Nursing Theory and Philosophy opened my eyes to the variety of perspectives employed by different nurses through the course of nursing history to in order to provide better patient care and to develop and sustain working nursing models. Nursing models are powerful tools that can be used to develop strategies for care. They give nurses a base from which to operate and the thoughtful fuel needed to develop their own personal theories of care. While some models may be more practical in nature, others aim towards loftier goals and seek to meet higher spiritual or emotional considerations that may justify or explain the motivation for nurses to perform their duties overall. These ‘grand theories of nursing’ were of greater interest to me through the study of the nursing theorists or philosophers and thus, when I was asked to develop my own personal philosophy of nursing it seemed to express itself more abstractly after those theories.    

     My nursing philosophy or theory was a combination of ideas that developed around the central concept of nursing as needing to be necessarily holistic in nature. I expressed my theory based on four different archetypes: the physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual. These archetypes addressed the questions of why and how I personally approach the act of nursing, as the act of nursing is more important to me, I think, than the profession of nursing – although neither exists without the other. I believe that in the end, what I had really done is explained and come to understand a deeper part of myself, through the description of my nursing philosophy, which enveloped the many processes which led me to become a nurse and sustains me in continuing the compassionate role of the nurse.     

     The development of my nursing philosophy was an important part of the coursework I accomplished over the semester in Nursing Theory and Philosophy. However, the didactic learning process would not have been complete if I had not also spent time with a critical review of another nurse’s philosophy that I ended up relating with quite well. For my part of the group project I worked on, I was given nursing theorist Dorothy Johnson who developed the ‘Behavioral System Model’ of nursing. Learning more about her and her theory, went even further towards helping me to better understand my unique nursing process. In Johnson’s theory, human systems are affected through each person’s behavioral process and the nurse’s job is to modify the person’s behavior in order to lead that person to negentropy (Alligood, 2014). I believe this to be true and note that in many instances, peoples’ illnesses reflect the decisions they have made throughout the course of their lives, as my decision to go back to college led to me to obtain my nursing license.     

     Participating in Nursing Theory and Philosophy was more than completing assignments and working with a team to render a final, and comical, presentation towards the benefit of our classmates. It was an opportunity to reflect upon the ideas of those who came before me, to digest those concepts in order to use them to supplement or build upon my own unique concepts and experiences of what nursing really is to me. Thus, it is my opinion that theory and philosophy need to remain a fundamental aspect of the baccalaureate nursing curriculum. The ideas found within the course helps the nurse consider alternative viewpoints beyond what they might have considered before and encourages creative thought and inner reflection of what both the act and profession of nursing means individually.
 

References

Alligood, M. R. (2014 ). Nursing theorists and their work, 8th Ed. St. Louis, MO: Elsevier.