Personal nursing philosophy and why it is important

Nursing is more than just taking care of a sick person. It is more about meeting the emotional, physical, spiritual, and mental needs of the patient and their family. It is important to think about the ideals and rules that will guide your nursing work. Personal nursing philosophy is the foundation for everything a nurse does, from practice to study.

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A nursing philosophy tells you how to do your job, gives you information, and helps you learn how to put nursing theory into reality. You can also learn more and understand things better by putting critical thought into practice. Critical thinking is important, but so are making decisions and being a leader. What you need most is honesty, duty, compassion, and skill.

What is a nursing philosophy?

A nursing philosophy is a mission statement that describes a nurse’s values, beliefs, and professional and personal ethics as they connect to the nursing field. The information looks at the nurse’s education, training, professional practice, approach to caring for patients, and job goals.

Defining your theory gives you a better idea of what you believe and what you want to achieve in the nursing field. This will help you grow as a nurse and give you direction for whichever field and skills you want to focus on and improve.

You can create values that will guide your patient care decisions. These principles will also motivate you at work. By using your beliefs, goals, and values, making an outline of your personal nursing theory will help you become a practical nurse.

As you move up in your job, your work and life experiences continue to shape the way you think. It is okay to do this, and you can change your nursing philosophy as your job and ideas change. This piece will tell you why nursing philosophy is important and how to write one. It will also give you some examples to help you write your own nursing philosophy statement.

What is the importance of a personal nursing philosophy

Change the way you talk to your patients, their families, and your coworkers.

Understanding your nursing values, like reliability, respect, and honesty, will help you act in a way that upholds these values in every situation. For instance, you can show that you are innocent by saying that you made a mistake, and you can show respect by listening to what the patient’s family has to say.

Keep you going when you are facing problems at work.

At work, you will have to deal with some problems. They might be tired from long shifts or something else. Having a clear idea of why you chose that job is important because it can keep you motivated and help you stay on track as you face challenges. For example, your philosophy could be that you want to make a change in the lives of the patient’s family. This can help you see why it is important to keep them involved while their loved one is in the hospital.

Help you write a good goal for your resume

When looking for a job as a nurse, you can include a summary statement on your resume that talks about what makes you a good nurse and why you love your job. If you have already thought about and written down your own nursing philosophy, it will be easy to write this statement.

It helps you answer the most popular questions asked at nursing interviews.

Interviewers may ask you why you want to be a nurse, what drives you, what your values are, and how they match up with those of the company. As you get ready for an interview, you can look over your nursing philosophy statement. This will help you answer these questions the right way. In other situations, you may be asked to say exactly what your nursing philosophy is. It is important to review it before the interview.

It will help you decide what to do with your job.

The effect you want to have as a nurse is an important part of your nursing theory. This element can help you decide how to further your schooling, choose nursing roles, take leadership roles that fit with your philosophy, and get professional certifications.

A personal nursing philosophy is a set of rules that helps you live up to the standards you have set for yourself.
Your personal nursing theory helps you show what you believe and what your goals are.
A nursing philosophy helps you figure out the theories and beliefs you need to make choices every day.

What is the role of philosophy in nursing knowledge and education

Over the years, nurses have learned how important it is to think critically and how useful it is in nursing and other fields. The goal of modern university education is to turn out workers who do routine tasks in their jobs.

Graduates must have imagination, innovation, the ability to communicate, and the ability to think things through. Targeted methods in medical education are based on combining different fields of study and teaching students how to adapt to changes in the community.

You also need to learn and improve skills and information to do your roles and tasks. Theorists have come up with logical ways to reach these goals, but philosophy and any other models and techniques meant to teach students win in this field.

How to write a nursing philosophy

In nursing, the end goal is more or less the same: to help people stay healthy. Individual learning: Your personal values and beliefs will affect how and why you do your work.

Creating a nursing theory can be scary, but you can feel better if you know the important parts. Having a clear idea of your nursing theory gives you power. You learn to pay more attention to your daily responsibilities and use your values and beliefs to help you make hard choices.

Philosophy changes based on what you learn from life and the chances you take. Here are some questions that will help you figure out what your current beliefs are.

What does it mean to you to be a nurse?

A nursing theory is supported by a person’s idea of what standard nursing is. This could be based on ideas or feelings, which could be different from what you expected. To figure out what nursing means to you, you should first decide how you see health and patient care, where they start and end, and if they end at all. Also, think about what you do to grow and strengthen your meanings.

