
expressing emotions, needs, fears, or opinions while communicating with others. It also contains
the use of available health facilities and being able to learn, discover, or satisfy the curiosity that
leads to normal development and health. The spiritual aspect holds the area of worship
according to one’s faith. The last aspect Henderson covered is the sociological aspect which
contains the areas, work with a sense of accomplishment and play or participate in various forms
of recreation.
Helping the patient gain independence in doing daily activities and health exercises is not
only rewarding to the patient, but also is essential to nursing. Most people prefer to have the
capability of doing things on their own. To ask for someone to help them do an activity such as
My goal as a nurse is to maintain professionalism at all times, advocate for the patient,
and care in the perception of Watson’s theory. I would also like to maintain therapeutic
communication with the patient and educate the client on health practices. Educating the client
is a very important goal; knowledge to me is the key to life. One cannot excel or lead in life
without having the will to learn. For example, a patient who listens to the nurse on how to take
birth control runs a lower risk of becoming pregnant than one that does not listen as well. This is
because the person that did not listen and take the advice of the nurse is more likely to misuse the
medication, because they do not know the proper way to take it.
manner. Also, I would like to become an advanced practice nurse. This will allow me to further
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my education and gain more knowledge and competency with my profession. Lastly, I do plan
Conclusion
In conclusion, nursing is the use of critical thinking in the clinical setting to prevent
References