THE individual philosophy of nurses as to their practice is the ultimate reason that brings them the passion to be nurses.
Philosophy is important because it is a natural extension of their interest in truth (Scruton 20050). In other words, a philosophy of nursing is an approach to nursing, usually created by individual nurses in their own daily practice in the field (Petiprin, 2016).
Hence, I would like to share to you the three principles that guide careful nursing. It was derived from what 19th century Irish nurses thought was true about nursing and was well presented by Therese Meehan RGN, Ph.D., that later became one of the bases for nurses to practice careful nursing prudently.
The first one is about the nature and inherent dignity of the human person. The human person is composed of two realities, a living physical body and a psycho-spiritual, metaphysical body. These forms or bodies are not thought to be different or separate from each other rather, these are unified concepts that comprise the human person. The living physical body is the direct recipient of physical care in the practice of nursing whenever interventions seek to maintain optimum functioning of the physical body i.e. our patient’s physical wellbeing.
Knowing the nature and inherent dignity of the human person, nurses tend to give most respect to this philosophical truth in all procedures.
Always providing, while still maintaining the patient’s dignity at all times, with their own dignity in the back of their minds for dignity is innate in the human person (Meehan, 2015).
The second one is about the Infinite Transcendent Reality in life processes. There is that hovering reality of great magnitude that envelopes human experience but only in certain events where one could live it.
In a moment of silence, one of these moments include an instance of being loved or seeing love given by another to someone else, an immaculate smile of an infant, the brushing of the wind against a warm cheek, ecstasy of music or the sight of great altruism towards the oppressed.
This experience is limitless. This omniscient and omnipotent reality is spiritual as it is the source of everything spiritual. Meehan (2015) term it as God but emphasized that it is not experienced in the exclusiveness of religion since some others prefer not to be entangled with any religion but still are spiritual since spirituality is in the very nature of the human person.
This reality is the source of overall goodness, compassion, love, understanding and self-sacrifice which are all assets of the nursing practice. It is the First Mover, as Aquinas termed it, the initiator which started everything good in the entire existence of the universe.
Third is about Health as Human Flourishing. For every human action and experience there is an ultimate purpose and that is to attain a transcendent state, as Aristotle would put it, happiness, living well or eudaimonia which could be synonymous to optimum health (Kemerling, 1997).
It could then be said that this is in congruence with the goal of the nurse-patient relationship. Every nurse would seek to aid the patient towards independence and self-actualization of being ultimately healthy against any adversity. This is the essence of health as human flourishing. The human person must be in a certain environment and atmosphere that is conducive to this certain kind of nourishing. The patient, regardless of the state of his or her illness, especially at the state of vulnerability, should be provided an environment that would help nourish him or her.
In the nurse-patient relationship, the nurse, in order to be able to provide such environment must be wary of the nature of the human person.
The nurse must keep in mind that the patient has an inherent dignity and the needs of the living and psycho-spiritual bodies that are to be satisfied. There would also be the need to invoke the help of the Infinite Transcendent Reality because such attainment of the ultimate goal could only be achieved with its help and presence for it is the source of all good and the Prime Mover of every action.
Only with such appreciation of an Infinite Transcendent Reality may the nurse and the patient find meaning in themselves and in the relationship that which could make them fully understand the essence of the relationship and the meaning of the heath as human flourishing.
