Attributes and Values in Nursing

My Main Attribute to Nursing
Values and Attributes are what makes a nurse a good nurse or a bad nurse.

During my evaluation of my core values, I discovered that the main attribute that I consider consistent with my values is a trusting attitude and helping attitude with your families and patients. My values were focusing on trustworthiness and dependability and I believe that is what your patients and families look for most when evaluating a nurse and her care. When I introduce myself to my patients and their families, I let them know right upfront that they can trust me and depend on me. Before I even give myself time to get to know them, I put my trust and faith in them and would go out of my way for them. As long as the trust and honesty remain a factor during the course of care, I remain dependable and trustworthy. However, if they break that trust by trying to pull a fast one on me or lying to me about important issues, I become very reluctant to put myself on the line for them. My trust and dependability are the most important to me when caring for patients and when I am a patient. I expect total honesty and dependability from my health care team as well. Once that trust is broken, it is very difficult to get it back. This tends to put a lot of friction between patients and their nurses. This is where the fact that even if you are having trust issues, your job is still to care for that patient and be his/her advocate. The patient may have a lot of issues that made the situation a bad one and it is still your job to work with that patient and provide them with the best care available.

Leadership and Attributes

This attribute is very good in leadership because you have the ability to put your feelings aside and still remain neutral and dependable to your patients. Knowing that most of the problems that you face with your patients is usually the reason they are in the hospital in the first place and that it is up to you as a nurse to see these signs and intervene when appropriate with the appropriate people. This attribute will contribute to my leadership skills as a valuable resource to my students and the future of nursing. Teaching my students the value of a patient's trust and nurses trust is something that must be done by someone who really believes this is an attribute. There isn't a lot of you can do your patient if your don't feel like you can help them through some bad situations. Take for instance a drug seeking patient is on the unit and keeps insisting he is in pain and needs pain medication, you have been told by the day nurse that he is drug seeking and doesn't really need it. Now you can take this nurses word for it or go evaluate and assess the patient and form your own opinion. Even if you find this patient is a drug-seeking patient, it is still your responsibility to intervene and help this patient through this situation. Contacting the right personnel and resources to assist this patient into getting help. Using this attribute in my leadership skills and with my teaching influence will hopefully help other nurses and future nurses realize what they need to do as nurses and not always take the word of other nurses or personnel who have formed a bad opinion of a patient who is obviously crying for help. (Grossman & Valiga, 2005)

Further Development of My Attributes

Sometimes when I am caring for patients who I have cared for in the past and their behavior has not changed for the better and a lot of the same dishonesty is evident, I tend to have to stop myself and remind myself that it is important that I stay neutral and remain dependable to my patient and provide the care and services they need. Normally the patients that are returning frequently you just tend to loose faith in after a while and sometimes want to give up on. But I sit back and take a good look around and think what if that was me and I just had a very hard life and could not get things right no matter what has been done for me or who has helped me? Could I just change that easily or would it take a long time for me to want to do something good for myself and make the changes necessary? I feel very bad for patients who are caught up in a life that they refuse to change for the better, and sometimes, its just because they can't and they don't know anything else. These classes and assignments are very good for keeping in touch with your values and attributes. These are definitely something I want to take with me to my classes when I begin to teach and make sure my students are very well informed about how important your values and attributes are when you are caring for your patients and families.

References

Health & Health Care 2010: The Forecast, The ChallengeWilson, J. C. (2001).

Gwyther, L.P., George, L.K (1986). Caregiver Well-Being: A multidimensional examination of family.

Philadelphia: F. A. Davis Company (2004) The new leadership challenge: Creating the future of nursing (2nd ed., pp. 121-142).