Is this a worthwhile assessment

Yes, I think it is worthwhile and a good topic for an essay.

In your career you are going to deal with people who are self destructive in so many ways.

You can have compassion for them, but not their behavior. If you knew where they have been, you would be glad to be you.

Just think about how you would want your family members to be treated. Even if you do not care for them at all, if they are sketchy or crooked, they are still your family.

Compassion means kindness and respect. The barriers to having compassion could be language, culture, politics, poverty, physical appearance, addiction, understaffing etc.

I have not been to Scotland and I do not even want to offer a conjecture.

Go write something from your heart.

it also helps to introduce you to develop your writing style... research... and evidence based practice..

I think it's excellent. For one thing, it makes thoughtful students think about something other than procedures and fact memorization that dominate so much of their frontal lobes. It will (or should) lead you to think deeply about more than the cliches about caring and compassion that anybody could spit out. Try hard to surprise and gratify your faculty when you go beyond those.

What will you do when you're having a rotten day at home and you have to go to work with challenging people (staff as well as patients)?

Does selflessness enter into compassion? Must you be your own authentic self to be with (com) someone in his experience ... ?

What is your personal familial/religious/cultural perspective on caregiving? How might this be challenged when you're caring for others who may be coming from a different place?

How might you benefit from learning more about how different faiths/cultures see our duty to care for others? Where, how, and with whose help would you learn this and how to apply it?

What else important can you think of, imagining yourself as the seriously ill and helpless person in the bed? As the nurse? As the charge nurse/ward sister?

Personally, I'd like to see your essay here when you're done with it.