Caring in Nursing Information 2022

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CARING IN NURSING
NAME:
Institution:
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Introduction
Nursing as a profession was founded on the basis of caring as envisioned by the founders
of nursing including Florence Nightingale who raised the standards of nurses by making
sure that future nurses had to be trained on how to take of the sick. The art of caring is a
fundamental and a basic component of nursing that implies that nursing has to be
practised holistically taking care of both physical and emotional needs of the patients in
their time of need. Taking care of patients’ means that the nurses have to be actively
present with the patient and therapeutically connect with them on the basis of person-
centred care.
Event description
The summer of 2015 was a tough time for our family as my uncle who was living with us
was accidentally hit by a car by a drunk driver and had his leg amputated. After a long
stay in the hospital, he brought home and we had to take care of him while at home. My
mother assigned me the role of helping in dressing his wound and staying at home with
him because I had expressed my interest in nursing to her. Everyone in my family would
go for work and I was supposed to spend my days being around my uncle an experience I
always looked forward to everyday day for the rest of the summer. At times I would
resist the attempt to go and play with my friends as I felt that my uncle needed my
attention more than my friends and this brought inner peace to me. He was in pain most
of the times and I religiously gave him his pain-relieving medication as directed by the
doctor and even stayed with him and listened to his emotional needs. He was always
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happy when I was around him because I always saw him smile after giving him his
medication and listening to his wonderful stories as he would later tell me those were his
best moments in life. On getting back from work my mother would dress his wound and
give him his medication and later she sat with him and they talked for long both smiling.
Was I learning the basics of caring in nursing from my mother? I always asked myself
and later came to understand that my mother was attentively attending to the needs of my
uncle wholly by sitting with him and emotionally connecting with him something I did
while she was at work. To me my uncle was my first patient and I treasured every
moment I spent taking care of him, it was an opportunity to serve my uncle in his time of
need which is what the patient always expect from their nurses.
Reflection of new learning.
Several nursing caring ideas have been proposed that explain and guide how best nurses
can relate to patients to bring the utmost good to them in their time of need and
vulnerability. Watson's caring theory of transpersonal caring envisions that nurses should
endeavour to promote health, prevent illness, take care of the sick and help in the
restoration of the patients' health (. Watson, 2010). Nurses can provide a caring
environment by therapeutically connecting to the patients under their care and giving
room to the patient so that they can have a say into what treatment they want and are
comfortable with. The art of caring as offered to patients by nurses is not genetically
transmitted but has to be passed professionally and my mother did efficiently practice this
as she tried to teach me what caring for someone entails. From a caring perspective,
nurses have to provide the best environment the can to their patients by making sure that
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the patient feels comfortable at all times by tending to the physical and emotional needs
of the patient (Stalpers et al. 2017).
Registered nurses standards of practice propose that nursing has to be practised on the
basis of a person-centred care evidence-based practice. Nurses have to integrate several
elements for them to provide this kind of kind that requires that the patient has to be
given the best available care and the elements include averting of diseases, therapeutic
treatment of diseases, malleable and supportive to the patient (Cashin et al. 2017). Nurses
have to engage the patients through the creation of a therapeutic relationship between
them and the patients while engaging with their fellow nurses and doctors through a
professional relationship (Crotty & Doody, 2015). These two relationships can only at
most be achieved through good communication meaning that nurses should develop
communication skills that enable them to interact with their patients and convey the
patients' needs to other health professional involved (Potter et al. 2017). Patients are open
to nurses who they feel are attentive to them and understand them at personal levels and
respect their needs than when they feel that the nurse is not interested in the needs of the
patient. Nurses have to maintain the capability to practice and this requires that several
skills such as life-long learning have to be maintained by nurses so as to offer the best
available care to the patients. A nurse who is not up to date with the currently available
information cannot offer services that would enhance the faster healing of the patient
(Bartosiewicz et al. 2019). Nurses have to bear accountability while taking care of
patients and understand that they are responsible for whatever happens to a patient under
their care. Responsible nurses have to evaluate outcomes to inform their nursing practice
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means that they have to consistently evaluate the goals set for specific patients and
monitor the progress of these goals so as to make informed decisions as pertaining the
care of their patients.
