Nursing Assignment: Learning Plan, Philosophy and Strategies

This nursing assignment discusses learning plan, nursing philosophy and strategies to develop professional career. It includes self-assessment, strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. It also covers cultural competence, palliative care, patient prioritization and time management.

Running head: NURSING ASSIGNMENT
NURSING ASSIGNMENT
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author Note:

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Learning Plan:
The Nursing profession within the healthcare system broadly aims at imparting care to
the patients, their families and communities in order to alleviate the standard of their living
(Alligood 2013). The profession critically focuses on providing a holistic care to the patients
so as to ensure overall wellbeing. In the words of Dahnke and Dreher (2015), Nurses must
present excellent communication skills and emotional stability while dealing with patients
suffering from critical illness issues. In addition to this, Nurses must also express empathy
and be observant while imparting patient care (Butts and Rich 2013). Also, nursing
professionals must be able to pay close attention to criticalities, present physical endurance
and flexibility to take effective decisions in the best interest of the patient. Therefore,
performing a self-assessment by analysing the strengths, weaknesses, threats and
opportunities can positively help in working on the shortcomings to enhance the scope of
practice. In this section, I am going to discuss the attributes of my strength, weakness,
opportunities and threats.
Strength:
 Empathetic and considerate about
patients
 Excellent academic background
 Ability to undertake clinical
decisions independently through
professional expertise
 Possess strong communication skills
Weakness:
 Culturally incompetent
 Weak at offering palliative care and
assistance
 Poor prioritization of workload
Opportunities:
 Aspire to become an advanced nurse
practitioner
 Aspire to pursue post doctorate and
become a lecturer
 Attend career counselling workshops
to select an appropriate career
Threats:
 Poor work life balance
 Financially unstable
 Conservative family background

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Nursing Philosophy:
The nursing profession broadly emphasises on three important constituents that
include the patient, the environment and health. The nursing profession critically observes
patients as persons who should be treated with respect, dignity as well as compassion
(Betancourt et al. 2016). The nursing profession observes patients as individuals first that are
holistic beings and are different from one another. The perception of the external as well as
the internal environment varies on individual basis and being healthy does not merely include
the absence of an infirmity but also includes the complete wellbeing of the physical as well as
the mental health (Garran. and Werkmeister 2013). As a Nurse, my nursing philosophy relies
on caring for people and offering them holistic care, Further, I also ensure that the patients I
care for as well as their family members are equal partners in the care planning process so as
to ensure effective care delivery. Also, I endure to advocate patient rights and act in the best
interest of the patients. My nursing philosophy is broadly based upon the words of the lady
with the lamp, ‘And what nursing has to do in either case, is to put the patient in the best
condition for nature to act upon him’ (Butts and Rich 2013)
Strategies to develop professional career:
On conducting a self-assessment, I have been able to critically identify the key areas
of my strength, weakness, opportunities and threats. Typically the areas where I need to
improve in order to enhance the standard of my practice, includes; acquiring training on
cultural competence and learn time management so as to prioritize work load effectively.
According to Strand et al. (2013), nursing professionals should endeavour to
continuously develop themselves in order to improve the quality of care services offered to
patients. I have already identified the areas where I need to improve. In this regard, I would

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also like to mention that my professional practice experience has made me realize that I am
not culturally competent and I lack the requisite skills to offer palliative assistance to
critically ill patients (Strand et al. 2013). I would like to share an example from my
professional practice, where I had failed to impart effective care as a nurse. I was taking care
of Emily an 80 year old female patient, who was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Emily was
Italian in origin and her husband and daughter were waiting at the visitors section, while
Emily was undergoing a critical surgery within the emergency unit. Unfortunately, the
surgery was not successful and Emily could not make it. However, what seemed impossible
for me was to inform her family members about her demise. I felt that, if I had a formal
training in assisting patients with palliative care, it would have helped me to comfort her
family members. Also, I failed to show cultural competence and establish an effective
therapeutic relationship with the client and her family members (Garran and Werkmeister
2013). I could not effectively communicate with them and moreover, I did not ensure that the
family members had been able to grief the loss of their loved one and observed their
traditional customs to ensure a peaceful departure of Emily. I also failed to acknowledge the
fact that Emily’s family were natives of Italy and had visited Australia solely for the medical
treatment of her.
Also, patient prioritization and time management is yet another weakness that I need
to work upon in order to enhance my scope of practice. I fail to manage multiple tasks
smoothly and this results in poor work-life balance and causes a lot of stress. Therefore, in
order to work on my flaws I would do the following:
a) Attend workshops on cultural competence: This would positively help in acquiring
cultural competence and would critically help me in rendering a culturally safe care

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b) Acquire training in offering palliative assistance: This would help me in acquiring
training on palliative assistance and I would be able to care for a patient with critical
illness and his family members in a well-organized manner (Lamba et al. 2014)
c) Set short term goals to effectively manage time and prioritize care: Setting short term,
goals would help me allot time to different tasks and on accomplishing the short-term
goals, I would be able to manage time efficiently

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References:
Alligood, M.R., 2013. Nursing Theorists and Their Work-E-Book.pp.111-115
Betancourt, J.R., Green, A.R., Carrillo, J.E. and Owusu Ananeh-Firempong, I.I., 2016.
Defining cultural competence: a practical framework for addressing racial/ethnic disparities
in health and health care. Public health reports.
Butts, J.B. and Rich, K.L., 2013. Philosophies and theories for advanced nursing practice.
Jones & Bartlett Publishers.
Dahnke, M.D. and Dreher, H.M., 2015. Philosophy of science for nursing practice: Concepts
and application. Springer Publishing Company.
Garran, A.M. and Werkmeister Rozas, L., 2013. Cultural competence revisited. Journal of
Ethnic and Cultural Diversity in Social Work, 22(2), pp.97-111.
Lamba, S., DeSandre, P.L., Todd, K.H., Bryant, E.N., Chan, G.K., Grudzen, C.R., Weissman,
D.E. and Quest, T.E., 2014. Integration of palliative care into emergency medicine: the
Improving Palliative Care in Emergency Medicine (IPAL-EM) collaboration. The Journal of
emergency medicine, 46(2), pp.264-270.
Strand, J.J., Kamdar, M.M. and Carey, E.C., 2013, August. Top 10 things palliative care
clinicians wished everyone knew about palliative care. In Mayo Clinic Proceedings (Vol. 88,
No. 8, pp. 859-865). Elsevier.