You may find that your idea of nursing is built on vague things like your lifestyle, personality, and morals. By saying that nursing is just a job, you lay the groundwork for the rest of your mindset, and you will be able to tie together other parts that make you who you are as a nurse.

Why did you first want to be a nurse?

There are many things that can make you want to become a nurse, like having a family member who is a nurse, working with a nurse, seeing a loved one being cared for by a nurse, or going through something difficult in life. Nursing is not an easy job, so most people who decide to become nurses do so for a good reason.

Think about the events and people that made you want to become a nurse. This will help you understand why you chose this job over all others. When did you decide that you needed to become a nurse to get what you wanted out of life? This turning point will help you change your mind.

How important is nursing to you?

Find out what you get out of caring for people. Do you enjoy getting to know your patients? Do you want the challenges that come with the fast-paced setting of medicine? If you add this to your nurse philosophy statement, it will help you feel more connected to your job.

What do you think about how nursing affects the world?

Think about how the jobs of a nurse affect things. Depending on how they work, nurses can be in charge of many different jobs. They can teach, promote, and do other things. It is not just about taking care of patients. Patients have ties with family, friends, and coworkers that are both direct and indirect. The good things you do for people and those close to them can have an effect that lasts a lifetime.

Write down what you do well as a nurse.

Your skills can help you use your philosophy statement to remind yourself of your skills and how to get better at them. One of the most inspiring things about your job is seeing how your passions and skills affect other people. List your psychological traits and skills needed to be a nurse or those that make you a great nurse, such as:

Leadership
Integrity
Empathy
Time management
Respect
Interpersonal communication
Kindness
Organization

Choose something you are good at or think makes you a good nurse.

What are the most important skills and ideals for you as a nurse?

Nursing is a job and a calling at the same time. You will need goals to grow as a worker and as a whole person. You have a natural affinity for the things you care about, and your daily choices shape your morality.

Ethical choices help nursing grow, so be honest about what you want and what you can not do. Having a clear idea will help you make the right decisions and find the right job.

When looking for a job that will help you grow professionally and personally, it will help to know what you want to do and where you stand. You will also be better able to move forward in your job as new opportunities come up. Some vales include:

Integrity
Patience
Innovation
Service
Accountability
Teamwork
Equality
Quality
Community

How will your job affect the people in your area?

As a nurse, you may have the chance to make a big difference for the better. You should think about how your actions will affect big problems. In some places, nurses do more than just help patients; they also give medical health advice.

Any nurse can take part in any project going on in their neighborhood. When you think about personal beliefs and patient care, your place in the world should become clear. After you have answered these questions, make a note of any ideas that come up more than once and write them down. This is what you believe about nursing.

As you advance in your career, reevaluate your nursing philosophy.

As you get better at your job, you are likely to change the ideas you had when you first started. This is fine, because experience and both personal and work challenges can help with this. To make sure your nursing philosophy changes as you do, you should look over your philosophy statement often to add any new skills, reasons, goals, traits, or ways of caring for patients.

Tips for writing a personal nursing philosophy

You can write your own nursing philosophy statement with the help of these other tips:

Keep it brief

Write your statement in one to three lines to help you remember it and use it in nursing interviews.

Make it possible to do
If you use active verbs, you will be more likely to follow your theory step by step.

Please write down your nurse philosophy statement and put it somewhere you can easily find it, like your work locker or desk.

How to format a nursing philosophy essay

Personal philosophy statements could be for a project, a job application, or a scholarship. In the beginning of your nursing philosophy paper, you should write a philosophy statement that shows what you believe and what you value.

Find out what is important to you based on what you value and what you believe. Turn your points or important people and events in your life or those you have met. How have these things affected you? Also, think about what you want to study and do for a living. Why did you choose this field?

Plan out your ideas. Write the beginning of your statement of personal thought. Start by making sure you know who you are. Tell a short story about an important person or event, or give a famous quote, and then talk about how it fits into your theory.

In each part of your outline, write a paragraph with a theme’s topic sentence and details to back it up. Leave your readers with a lasting image and a paragraph that sums up your overall point of view.

Follow the framework below if you want to know how to write a personal nursing philosophy essay.

Step 1

Start by saying what you think nursing is all about.

This is a personal definition of what nursing means to you, not a formal meaning. Explain why you think that in your answer.

Step 2

Use a story or an event to back up your ideals and skills.

Step 3

Talk about how you want your nursing to change the world or community around you.

