Chapter 1 - Chapter 2

• Profession


  An organization of an occupational group based on the application of special knowledge which establishes its own rules and standards for the protection of the public and the professionals
• Altruism


  Core value of profession which means selfless service
• Primary Characteristics/Criteria of a Profession

  • Education - Extended education of its members as well as basic liberal foundation
  • Theory - a profession must have a theoretical body of knowledge leading to defined skills, abilities and norms
  • Service - must be able to provide basic services
  • Autonomy - members of the profession have autonomy in decision making and in practice
  • Code of ethics - a profession as sufficient, self-impelling power to retain its members throughout life
  • Caring - The most unique characteristics of nursing as a profession
• Nursing


  A caring profession. It is practiced with an earnest concern for the art of care and the science of health
• Different definitions of nursing

  • An act utilizing the environment of the patient to assist him in his recovery (Nightingale)
  • Unique function of the nurse to assist the individuals sick or well in the performance of those activities contributing to the health or its recovery or to peaceful death or to help him gain independence (Henderson)
  • Nursing is a humanistic Science dedicated to compassionate concern with maintaining and promoting health and preventing illness and caring for and rehabilitating the sick and disabled (Rogers)
  • A theoretical system of knowledge that prescribes a process of analysis and action related to the care of the ill person (Roy)
  • An act of helping or assisting (Orem)
  • Helping profession, maintaining the dignity of the client until death (King)
• Four Major concepts in nursing theory

  • Person
  • Environment
  • Health
  • Nursing
• Caring


  The essence and central unifying and dominant domain that distinguishes nursing from the other health disciplines. It refers to the direct and indirect nurturant and skillful activities, processes, and decisions that assist people in many ways that are emphatic, compassionate, and supportive
• Five Processes of Caring (Swanson)

  • Knowing - striving to understand an event as it has meaning in the life of the other
  • Being with - being emotionally present to the other
  • Doing for - doing for the other as he/she would do for the self if it were at all possible
  • Enabling - facilitating the other's passage through life transitions and unfamiliar events
  • Maintaining beliefs - sustaining faith in the other's capacity to get through an event or transition and face a future with meaning
• Personal Qualities of a Nurse

  • Philosophy of life
  • Good Personality
• Philosophy of Life


  It is concerned with the basic truths that contribute to personal growth in a systematic fashion and with those principles that relate to the moral values that shape the facets of the character
• Good Personality


  Consists of the distinctive individual qualities that differentiate one person from the other. It is a result of integrating one's abilities, desires, impulses, habits and physical character into a harmonious whole
• Components of a good personality

  • Personal appearance - Posture, Grooming, Dress and Uniform
  • Character - Honesty, Loyalty, Tolerance, Judgement, Reliability, Motivation, Resourcefulness, Moderation
  • Attitude - Acceptance, Helpfulness, Friendliness, Firmness, Permissiveness, Limit setting, Sincerity, Competence
  • Charm - Voice, Manner, Heart, Intelligence, Poise
• Carper's Patterns of Knowing

  • Empiric Knowing - Based on the assumption that what is known is accessible through physical senses
  • Ethical Knowing - Involves making moment-to-moment judgments about what ought to be done, what is good, what is right and what is responsible
  • Personal Knowing - Concerns with inner experience of becoming holistic, authentic self capable of unifying the plural dimension in which that self lives in an honest and open manner
  • Aesthetic (esthetic) Knowing - Involves deep appreciation of the meaning of a situation and calls forth inner creativity that transforms experience into what is not real, bringing reality something that would not otherwise be possible
• Levels of Proficiency according to Patricia Benner

  • Novice - Beginning nursing student or any nurse entering a situation in which he or she has had no previous experience
  • Advance Beginner - Demonstrates marginally acceptable performance. Has enough experience in actual situations to identify meaningful aspects or global characteristics that can be identified only through prior experience
  • Competent - Reflected by the nurse who has been on the same job for 2-3 years and consciously and deliberately plans care in terms of long-term goals
  • Proficient - Nurse perceives situations as a whole rather than in terms of aspects and manages nursing care rather than performing tasks
  • Expert - Nurse no longer relies on rules or guidelines to connect understanding of a situation to an appropriate action. Has intuitive grasps of the situation
• Roles and Functions of a Professional Nurse


  • Care Provider
  • Communicator
  • Teacher
  • Counselor
  • Client advocate
  • Change agent
  • Leader
  • Manager
  • Researcher
  • Case manager
  • Collaborator
• Different Fields of Nursing

