Philosophy of Nursing Essay

Nursing refers to a contact or a bond that exists between two or more persons in which one of the two persons provide professional care to the other in addition to providing advice with an aim of improving the health of the other individual an preventing illness. Philosophy of nursing may refer to beliefs that different individuals have towards nursing. Humans refer to the primates in the family of hominids. They have a brain which is highly expanded enabling them to solve problems through reasoning, control of feelings, use of language and introspection. Humans are always yearning to understand the world around them and influence the natural occurrences. Nursing involves the interaction between two human beings and therefore human must exist for the process of nursing to be successful. Health refers to a state of well being where there is no sickness and reflects the social, physical, spiritual and mental fitness of an individual. Good health may be brought about by a balanced diet, exercise and rest. It is through nursing that an individual acquires good health (Pharris, 2001, pp. 8-12). Nursing refers to a science in which the person involved aims at ensuring a good health for individuals, families and communities. In general, the science of nursing aims at upholding the quality of life. It involves caring for individuals in a conducive environment to promote good health and prevent illness. Environment is defined as the extensive information on issues, programs and policies affecting our surrounding. It refers to anything internal or external that may create some impact in the life of an individual including all the living and non living organisms that exist on the earth. It has to conducive to facilitate the process of nursing. Humans A good pain control after surgery when accompanied by appropriate community health services enables an individual to rebuild him or herself. It is however the responsibility of every person to ensure that the nurse or the doctor knows about him or herself before the pain control is administered on him or her. This the patient could do by enabling the doctor to know about his or her drug addiction either the past or present. This will enable the nurse to know the type and the amount of medication to offer. Surgery of the stomach is a very painful one and the drug history of a person may affect the person’s tolerance to the pain or response to the pain relievers. The pain control in patients also depends on the age of the patient as well the conditions of health of the individual before the surgery. Controlling pain after surgery is a very essential step in the life of a patient as it helps the individual to gain the best results on functionality. This is appropriate because the pain after surgery increases the functionality of the patient. Patients who before the surgery were on pain medication do require an administration of extended pain medication. Otherwise the patient may require shorter acting pain medications for the control of pain (Newman, 2003, pp. 110-115). Nursing The belief that good pain control and community health services help rebuild a person after surgery relates to nursing in the sense that nurses have been found to be mediums through which terminal care at home can be improved. Pain control is one of the components of quality terminal care in the community. Patients who have undergone surgery should be given enough advice by the nurses on where to get help if necessary. In addition to this they should be given appropriate analgesics to carry home which should be accompanied by sufficient instructions on their usage. Nevertheless, patients should be given both verbal and written information about pain so that and how pain can be reduced. The nursing staff should always be there for patients to advice them and to discuss with them their choice of a pain relieving techniques. The pain that is experienced by patients after surgery is usually very great that it should not be underestimated. This is because the pain does different implications on both the patients and the community health services. A proper pain control after surgery therefore requires the intervention of the nurse which will give way for community health services thus helping the patient to gain his or her health back. Nurses facilitate the process of pain control and ensure that it well managed to speed the process of recovering of a patient ( Margaret,1999, pp. 227-230). Health The health of a person enables that person to function mentally, spiritually, physically and socially in full ability. The belief that a good pain control and community health service helps an individual to rebuild after a surgery relates to health in the sense that an individual will only have a good health when he or she is not in pain. A person is considered to fully healthy if he or she is not feeling any pain. Surgery involves a lot of pain therefore after a surgery an individual requires pain relief which is achieved through proper pain control by the nurses to enable him or her to function properly both physically, mentally, spiritually and socially. When a person is in pain, he or she will not perform any physical activity in addition the person will not be able to socialize freely with other people. The person will also not think properly thus lacking both mental and spiritual thinking. This is because pain makes a person uncomfortable creating a feeling that something is wrong in the body. The pain in the body i. e. physical pain sends a signal to the brain through the spinal cords that something is wrong thus stopping the mind from working properly. It is therefore essential that after surgery a patient should receive a good pain control and community health service to enable him or her to rebuild his health. Effective pain management is therefore considered by nurses as part of recovery because it when it is well controlled it speeds up the process of healing and reduce complications that a person may experience as a result of surgery (Endo, 2004, pp. 240-245). Environment The surroundings in which individuals live do affect the activities performed in that particular environment. Nurses do require an enabling environment to enable them to perform their duties properly. After surgery it will for the well being of the patient to have a conducive environment in which physical, mental, spiritual and social healing is possible. The nature of the environment in which pain control is conducted is very essential and should be set to fit the requirements of different patients. Pain control will enable an individual to feel comfortable as he or she heals, get well faster and avoid some problems associated with surgery. The nurse theorist observed was Margaret Newman who also came up with a nursing theory of health as an expanding consciousness which requires every person to find the meaning of life and find connections with other people in the rest of the world. According to Margaret, health means increasing awareness. She put forward that the role of a nurse is to identify the lifestyle of an individual so that the nurse can work within that lifestyle to help the individual achieve the goals of his or her life. Newman’s theory includes the health of every individual irrespective of the condition of illness i. e. whether sick or well (Desai, 1996). Jean on the other hand developed a caring theory which involves the caring actions taken by nurses in their interaction with the patients. The caring theory involves the deep respect offered to patients by the nurses for the mysteries of life and the ability of the patients to change their lifestyles. Watson’s caring theory also requires a nurse to help the patients to acquire self control, knowledge and healing not regarding their health conditions. The difference that exists between my beliefs on Newman’s theory and Watson’s caring theory is that Newman’s theory was focused on helping every person whether in the absence or presence of sickness to understand his or her status. It focused on the adjustments that a nurse should put to ensure that a person meets his or her requirements. Watson on the other hand focused on caring for the patients, respecting them and helping them to understand themselves by acquiring self control, knowledge and healing. The similarity between the two theories is that both the two believe that it is the role of a nurse to ensure appropriate lifestyles for different persons whether sick or not. They both believe that a nurse should be able to identify or recognize and accurately detect the health status of a person and be able to help that person accordingly. They believe that a nurse must come together and engage in an interaction so that the nurse can understand the unique lifestyle of the person and provide care in a manner that fits that lifestyle. Finally both the beliefs involve human and nursing in the science of nursing in order to provide desired care to persons. The statement of my philosophy of nursing is the belief that Good pain control and community health services help rebuild a person after surgery. My philosophy of nursing views nursing as both an art and a science. It requires a nurse to understand the meaning of health in addition to understanding the perception of moral and ethical importance of care. The caring offered by the nurses involves the application of theoretical nursing knowledge, behavior and humanity.  My nursing philosophy includes wellness, family, collaboration and disability (Yamashita, 1997, pp. 34-39). Conclusion Surgery is a very painful exercise which usually requires an immediate pain control to stop the patient from suffering. Pain management especially after surgery is therefore very essential for the well being of the patient and nurses should ensure that it is provided to enable the patient to rebuild his or her health. This is because pain control facilitates the process of healing of an individual.