Person Nursing Philosophy

Alli Lenzendorf
Columbia College of Nursing

PERSONAL NURSING PHILOSOPHY

This semester I have learned many things that have shaped my personal nursing
philosophy. Before this semester, I believed a nurse is a hardworking individual who is caring
and help those in need. Now seeing first hand nurses work, I know it is much more than that. I
would define a nurse as someone who serves individuals, families and communities with
compassion and professionalism to prevent, treat, and heal illnesses by caring for the mind, body
and spirit. I base this definition off of my values and influences of care. As an aspiring nurse, I
value empathy, selflessness, self-awareness, communication and honesty. I plan to take my
values and shape my practice around evidence based research, patient advocacy and therapeutic
communication. The values I hold will help me as a nurse become the best I can to my ability
with keeping these three aspects of practice as examples. I will further explain how my holistic
view of care and Carl Rogers theory of client-centered therapy, have shaped my personal
nursing philosophy.
My three aspects intertwine together to make my nursing philosophy and my values and
personality will help me provide the optimal care in my practice. First, evidence based research
is important because it facilitates patient safety. In order to give the best care, I want to use my
resources from my education, personal experiences and research to make interventions that will
guide me toward desired patient outcomes. A personality trait of mine that will help me make
decisions is my self-awareness. Becoming aware of my own beliefs and values can help me
distinguish between any discrepancies before I would make a decision based on my emotions.
Self-awareness is also helpful when communicating with patients. I believe a crucial part of care
is therapeutically communicating with patients. Important information can be gathered from
therapeutically communicating and trust can be built. Trust becomes essential for the nursepatient relationship. Problems can be discovered and the sooner problems are discovered, the

PERSONAL NURSING PHILOSOPHY

quicker solutions can be found. I believe the therapeutic relationship between patient and nurse is
a special one that enables positive interactions to help optimal health be attained. The nurse and
patient relationship is inseparable because without one or the other, therapeutic communication
cannot happen. Both parties have to work together to reach patient goals. My personality is
naturally compassionate for others and part of building trust is letting patients know you
genuinely care about their health and wellbeing. I believe this will help me therapeutically
communicate with patients and be a patient advocate. Being a patient advocate means doing
things while keeping the patient in mind. This will be important to my nursing practice because
giving nonjudgmental will give them the opportunity to become comfortable and trusting.
Empowering them to be part of their care and allowing them to make informed decisions will
allow for a smoother and more comfortable process. These three aspects have guided my
philosophy of care and have been influenced by Carl Rogers theory of client-centered therapy.
My desire to help those in need goes beyond their physical needs. I am someone who
tries to assess the patients other needs after their immediate medical needs are met. I was never
into alternative medicine or thought much of holistic view of care until I took a complimentary
and alternative course my sophomore year in college for a liberal arts class. I learned the benefits
of trying other methods of healing and it opened my eyes to how much medical diagnosis are
stressed and how there are so many more needs than physical the body needs in order for optimal
health. My practice is influenced by holistic care and Carl Rogers theory of client-centered
therapy and believe looking at each patient as an individual, will help plan care for the patient.
Using his theory, as a nurse I can learn how the patient is feeling and perceiving their care. Carl
Rogers was one of the fathers of the human potential movement. This movement emphasizes
self-realization through sensitivity training, encounter groups and other exercises initiated to

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foster personal growth. (392, Weiten) This is important to incorporate in care because I believe
therapeutic communication is important in the healing process and aids physical healing. When
caring for patients, I know I need to look at them as individuals with different needs emotionally,
physically, and spiritually. Incongruence is the degree of disparity between ones self-concept
and ones actual experience. (392,Weiten) Seeing incongruence in an individual may mean there
is more intervention, teaching, or assessment needed. For example, if a patient thinks they eat
well and have hypertension, as a nurse there should be further investigation with what their
thoughts on eating well means. Finding their own typical behaviors and unique qualities can give
the provider a better picture of where problems occur and assist the provider in finding a
solution.
By combining my core values and influence of Carl Rogers humanistic view and holistic
care, I have formed my personal nursing philosophy. In this one semester, I have learned so
much about myself, my goals, the nursing profession and patient-nurse relationship that it leads
me to believe my nursing philosophy will change and evolve over time. I have confidence that
my core values will stay the same and over the next semesters I can build off of my current
nursing philosophy and experiences to grow as an individual and a nurse.

PERSONAL NURSING PHILOSOPHY

References
Weiten,W.,&Weiten,W.(2002).Psychology:Themesandvariations:Brieferversion(5thed.).
Belmont,CA:Wadsworth/ThomsonLearning.
Craven,R.(2007)Fundamentalsofnursing:Humanhealthandfunction(5thed.).Philadelphia:
LippincottWilliams&Wilkins.