My Nursing Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of knowledge (Meleis, 2012). There are many reasons to why individuals become nurses. A nurse’s philosophy is the reason she continues to be a nurse. It is the backbone, the blue print, and the guidelines to that specific nurse who believes this is what she should be doing for her patients.
Being nervous on my first day of class as any Graduate student would, I read ahead on the readings and in-class assignments. The first assignment read, “What is your personal philosophy?” Sitting at my desk rereading the question and staring at a blank piece of paper nothing came to mind. Just coming out of the novice nurses stage, I found myself hung up on this specific question. Throughout my years in school and as a floor nurse …show more content…
I have been reading a couple of her published books and I feel my philosophy fits in best with her theory. Even though Abdullah created and published her theory in the 1960’s, most of the information is still being used in the healthcare field today. Influenced by Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs, Faye Abdullah’s theory was considered to be part of the first school of thought being one of the needs theorists (Meleis, 2012). Abdullah believed that a nurse’s care should be centered on the patient (Abdellah, 1960). Similar to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, Abdullah created a list of problems that needed to be addressed and resolved to provide the best care to the patient.
In the 1960’s nursing was thought to be procedure and diagnostic centered, meaning that nurses should provide care based on the disease not the patient as an individual person (Abdellah, 1960). Examples of care with this approach would be the nurse only looking at objective signs and symptoms or waking the patient up in the middle of the night for a bath because it was more convenient for the staff at that time. During this time nurses were thought to not be as educated, they were given orders and went through the steps to carry them out. Nurses would take patients vitals but did not put the information together to create a
Being nervous on my first day of class as any Graduate student would, I read ahead on the readings and in-class assignments. The first assignment read, “What is your personal philosophy?” Sitting at my desk rereading the question and staring at a blank piece of paper nothing came to mind. Just coming out of the novice nurses stage, I found myself hung up on this specific question. Throughout my years in school and as a floor nurse …show more content…
I have been reading a couple of her published books and I feel my philosophy fits in best with her theory. Even though Abdullah created and published her theory in the 1960’s, most of the information is still being used in the healthcare field today. Influenced by Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs, Faye Abdullah’s theory was considered to be part of the first school of thought being one of the needs theorists (Meleis, 2012). Abdullah believed that a nurse’s care should be centered on the patient (Abdellah, 1960). Similar to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, Abdullah created a list of problems that needed to be addressed and resolved to provide the best care to the patient.
In the 1960’s nursing was thought to be procedure and diagnostic centered, meaning that nurses should provide care based on the disease not the patient as an individual person (Abdellah, 1960). Examples of care with this approach would be the nurse only looking at objective signs and symptoms or waking the patient up in the middle of the night for a bath because it was more convenient for the staff at that time. During this time nurses were thought to not be as educated, they were given orders and went through the steps to carry them out. Nurses would take patients vitals but did not put the information together to create a