Person-centred care in nursing means that nurses have to provide care to patients by
focusing on the personal needs of the patient, taking into account the wants of the patient,
attentively listening to the desires of the patient and their goals (Santana et al. 2019). The
nurses then have to make these needs and wants of the patient and make them the core of
the patients' treatment during the process of nursing their patients in the hospital. The
needs of the patient have to be as they have communicated them and not as the nurse
envisions them to be meaning that the nurses are bound by the ethical principle of
autonomy. The case description given above shows that I did not provide person-centred
care to my uncle because not even once did I ever sit down with him to listen to his needs
but I was completely overwhelmed by my own needs. A nurse can provide person-
centred care to their patients by making sure that the patients' wants are adequately
attended to at all times and be able to emotionally connect with them (Nightingale et al.
2018).
Evidence-based practice nursing means that nurses have to be up to date with the most
recent available information on treatment and caring of patients (Mackey &
Bassendowski, 2017). The nurses have to evaluate the information available based on the
positives achieved by their patients and offer these services to their patients. The aspect
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of evidence-based practice informs me as a future nurse that I have to read the currently
available literature in nursing with respect to relevant research and patients care. This
kind of practice can be achieved through attending conferences where such information is
discussed and I should be able to integrate the new information in my practice for the
interest of my patients (Burkhart & Hall, 2015).
Conclusion.
The nursing aspect of caring is an art that every nurse should possess for the wellbeing of
their patients and the achievement of the set goals during patient management. There are
several principles that have to be internalized together to offer quality care to patients and
they include adherence to the registered nurses' standards of care, the practice of
evidence-based practice and person-centred care and application of caring theory as
proposed by Jean Watson. The best nursing is one who can offer care to a patient based
on these principles and one who maintains life- long learning so as to keep in touch with
the current evidence in relation to the above-mentioned principles when caring for
patients in the hospital.
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References.
Bartosiewicz, A., Łuszczki, E., Różański, A., & Nagórska, M. (2019). Analysis of
Determinants of Readiness for Professional Development Among Polish
Nurses. International journal of environmental research and public health, 16(10),
1800.
Burkhart, P. V., & Hall, L. A. (2015). Developing the next generation of nurse
scientists. Nurse educator, 40(3), 160-162.
Cashin, A., Heartfield, M., Bryce, J., Devey, L., Buckley, T., Cox, D., ... & Fisher, M.
(2017). Standards for practice for registered nurses in Australia. Collegian, 24(3),
255-266.
Crotty, G., & Doody, O. (2015). Therapeutic relationships in intellectual disability nursing
practice. Learning Disability Practice, 18(7).
Mackey, A., & Bassendowski, S. (2017). The history of evidence-based practice in nursing
education and practice. Journal of Professional Nursing, 33(1), 51-55.
Nightingale, S., Spiby, H., Sheen, K., & Slade, P. (2018). The impact of emotional
intelligence in health care professionals on caring behaviour towards patients in
clinical and long-term care settings: Findings from an integrative
review. International journal of nursing studies, 80, 106-117.
Potter, P. A., Perry, A. G., Stockert, P. A., & Hall, A. (2017). Fundamentals of nursing.
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Santana, M. J., Ahmed, S., Lorenzetti, D., Jolley, R. J., Manalili, K., Zelinsky, S., ... & Lu,
M. (2019). Measuring patient-centred system performance: a scoping review of
patient-centred care quality indicators. BMJ open, 9(1), e023596.
Stalpers, D., Van Der Linden, D., Kaljouw, M. J., & Schuurmans, M. J. (2017). Nurse‐
perceived quality of care in intensive care units and associations with work
environment characteristics: a multicentre survey study. Journal of advanced
nursing, 73(6), 1482-1490.
Watson, J. (2010). Caring science and the next decade of holistic healing: Transforming self
and system from the inside out. Beginnings (American Holistic Nurses'
Association), 30(2), 14-16.
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