Earlier in life, my dream has been to become a nurse based on my strong desire to care and provide for peoples needs. I grew up in a medical family with my mum as registered nurse and my elder brother a paramedic. After several applications into a number of nursing institutions, I was accepted into a baccalaureate nursing institution to obtain a degree in nursing.
Now that I am into the nursing profession I have always dreamt of, every opportunity I have to serve people I do it with empathy and compassion. I have been able to understanding that for me to become very effective as a nurse, patients must be able to access quality health care services at the right time. I have acquired relevant knowledge and skills in my nursing carrier pursuit which also brought about positive changes in my personal life too. My understanding of this profession has brought me into better understanding of theories that explain the logics behind the behaviors of patients I attend to.
I believe that as I advance in the nursing profession, I will acquire even more skills relevant to the medical profession. If it does not add value to my clinical judgment, I consider patients race, social status, and other affiliations of no significant value based on the fact that each person deserves and has the right to good healthcare services irrespective of who they are. Each patient deserves my respect, attention and professionalism no matter who they are and where they come from. I also understand that my ability to effectively attend to patients is not a function of the monetary benefits but based on the requirement for ethical values associated with the nursing profession. Therefore, I have positioned myself as an effective and valuable member of the healthcare team wherever I find myself. However, this paper will identify and discuss the four metaparadigms as well as two practice-specific concepts related to the metaparadigms. Also, some propositions or assumptions that clearly connect those concepts will be discussed in the paper.
As noted earlier, nursing is a professional discipline that requires that patients should have access to personalized quality health care service at the appropriate time in order to satisfy individual health care needs of the patients. As such, I have decided to always provide nursing services based on the four basic metaparadigms which are universally relevant to the profession. The metaparadigms: patient, nurse, health and environment are concepts that are considered as the backbones or fundamental components of the nursing profession to which all nursing can refer to as a guide for making their clinical judgments. Several researchers derived different perspectives of the metaparadigms in relation to how they affect the patients wellbeing and their medical status at any given time. Hence, the metaparadigms will be discussed next while sharing my personal experience on how they relate to each other, affecting the wellbeing of the patients.
The patient component of the metaparadigms lays emphasis on the individual patients health care, spiritual and most importantly his/her social needs as related to family ties and other groups the patient regards as important. The health status of any patient is determined by the complex interaction between the patients physical and social aspects of life. Through my nursing practice I discovered that in most cases patients speed of recovery is also affected by their low-esteem or stress. As such, whenever I notice that my patients are not at ease, I try as much as possible to take personal initiative to make them comfortable using holistic healthcare approach which at the end helps them to become calm and comfortable. Assessing their needs and individual profile provides a base for respecting their uniqueness and perspectives to life. In the course of living, people are defined according to their effortless acquisition of self-knowledge. As such, there are major aspects of understanding that individuals are influenced by their temporalities, personal concerns, situations and their bodys genetic make-up. Therefore, in providing health care services, individuals and their personal concerns should be rightly considered and respected.
The nursing component of the metaparadigms involves the method of delivering quality health care services to patients for optimal health results. This includes but no limited to the actions taken right from the time the patient arrives the health care system to the time of his/her departure. The main responsibility of nurses is to promote, protect and preserve human dignity. They help patients through enhanced their therapeutic management and interpersonal relations skills in order to promote the health and well-being of their patients.
Nursing is a carrier that is based on both academic discipline and professional practice. As such, it is guided by the values of human freedom, their choices and the responsibilities attached to them. As a nurse, it is necessary to apply critical thinking as an integral part of the practice as a guide to making appropriate decisions in order to achieve a healthy life. Personally, I have been able to apply critical thinking in my practice which has guided me in making the right judgments in providing evidence-based health care services to patients. Nevertheless, as a nursing practitioner, source my power from caring for people and with that I have the ability to act autonomously to empower patients through sharing and being part of their experiences and transferring some knowledge unto them. Hence, I incorporate all my core values which include control over practice, mastery of scope and commitment in order to achieve the required health care standard.
