Reflection on Careful Nursing (ANSWERED)

QUESTION

Purpose:

The purpose of this discussion is for learners to apply lessons from careful nursing to the original time period and to today’s practice.

Course Outcomes:

This reflection enables the student to meet the following course outcome:

CO2: Apply lessons from nursing history to today’s professional nursing practice. (PO4)

Due Date

During the assigned week (Sunday the start of the assigned week through Sunday the end of the assigned week):
- Posts in the discussion at least two times, and
- Posts in the discussion on two different days

Points Possible

50 points

Directions

Reflection is an activity that involves your deep thought into your own experiences related to the concepts of the week. Answers should be detailed. In reflections students:
- Demonstrate understanding of concepts for the week
- Engage in meaningful dialogue with classmates and/or instructor
- Express opinions clearly and logically, in a professional manner
Use the rubric on this page as you compose your answers.
Scholarly sources are NOT required for this reflection
Best Practices include:
- Participation early in the week is encouraged to stimulate meaningful discussion among classmates and instructor.
- Enter the reflection often during the week to read and learn from posts.
- Select different classmates for your reply each week.

Reflection Question

Catherine McAuley’s philosophy of careful nursing was applicable in pre-Nightingale times and is still applicable today. Select one of the 10 key concepts of careful nursing. Reflect on how that concept might have been applied in McAuley’s time and how it is applied in your professional nursing practice today.

ANSWER

Reflection on Careful Nursing

One of the key concepts of careful nursing is “perfect skill in fostering safety and comfort.” Meehan (2012) described the concept as nurses’ careful attention to all elements of patient care and precision in care processes, e.g., making accurate diagnoses, administering appropriate nursing interventions, preventing faults, etc. The concept also required nurses to recognize the impact of emotions on the body and be attentive to patients, especially those approaching death, to ensure they receive comfort and ease.

During McAuley’s time, nurses fostered safety and comfort by providing patients with physical care and emotional support. Meehan (2003) indicates that comfort was provided through religious and spiritual guidance, while safety was provided through promoting cleanliness, paying meticulous attention to all aspects of patient care, and constant vigilance and observation of the patients.

The contemporary nursing practice applies similar strategies to foster patient safety and comfort. Interventions such as mindful practice and mindfulness-based meditation have been widely adopted to enhance patient safety. Mindfulness is an awareness that stems from purposefully paying attention to the present moment while practicing. Like McAuley’s time, these interventions emphasize paying meticulous attention to the care process to promote patient safety. Various studies have shown that mindfulness-based practice helps improve practitioners’ well-being by reducing emotional and cognitive stressors (Galante et al., 2021). Consequently, the practitioners are better able to pay attention or concentrate on patient care processes, reducing medical errors. The reduction of medical errors helps promote patient safety.

Contemporary nursing practice does not depend on spiritual means to provide consolation and comfort to patients. During McAuley’s time, dying patients were comforted through religious and spiritual guidance, but dying patients today are supported through palliative care. Contemporary nurses also use counseling, social support, or referrals to specialists to provide emotional consolation, unlike McAuley’s time, when religion was the only method of dealing with distress.

References

Galante, J., Friedrich, C., Dawson, A. F., Modrego-Alarcón, M., Gebbing, P., Delgado-Suárez, I., Gupta, R., Dean, L., Dalgleish, T., White, I. R., & Jones, P. B. (2021). Mindfulness-based programmes for mental health promotion in adults in nonclinical settings: A systematic review and meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials. PLOS Medicine, 18(1), e1003481. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1003481

Meehan, T. (2012). The Careful Nursing philosophy and professional practice model. Journal of Clinical Nursing, 21, 2905–2916, doi: 10.1111/j.1365- 2702.2012.04214.x

Meehan, T. (2003). Careful nursing: a model for contemporary nursing practice. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 44(1), 99–107. https://www.chausa.org/docs/default-source/general-files/contemporary_nursing_practice_model-pdf.pdf?sfvrsn=0