Step 4

In the end, talk about your most important beliefs, traits, and skills. If you can, show how your traits relate to things you have done or things you have learned.

Example of a nursing philosophy

From the start of nursing school, you will learn about the ethics and values of nursing. However, there will come a time when you will have to decide what you value most and how to work that into your job as a nurse.

You may have heard of nursing theories, but you might not know how to come up with your own. Have you asked me how I come up with my own nursing philosophy and what are some good examples of nursing philosophy? This piece will give you some ideas about nursing models and philosophies that will help you make your own.

What are the critical elements of a personal nursing philosophy

There are many parts to the philosophy of nursing, but the most important ones are information, role, process, and values.

Knowledge

Most of your knowledge comes from your classroom and clinical situations and how they help you do your job as a nurse.

Role

The part puts the focus on your responsibility to the patient and to your job as a nurse.

Process

This is how nurses use the implementation and change method when they need to. The nursing philosophy process takes into account the nurse’s duty to use the nursing process in a way that continues to help the patient.

Values

These are the things you think and feel about right and wrong and how you should act. They could be personal problems or work problems. Cultural and social, private, and relationship needs are some of the things that affect them.

Examples of a personal nursing theory

Here are some examples of personal nursing philosophies that you can use to help you write your own.

Different nurses may have different ideas about what nursing theory is. The way a nurse does her job depends on her skill, her work experience, and her desire to do a certain job.

At the beginning of your job, it may be hard to figure out what your own nursing philosophy is. The more experience you get, the easier it will be to talk about your personal and professional ideals.

Check out the examples of nursing philosophies below and how they connect to the type of nursing they are made for.

Example of a nursing theory for nursing students

“My opinion about nursing is that it is both a calling and a job. It is only for people who really want to use their skills and knowledge to serve and help others. I promise to be the best nurse, and I will spend my whole career making other people’s lives better by giving them the best care I can.

Example of a nursing mindset for new nurses

“My opinion about nursing is that it takes a hard-working, selfless person to make a difference in people’s lives and make them better. I will set myself up professionally with the skills and information I learned in nursing school. Am sure that if I work hard on my personal and intellectual growth, I can make a difference in the nursing field and help my patients and their families.

Registered nurses can see an example of a nursing theory

“As a registered nurse, I think that the care I give should be more than just treatment and giving drugs. I want to treat my patients with respect and make them feel at ease and confidence in the care I give them.”

Example of a nursing theory for pediatric nurses

“I knew I wanted to be a pediatric nurse because I wanted to take care of kids and teens. I know that by giving caring and relational care, I can make a difference in the lives of my patients and their loved ones.”

An example of a nursing theory for psychiatric nurses

“The fact that a member of my family has schizophrenia led me to be interested in mental nursing. The more I learned, the more I was sure it was important to have skilled nurses who patients can relate to and feel safe going to when they need help.

My theory is based on the idea that, as the kind of nurse my family needs when they have mental health problems, I can and will help my patients take care of their health.

Example of a nursing theory for neonatal nurses

“I feel a strong link to neonatal care because my niece was in the hospital for months after she was born. We were out of the hospital for a long time, and the care we got as her family made me want to become a nurse, especially a neonatal nurse. My nursing attitude is that I should speak up for people who can not speak for themselves.

I want to use my skills and desire to help my patients, make their families feel better, and teach them. I also want to be a strong part of the neonatal nurse team to make a great group of caregivers.”

Example of a nursing theory for ICU nurses

“I think that people who need intensive care should get the best care possible. This is why I decided to become an ICU nurse. My nursing theory is that every patient, no matter what the prognosis, deserves to be cared for well by a nurse who loves their job. I plan to give my patients and their families that kind of care.”

Example of a nursing theory for delivery nurses

“My nursing theory is based on how it felt to have a good nurse with me while I was in labor and giving birth to my child. Having someone there with me was a good thing. I want to give my patients the same kind of experience. I want to be the same kind of caring supporter and use my job skills to make their experience as good as mine, or even better.

Bottom line

A nursing practitioner’s personal nursing philosophy is a set of views, values, and moral decisions that they live by. It is generally made to fit the needs and tastes of the person who wants it. The nursing ideas you use have a big effect on your own nursing philosophy.

Nurses face both physical and emotional challenges every day, and your unique philosophy is what guides you. When you are having trouble with things like burnout and pressure at work, your nursing attitude is what keeps you going.