NR 451 Week 1 Graded Discussion Topic: Our Care Culture

This week's graded topic relates to the following Course Outcome (CO).

CO1: Applies principles of nursing, theories, and the care philosophies to self, colleagues,

individuals, families, aggregates and communities throughout the healthcare system. (PO#1)

Care expressed and practiced in professional nursing models provides a way of looking at the

nursing role from the aspect of care. It may seem excessive to consider aspects of caring and

compassion in nursing. However, precisely because it IS nursing makes it crucial to our

continual progress of defining and upholding one of our central professional principles.

Address each of these items:

 Reflect on a caring and compassionate experience with a patient or family encountered in

your practice. How was your compassion demonstrated? What other ways do you wish

you would have expressed caring?

 How does your thinking about compassion expand to include self and colleagues?

Please complete the iCARE Self-Assessment (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.

and download for your own use and information. The self-assessment is not a graded item.

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Answer

A recent experience was with a patient who was in his late twenties. He was withdrawing from

opioids (oxycodone, Fentanyl.) He was fearful of returning to his family unit where substance

abuse was part of the fabric of his family life. His mother was a high functioning alcoholic and

his father smoked marijuana on a daily basis. When I was rounding on him, he had just found out

his girlfriend was breaking up with him because she knew if he went back home, he would

quickly revert back to his old behaviors and she could not handle the stress. This patient also

had other medical issues that were resolving but created a high level of anxiety and lack of

confidence in himself that he could “make it” once discharged. His father was at the bedside, was

very over powering and did not see a problem bringing him home. I asked the father to allow me

to have time with his son alone and he accepted this offer, going to the family room. During our

conversation, my patient expressed his feeling of confusion, frustration, loneliness and difficulty

in communicating with his family. He expressed feelings of not seeing a way out of the situation

since he felt it was a “dead end”. To demonstrate compassion, I used verbal and non-verbal

communication to ensure that this patient felt that my attention was on him and only him. I

repeated back to him concerns he expressed to me and frequently allowed for silence and

reflection during our conversation. He basically was refusing to go home. I asked him if we

could include the case manager in our conversation because she may have some suggestions for

community resources that he would like to hear about. Even if he went home it might be possible

to provide a lot of support within the community for him as he continues on his new lifestyle

without drug dependence. He did not want her to come in but gave me permission to discuss with

her. During our conversation I used therapeutic touch frequently, either resting my hand on his or

patting his arm as we spoke to promote a caring perception and to provide much needed comfort.

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