Metaparadigms.
Discussion #1
Metaparadigms are abstract ideas of a discipline that help to determine what makes established the unique domain (Peterson & Bredow, 2017). This is basically general concepts that make up the discipline of nursing. Patient, nurse, health, and environment are all vital parts of nursing and are considered the basic metaparadigms of nursing Two additional concepts that are relevant to my personal practice of nursing is technology and education.
Although there are still hospitals that are not completely paperless charting, majority of hospitals are completely electronic. Technology’s role in nursing and patient care continues to increase requiring nurses to become more tech savvy. Nurses must be able to utilize the charting software as well as be able to maneuver through the software effortlessly. Many hospitals have charting software that interlinks with the accudose and vital machine. These advances allow for effortless information integration. Utilization of technology can benefit nurses by allowing for interventions suggested by nursing informatics (Francis, 2017). Technology is important to my practice as I use it often to look up medications, check intravenous compatibility reports, generate patient care plans, and review information that is written by different disciplines.
The second additional concept is education. Education plays a huge role in nursing. Nurses education patients, staff and new nurses. I think education is important to my practice as I spend a great deal of time educating patients on self-care. On my unit, most of patients have new ostomies. Patients with new ostomies require emotional support but also education that starts as soon as the patient arrives to the unit. The whole field of nursing is constantly learning by completing required CEUs, new technological advances, new evidence-based practices. Both education and technology play important roles in nursing.
Two concepts that are relevant to my personal practice of nursing and how they relate to my practice and why they are important to my practice. One relevant concept is personal knowledge, and the other is aesthetic. Both of these are derived from a larger concept which is intuition.
I believe personal knowledge is relevant to my personal practice for a few reasons. “Knowledge and attitudes derived from personal self-understanding and empathy, including imagining the self in the patient’s position” (Robert, Tilley, & Petersen, 2014). My practice is not just about the book knowledge or even the hands on skills. It’s also about being able to put myself in someone’s shoes. This is important in order to practice from a holistic approach. People are human first. They are not their sickness. We have to explore what may be troubling them mentally, emotionally, and spiritually to gain the best outcome for them. People’s personal problems always affects their health. So it’s my responsibility as a nurse to ensure that these things are not overlooked. I play advocate when I refer them to someone who can help if what they are suffering from is outside my scope of practice.
Aesthetic is another concept that is important to my practice. “Aesthetic. Awareness of the current situation, seated in immediate practical action, including awareness of the patient and his or her circumstances as uniquely individual, and of the combined wholeness of the situation” (Robert, Tilley, & Petersen, 2014). Again this is looking at the whole person and not just their problems. Only with aesthetic, I have to go a step further and look at their surroundings. Is the patient in a safe environment? Do they have someone who is abusing them? The abuse can be verbal, emotional, financial, etc. It’s my responsibility as a nurse to ensure my patients our safe. I have to report any issues to the proper authorities should I suspect something. It’s my job to provide an environment where people feel like they can be open and honest with their abuse. Just reporting to the proper authorities is not enough. I have to play advocate and help set them up with services that can help them with anything that they should need after being removed from that environment. Those services could include a shelter, therapy, etc.
Both of the previous concepts were derived from intuition. It’s something important to have in practice. One night when I was working at the hospital I had gotten report on a patient whose status had started to change during the day. The nurse told me they were just monitoring him. During my shift however, he started shows signs of seizure activity. He was non verbal and couldn’t tell anyone what he was feeling, but I knew what was going on. I told everyone I could to try to get him treated for his seizure activity. The only person who believed me for the first few hours of my shift was my charge nurse. Finally we got someone from the neuro department to check him out, and sure enough she verified what I had observed. The doctor gave new orders to treat him. I was “only a nurse” to all of the other people I reported his condition to. I knew however that I had to be his advocate and get him help. I’m glad that I did. Who knows what could have happened to him if I didn’t.
