Essays on Definition of Nursing: A Foundation of Caring, Compassion, and an Art of Restoration

In actuality, the work of heath care professionals, especially nurses is extremely important and the effectiveness of their performance defines the effectiveness of health care services being delivered to patients. In such a situation, nurses should not only provide health care services of the high quality but also they should create effective, friendly, compassionate environment, in which patients could feel comfortable and which could facilitate the process of recovery of patients. However, this is exactly, where main problems arise because often nurses focus on their professional duties and on the treatment of patients solely paying little attention to communication with patients and to the development of positive interpersonal relationships with patients, which can help them to restore their health condition and recover, if they have serious health problems.

Definition of Terms

Nurse

Nurse is a health care professional providing nursing care for patients. Nurses may have different qualification and have different status but they perform their functions properly and assist physicians to provide nursing care for patients.

Patient

Patients are individuals having health problems, who need the treatment being conducted by health care professionals. Patients may have different health problems and different treatments. Therefore, health care professionals should find individual approach to each patient to provide them with health care of the high quality and to help them to recover fast and effectively to restore their health.

Health and environment

Health is the sum of conditions of an individual in terms of his/her physical, mental and psychological condition. Environment is social and physical surrounding of an individual (Benoff & Grauman, 1997). Health and environment are closely intertwined because health of individuals depends consistently on their environment, whereas environment can be limited by health of individuals. What is meant here is the fact that individuals may suffer from health problems that may limit the career development of an individual or his or her ability to travel. As a result, the individual will live and work in the limited environment. On the contrary, environment that is dangerous for human health may provoke the development of different diseases and deteriorate consistently the health of individuals.

Personal and professional values of a nurse

Personal and professional values of nurses define the effectiveness of their performance and affect services delivered by nurses to patients because their values have the direct impact on patients. To put it more precisely, personal values of nurses are important because they affect the development of their relations with patients. For instance, if health care professionals have different values compared to their patients they can offend their patients, although they will consider their behavior as a norm. Professional values set the high standards of the work of nurses (Limentani, 1999). In fact, health care professionals should have their professional values, which lay the foundation to their professional standards. In such a way, professional values of nurses lay the foundation to the standards of their work. Hence, professional values of nurses define the work of nurses and the quality of health care services delivered to patients. In such a way, personal values of nurses define the quality and effectiveness of their relations with patients for they can either create positive interpersonal relationships between nurses and patients or, in contrast, undermine the effectiveness of their relationships that will definitely deteriorate the effectiveness of treatment and nursing care at large. Professional values of nurses define the quality of nursing care services delivered to patients.

Examples from practice to support nursing values

At this point, it is possible to refer to some examples from practice to support nursing values. To put it more precisely, nurses should respect cultural values of patients. For instance, nurses should keep distance, which meets cultural requirements and norms of their patients. Obviously, if nurses keep too far from or too close to patients, patients will feel uncomfortable that may deteriorate the quality of health care services. Also, it is possible to refer to the example, when nurses underestimate the quality of their services. In such a situation, they cannot provide patients with health care services of the high quality because they do not believe the quality to be important.

Values to the Regis University mission

Obviously, personal and professional values are very important for health care professionals. They should learn basic professional and develop their personal values in the course of their education. In this regard, the Regis University can help future nurses to develop their professional and personal values because the university’s mission focuses not only on the professional but also personal development of students (Our Mission, 2011). The Regis University focuses on the moral values as fundamental for the professional development of its students. In such a way, the university helps to set fundamental values, on the ground of which future nurses can develop their professional and personal values.

Conclusion

Thus, it proves beyond a doubt that professional and personal values of nurses define the effectiveness and quality of their performance.