Reflection on Nursing Experience
The debate about what nursing entails has raged fiercely for years, and the solution has always remained on the healthcare providers. Nursing is about the provision of individual care according to how you perceive it. According to Roberts (2015), the best guide to the provision of nursing care is a personal philosophy because it defines the success and shortcomings of the care provided. As I sit down reflecting on my psychiatric nursing experience, my philosophy gives me an encouragement that I will reach my destination. Provision of holistic care to the patients and best nursing practices to promote the safety of the patients defines my philosophy. As a psychiatric nurse, I am surrounded with people who have altered mental status that needs care and every day as I report to work I pray that the Almighty will give me the strength to perform my duties. I did find it difficult at the start being around patients that hyperactivity behaviors, mood alterations, and suicidal attempts. I came to accept that nursing is my job, and those people need specialized care that I can provide.
Reflective nursing has kept me moving throughout my profession. Every day I take some time off my duty and look at what I achieved. Through reflective nursing, I can identify mistakes and areas of success in the nursing care provided. I have come to learn that compassion and love for the patients promote healing. Some of the psychiatric patients need someone to talk to, a person that can be trusted with their encounters and truthfully, I have been that nurse. Sometimes nursing becomes tedious as one has to watch over patients every time. Burnout can occur when work becomes intense (Roberts, 2015). In my career, I try as much as possible to speak out, read, research and simplify work so that it doesn’t affect healthcare delivery. I have been angered by patients and co-workers but my philosophy and experience counters the problems experienced. The experience I have in nursing has shaped me into becoming a hardworking, truthful, caring and philosophical nurse I am today.
Nursing theories by Dorothea Orem, Callista Roy, and Betty Neuman guide nurses in healthcare delivery to the patients. Dorothea Orem talks about self-care deficit, and she defines nursing as an act of assisting others in management and provision of self-care to maintain functionality (Duffy, 2016). I agree with Orem that self-care in patients becomes difficult since their health is affected. In psychiatry, patients are encouraged to perform tasks under supervision because of the altered mental status. Self-care requisites like intake of food, air, and elimination are done by patients. Assistance by the nurse should focus on activities like care post-surgery, acquisition of medication and security.
Sister Callista Roy’s model of adaptation sees patients or individuals as bio-psychosocial beings that are in constant interaction with the environment. Roy says that health is an inevitable dimension of a person’s life (Duffy, 2016). When I study Roy’s model, I observe that the surrounding promotes healing. People get well because they interact with self, others and the unknown. Psychiatric nursing should focus on Roy’s model because the patient is in constant interaction with the nurses, doctors and other patients. Betty Neuman developed the systems model that talks about the individual relationship to stress. It focuses on the use of primary, secondary and tertiary nursing prevention intervention for maintenance of patient’s wellness. I acknowledge Betty’s model in the perspective that each patient is unique and care should be individualized to minimize stress.
References
Duffy, J. R. (2016). Professional practice models in nursing: Successful health system integration.
Roberts, M. (2015). Critical thinking and reflection for mental health nursing students.