Health refers to the general well-being of a person. An individual may be predisposed to particular diseases due to his/her genetic make-up but what majorly determines the occurrence of the disease is the secondary interactions with other factors. Those factors may heighten the risk of the occurrence, leading to disease infection. However, it is possible for individuals to not perceive themselves as ill especially during the asymptomatic stage. Such situations occur based on the fact that all individuals have different inherent approach to stress and coping. The understanding of health, illness and wellness is very significant in the practice of nursing. This understanding has helped me to understand the relevance of placebos in restoring the health of patients who are ill but with no disease. I have also understood that health is a relative term and not an absolute one. For instance, something might be healthy for an individual may be unhealthy for another individual.
This metaparadigm is focused on the way the health of an individual is influenced by their interactions with the general surrounding. This interaction could either be internal or external. In addition to the physical environment such as geographical location, economic, technological, cultural and social aspects of the environment all have significant influence on the well-being of patients. The environment, including the earth resources play a vital role in shaping behaviors help in positively influence healthy living by encouraging patients to try to cope with those environmental factors that that influence their health. As such, there are three adaptation levels for individuals namely: compensatory, integrated and comprised life processes. It is generally believed that human beings have the ability to develop in the external environment while they acquire from the internal environment the energy that enables patients to cope with external environmental changes. Environment as a metapradigm of the nursing profession has helped me to focus both on my perspectives and that of my patients in order to meet their health care needs. I do this through effectively interacting with the patients which helps me to achieve the shared goal of the patients recovery.
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Some of the practice-specific concepts in the nursing carrier are evidence-informed practice and health promotion as will be discussed below:
Evidence-informed nursing practice refers to the practice that integrates patient values and clinical expertise with the best available research evidence. It is always recommended that nurses should provide medical interventions that are in accordance with the already existing professional evidences. Some nurses work with assumptions which sometimes do not produce the required results. Every decision taken by a nurse in providing health care service should have been tested and proven, even though there is room for placebo. Apparently, in the health profession, evidence-based practice boosts the image of those that practice it because they can easily justify the services delivered to patients based on the global standard. It reduces wastage of resources through irrelevant and ineffective health care interventions.
This concept involves creating awareness for people, especially medical practitioners to become more interactive with people suffering from chronic illnesses in order to improve their well-being. Health promotion is very significant in improving the well-being of patients and a nation at large. Chronic illnesses have negative impact on the well-being of the patients, thereby affect the economy. This awareness also helps patients with chronic illnesses by restoring their hope to live. Some patients that suffer chronic illnesses without medications tend to give up on life but relevant health awareness campaigns can renew their hopes. In this health promotion campaign, patients should be made to understand how relevant it for them to be involved in decision-making processes regarding their health. As such, as a nursing practitioner, ensure that patients are involved in decision-making concerning their health in order to generate some level of satisfaction in them which in turn tends to provide some relieve for them.
The propositions in this segment are a structural element of a theory that proposes in it how concepts relate to each other. Based on the earlier discussed metaparadigms, I have derived the following propositions:
In conclusion, the fundamental commitments and beliefs in the nursing profession provide room for both creating and sustaining a healthy living. In addition to providing health care service and saving lives, I have acquired relevant knowledge and skills in my nursing carrier pursuit which caused positive changes in my personal life too. My understanding of this profession has brought me into better understanding of theories that explain the dynamics behind the behavioral patterns of patients. In this paper I discussed some fundamental concepts in health care service delivery in improving the well-being of patients. As a nursing professional, I discussed the four metaparadigms in nursing and how they interact with each other in ensuring that nurses meet the health care needs of their patients. Also, some of the practice-specific concepts in the nursing carrier as discussed earlier are evidence-informed practice and health promotion. Some propositions were also listed in the paper, all aimed at providing quality health care services.