The American Association Of Professional Values In Nursing

Values are exceedingly personal, freely chosen, enduring beliefs or attitudes about the worth of a person, object, idea, or action (Blais & Hayes, 2016, p. 54). Values guide individuals decisions whether they are aware of them or not. As a nurse, it is crucial to become aware of your personal values and how they could potentially affect your patient care. The most important values to me are trust, independence and enthusiasm. The purpose of this paper is to describe these values, discuss why these are important to me, how they affect my nursing practice, how nursing challenges them, and compare them with the American Association of Colleges of Nursing’s professional values.

Heading One Trust is the ability to rely and have confidence in

Trust is a value that was instilled upon me when I was a young age, with trust in my parents. I knew with them I was safe and could ask for help whenever necessary, which is important at any age. As a child, independence became important to me as well; I was allowed to make small decision such as clothes to wear and which foods to eat. However I valued these choice and continue to value making my own decisions. Enthusiasm is important to me because I have never been successful while being negative. I believe enthusiasm can benefit a person’s life greatly.

Heading three. These values are frequently reflected in my nursing practice. I attempt to build a trusting relationship with every patient I encounter. Some patients are receptive to building trust while others have had poor healthcare experiences and gaining trust proves difficult. I promote independence and autonomy in my patients by encouraging them to make decision in their treatment plan and allowing them to complete self-care within their own ability. I enter every patient room with a smile and enthusiasm. Patients can tell the difference between an enthusiastic and a negative provider. Staying positive can brighten a patients stay in the

Nursing challenges my values in many ways. My trust is challenged when working within the interdisciplinary team. For example, my charge nurse was assisting me with a nasogastric tube placement when she offensively criticized my technique in front of the patient. This created an untrustworthy relationship between us, which can be lead to poor outcomes for the patient. Independence is commonly violated in healthcare; patients typically have limited input in their health care decisions. For example, an 81 year old patient who was in a coma and ventilator dependent had advanced directives declining prolonged life support, but the daughter refused to allow the hospital to remove the ventilator. This situation challenged my value of independence; seeing this patients autonomy disregarded made it difficult to care for the patient and interact with the family. Enthusiasm is the most challenging in nursing, especially within my specialty: oncology. Patients receive terminal diagnosis and to them life seems hopeless. Staying positive in these situation can be extremely difficult, however it can also help the patient cope and manage their