Personal Values as a nurse

Pangea Reunited, ASN, RN · Feb 28, 2016

I am just wrapping up my 2nd term of nursing. I am reflecting about all i have learned and what I am going to be exposed to in medicine. As a nurse how do you see your personal values influence your approach to care?

This sounds like homework.

Editorial Team / Admin · Feb 28, 2016

How do you think your personal values will affect your career as a nurse?

joanna73, BSN, RN · Feb 28, 2016

OP, how do your personal values influence care?

We should be aware of our personal values and then suspend those values. The patient's values should be the driving force, not the nurse's values.

Emergent, RN · Feb 28, 2016

One strong value I have is respect for different approaches to health care.

It has: 1) helped me personally survive in a flawed system that treats a public with poor health habits with expensive, high tech solutions.

2)Helped me meet patients where they are and make them feel respected. That makes them easier to manage and happier, which makes my day go better as well.

ksurette · Feb 28, 2016

I like that.. (not homework- just thinking) do you think someone can be to nice? strange question .. but alot of my interactions so far my teachers feedback is that i hope or see a patient doing more then they are capable -- my values would be to try (especially in long term care) and give them as much as I can...Im being told i'm not being realistic. I think i'm going to have a hard time with being realistic.. to me that is kinda of a value of being me...do you think once i am nursing i will figure out balancing this out

joanna73, BSN, RN · Feb 28, 2016

We should encourage our patients/ residents to be as independent as they are able to be.

This means "doing with" instead of "doing for" people. Learn to meet your patient where they are at that time and respect their values.

Libby1987 · Feb 28, 2016

I practice my personal values, I bring them to work everyday, or at least I hope and try to.

Integrity.

Excellence to the best of my ability.

All patients are due my compassion and respect regardless.

All patients are due my advocacy regardless.

Self respect and personal safety.

I bring some other things to work sometimes that I shouldn't i.e. judgement, impatience and frustration, but it seems to be less often and to a lesser degree as I get older.

It's just not complicated, once you develop and know yourself.

CryssyD · Feb 28, 2016

As a nurse, you are more than a trained mechanic; machines and robots will never be able to do our jobs, because it is our humanity that makes us healers and not just tools for fixing broken bodies.

You cannot separate your values from a profession that requires your humanity as well as your skills. What you can do, as others have stated, is understand that your values are not more important than your patients' needs. You are there to provide for the patient what he or she requires to heal; if you are able to go beyond and touch that patient's spirit--to give him or her love, compassion, hope, or a life-changing moment of any sort, so much the better. And to touch a spirit with something extra is what your values, your morals, your understanding of what life is all about enable you to do.

And knowing how to accept others' human gifts in return is a necessary value, for me. It's what keeps me going as a nurse, because it helps me to get past the various trials and tribulations of my profession; there is so much struggle and pain in what we do all--something has to make it worth it for us to keep coming back.

I love my work, because it lets me be as fully human as I am able to be.

greenerpastures · Feb 28, 2016

You have to check your personal values at the door. You have to have a "nurse persona", taking care of all who come in, regardless of judgement. That doesn't mean you don't feel it, you just can't act it out or be unprofessional. Nothing and everything is "personal" when you are a nurse.

Libby1987 · Feb 28, 2016

I think we must define personal values differently. By my definition some of you are saying you must check things at the door that shouldn't have as your value set in the first place.

Makes me wonder just what you're thinking can't come to work? Are you prejudiced or something? Wouldn't you rather change that than leave it at home?

If it's a virtue like treat people like people, why would you need to check that?

If it's something like you don't do drugs or believe in other illicit behaviors, unless you're being asked to perform these at work, why would you need to check it?

Unless your value system is twisted, there shouldn't be a conflict. I think the instructor is saying leave your judgement at home, but when has anyone claimed judgmental as a personal value?

annabanana2 · Feb 28, 2016

I think we must define personal values differently. By my definition some of you are saying you must check things at the door that shouldn't have as your value set in the first place.
Makes me wonder just what you're thinking can't come to work? Are you prejudiced or something? Wouldn't you rather change that than leave it at home?
If it's a virtue like treat people like people, why would you need to check that?
If it's something like you don't do drugs or believe in other illicit behaviors, unless you're being asked to perform these at work, why would you need to check it?
Unless your value system is twisted, there shouldn't be a conflict. I think the instructor is saying leave your judgement at home, but when has anyone claimed judgmental as a personal value?

I think maybe they mean, like, if you believe that murderers should also be put to death (which is a fairly common value, I think, though not one I personally share) then if you happen to assigned a murderer as a patient then you probably are going to have to put that particular value aside in order to provide this person with the best care possible. That's the typical scenario nursing school presents when what they're actually trying to say is "you're going to have to take care of people you don't like for whatever reason, so don't be a turd about it and do your job."