Nursing Tenets

Nursing philosophy pivots on the individual, the health care environment, health and illness, and nursing. According to Salsberry, (1994, p. 11), "A philosophy of nursing is a guide or framework for the discipline." Gortner (1990) further states, "Nursing philosophy represents the belief system of the profession" (Salsberry, 1994, p. 11). A nurse's philosophy of nursing is what guides her when she is making decisions about the care of her patients, and it incorporates her ethics, her reasons for being a nurse, what she hopes to accomplish in her nursing, and how she believes she can best accomplish her objectives. A U.K. nursing student reflects that when she decided to become a nurse, she was "attracted to a job that involved talking to people, making them more comfortable and helping them get better" (McCormack, 2007). Similarly, every nurse needs to know why she has chosen nursing as a profession and what her beliefs are with respect to health care in general, health and illness, and her patients and her nursing approach in particular.

The nurse as an individual brings her own background, ethics, skills, beliefs, and training to her job, and as such she is the unique product of multiple factors. Just like individuals in other professions, nurses have differing talents and skills that should be taken into consideration both in their choice of position and in their nursing philosophy. Some nurse

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th care environment allows her to be. For example, if the hospital where a nurse works is understaffed, even a nurse of superior skill finds it difficult to deliver outstanding work. If the hospital's procedures are poorly designed or its equipment is outdated, the nurse will find herself laboring to achieve excellence rather than finding that her environment facilitates excellence. When the health care industry as a whole suffers from low standards or other issues, those standards and issues affect every nurse in the profession at some level, as they can all affect the quality of care. More importantly, the health care environment influences health at several levels. The quality of care is instrumental in the patient's recovery, and old equipment, overtaxed nurses, and faulty procedures can all result in a lower standard of care as well as a greater risk of error. Health and Illness The nurse's philosophy must address how she looks at health and illness and how she relates one to the other. Health is the proper functioning of the body to maintain stability and balance in bodily processes and homeostasis. There is more than that to complete wellness, however, as the patient's feeling of comfort a

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