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Beliefs in Nursing

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Running head: Beliefs About Nursing

Beliefs About Nursing
Amanda Gregory-Mast, RN
Nursing 312 Professional Nursing Concepts

Beliefs About Nursing
Nursing is an extraordinary profession. Florence Nightingale defined nursing as "the act of utilizing the environment of the patient to assist him in his recovery”. Nightingale considered a clean, well-ventilated, and quiet environment essential for recovery. She raised the status of nursing through education. Nurses were no longer untrained housekeepers but people educated in the care of the sick.
Concepts of Nursing
There are four concepts of nursing: Human beings (people), the environment, health and nursing. (Kearney-Nunnery, 2012, p. 4) People are considered the patient that you are caring for whether it is a newborn or an elderly person at the end of their life. I believe that each individual or community has different needs and characteristics. You cannot treat everyone the same because everyone has different health issues and ways that they wish to be treated. Cultures are different and as a nurse I need to make sure that I am aware of how that person wants to be treated. We need to treat the person as a whole.
The environment definitely dictates what kind of care a person receives. People who live in poverty stricken areas are less likely or able to maintain good health due to costs and resources. They don’t want to rack up medical debt because they cannot afford it. Therefore they tend to have more comorbidities than someone who is in middle class and has better access to health care. As a nurse I need to make sure that I educate my patients on resources available to them even if they cannot afford health insurance or health care needs. I need to be an advocate for those who cannot advocate for themselves.
My belief on health is that everyone sees his or her health differently. What may be

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