Exploring Honesty and Empathy in Nursing: A Reflective Report

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INTRODUCTION
Values and belief are the integral part of nursing practice. It is defined as the values one
practice during imparting care to the service seeker in nursing. The core values in nursing
include dignity, integrity, altruism, autonomy and social justice. Belief is defined as the principle
or acceptance of something that is right and should be incorporated in practice. Core belief
includes honesty, trust, faith, hope, empathy etc. In this report we will discuss two main values
and belief in nursing that personally incorporate in my practice that includes honesty and
empathy.
DISCUSSION
While delivering care in nursing nurses are basically presented with choices for action that can
lead them to be honest or dishonest with their client. Honesty is considered as the best policy
in nursing practice. Honesty of a nurse makes the patient believe in the treatment and the
health and social care. Honesty is important in medical field as it allows the individual to have
faith in the services provided and have hope in the professionals that their integrity will be
secured. I have recognized that honesty is an important aspect in health and social care and it
works well with empathy. Honesty suggests that the holders of public office in the health and
social care should be respectful and truthful. As per the NMC code of nursing ethics the health
care professional should always follow the ethical framework that focuses on being honest with
the patient and his family and providing care including respect, empathy and dignity. I identified
that treating a patient or caring for a person includes three core responsibilities that are 1)
ensuring every patient and their families are treated with compassion, 2) resolving conflict
about the plan of care and 3) being honest with the patient and their family and support them
during their healthcare decisions (Finkelman, 2017).
Empathy is defined as the ability of a professional to understand and share the feelings of
others. In nursing professional empathy is an essential trait that enables the professional to
relate and form a therapeutic relationship with the patient. It is considered as complex
multidimensional concept that has cognitive, behavioral, moral aspects to be followed during

care. Empathy is well incorporated in my practice as I found that providing empathy focuses on
enhancing the relationship among patient and professional. Firstly following this value enables
me to understand the situation and feeling of the patient and enables me to communicate the
understanding and monitor the accuracy. Using empathy while conversing with the patient
results in building good patient professional rapport. Whereas one basic correlation between
empathy and compassion was identified but it is not proportional always, nurse having
empathy but lacking compassion cannot build a good rapport with the patient. Nurse’s values
should include empathy as a core concept as it enables the professional to understand the
patient and provide efficient care that is patient centered and family oriented in nature. It also
allows us to provide services that are holistic in nature that covers the requirements of the
patient and helps in formation of a secure and healthy environmental for the patient (Ellis,
2017).

REFERENCES
Finkelman, A. (2017). Professional nursing concepts: Competencies for quality leadership. Jones
& Bartlett Learning.
Ellis, P., (2017). Understanding ethics for nursing students. Learning Matters.