  • Institutional Nursing (Hospital Staff Nursing)
  • Community Health Nursing/Public Health Nursing
  • Nurse Practitioner - Has advanced education (Bachelor Degree Holder, with Master degree)
  • Clinical Nurse Specialist - Have advanced specialty in areas of practice (gerontology, oncology, pediatrics, endocrinology)
  • Nurse Midwife - Educated in nursing and midwifery and is licensed to provide independent care for women during normal pregnancy, labor and delivery
  • Nurse anesthetist - RNs with advanced education in anesthesiology
  • Nurse researcher
  • Nurse Administrators
  • Nurse educator - Must have at least Masters Degree when teaching in the undergraduate, and Doctorate Degree when teaching in the Post-graduate
• RA 9173 - Philippine Nursing Act of 2002


  Former law of nursing in the Philippines before it was repealed by RA 9173. Contains specific scope of Nursing practice and regulation of the profession
• Nursing ethics


  Came from Greek word "ethos" which means moral duty. It is a study of how people make judgement in regards to right or wrong
• Universal Principles of Biomedical Ethics

  • Autonomy - It involves self-determination and freedom to choose and implement one's decision, free from deceit, duress, constraint or coercion (Informed Consent)
  • Veracity - To maximize the efficiency of health care, the patient and the healthcare providers are bound to tell the truth
  • Beneficence - Act of kindness and mercy that directly benefits the patient ("to do good")
  • Nonmaleficence - "to do no harm"
  • Justice - Right to demand to be treated justly, fairly and equally
• The Evolution of Nursing Practice

  • Period of Intuitive Nursing/Medieval Period - Nursing was "untaught" and instinctive. It was performed of compassion for others, out of the wish to help others
  • Period of Intuitive Nursing/Medieval Period - Primitive men believed that illness was caused by the invasion of the victim's body of evil spirits
  • Period of Apprentice Nursing/Middle Ages - Care was done by crusaders, prisoners, religious orders. Nursing care was performed without any formal education and by people who were directed by more experienced nurses (on the job training)
  • Dark Period of Nursing - Nursing went down to the lowest level. Nurses fled their lives; soon there was shortage of people to care for the sick
  • Period of Educated Nursing/Nightingale Era 19th-20th century - The development of nursing was strongly influenced by trends resulting from wars, arousal of social consciousness, and increased educational opportunities offered to women
• Florence Nightingale was asked by Sir Sidney Herbert of the British War Department to recruit female nurses to provide care for the sick and injured in the Crimean War
• In 1860, The Nightingale Training School of Nurses opened at St. Thomas Hospital in London. The school served as a model for other training schools. Its graduates traveled to other countries to manage hospitals and institute nurse-training programs
• Nightingale's focus was on developing the nursing profession within hospitals. Nurses should be taught in hospitals associated with medical schools and the curriculum should include both theory and practice
• Florence Nightingale was the Mother of modern nursing. She was known as the "Lady with the Lamp" because of her achievements in improving the standards for the care of war casualties in the Crimean war
• Nursing education


  • Taught in hospitals associated with medical schools
  • Curriculum includes both theory and practice
• It was the 1st school of nursing that provided both theory-based knowledge and clinical skill building
• Nursing


  Evolved as an art and science
• Formal nursing education and nursing service begun
• Florence Nightingale


  • Mother of modern nursing
  • Lady with the Lamp because of her achievements in improving the standards for the care of war casualties in the Crimean war
• Born May 12, 1820 in Florence, Italy
• Raised in England in an atmosphere of culture and affluence
• Not contended with the social custom imposed upon her as a Victorian Lady, she developed her self-appointed goal: To change the profile of Nursing
• She compiled notes of her visits to hospitals and her observations of the sanitary facilities, social problems of the places she visited
• Noted the need for preventive medicine and god nursing
• Advocated for care of those afflicted with diseases caused by lack of hygienic practices
• At age 31, she entered the Deaconesses School at Kaiserswerth in spite of her family's resistance to her ambitions. She became a nurse over the objections of society and her family
• Worked as a superintendent for Gentlewomen Hospital, a charity hospital for ill governesses
• Disapproved the restrictions on admission of patients and considered this unchristian and incompatible with health care
• Put down her ideas in 2 published books: Notes on Nursing, What It Is and What It Is Not and Notes on Hospitals
• She revolutionized the public's perception of nursing (not the image of a doctor's handmaiden) and the method for educating nurses