She was almost radical in her approach to healthcare and healing.
By radical, I mean that she was the type of individual who aimed to solve matters by getting to the root of the problem. She was more interested in solving the problem and not the symptoms of an underlying issue. She used a systems thinking methodology that made her overall approach to healthcare a faith-based philosophy. Although she used God as a foundation, she was willing to make the effort to conduct scientific research to confirm a basic belief. Consider the fact that nursing focuses on the patient as an adaptive system while medicine on the other hand sees the patient from the perspective of a biological system or more importantly, the patient's disease.
Like Florence Nightingale understood, it is our objective as nurse practitioners to utilize the metaparadigms of nursing to help the patient move along a continuum that begins with health, moves to illness and eventually aims to return to health. The patient is most likely to get well if he or she is comfortable with him or herself, the nurse, to health situation and the environment. It is our goal as nurses to increase a patient's inert adaptation skills in cycles of physiological, self-concept, role function and inter-dependence. We nurses act as external regulatory forces that either modify or adjust any and all stimuli that affect a patient's ability to utilize his or her own adaptation system.
For example; rather than constantly utilizing a verbal analogue scale for assessing whether or not to continues with an I.V. morphine drip, it may be better to allow the patient to have more input from the patient which stimulates his own adaptation process. Does VAS of 4 sit right and is there a level of comfortable to a point where resting is possible or is the breathing good? Florence Nightingale understood that we must allow the patient to adapt to with the metaparadigms of nursing to allow for the adaptation process to promote healing.
Concepts Specific to Labor & Delivery
There has been a debate about the value of looking at culture as a way of understanding aspects of health, for example differences in the health status of ethnic groups." (Royal College of Nursing, 2004) in regard to Labor & Delivery, various cultural beliefs exist. There are various considerations in regard to nursing and cultural labor and delivery philosophies.
The concepts and propositions associated with the Trans-cultural Nursing theory for example opens us up to many shortcomings. Nursing and each individual nurse specifically must be aware of subtle differences in the way people do things. Consider Bennett's Intercultural Sensitivity Model as presented by the Royal College of Nursing:
Denial of Cultural Differences
Defense of One's Own Culture
Minimization of Other Cultures in Order to Protect One's Own Cultural Identity
Cultural Acceptance
Adaptation to Cultural Differences
Integration of Full Cultural Awareness Into Everyday Interactions
Nurses must be cognizant of a woman's cultural differences when it comes to Labor & Delivery. "However, Bennett's model does at least provide a framework for examining our own attitudes towards our culture, how we came to understand our culture and how this fits with our thinking about other cultures. Where each individual nurse lies on the continuum depends on life experiences and the overall aim of the model is to move the nurse towards higher levels of cultural competency through the presentation of specific content and exposure to different cultural experiences." (Royal College of Nursing, 2004)
From the initial stages of the model, it shows how a new or inexperienced nurse practitioner may be unaware that any cultural differences even exist in our society or they may be in a state of denial. We nurses more than many other professions need to understand and promote that there are cultural differences in our environment. A black woman and a white woman may have completely different expectations of the post delivery care for example.
We nurses must also take into consideration our own culture's expectations. "The holistic health perspective of nursing, which integrates all aspects of the health and well-being of individuals and families, can provide especially valuable insight to the assessment, planning, and service delivery processes. Nurses need to not only participate in the planning process during the interdisciplinary planning meetings, but also to contribute their own assessment and recommendations from a nursing perspective." (Mattson Bryan & Wirth, 1995, p. 73)
Life is a bunch of habits that we present as our personality. If our habits are not taken into consideration when we deal with others we tend to risk alienation. "At this stage Bennett suggests that cultural...
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