My grandmother was a nurse. For thirty years she cared compassionately for her patients, and for three years she watched my demented grandfather receive lackluster care before he died. My experiences as a patient were vastly different from my grandparents’. The care I received and the compassion I was shown led me to pursue nursing as a profession. The discrepancy between our accounts of care shows that although nurses are compassionate, there is opportunity for growth. Compassion is driven by altruism, includes the desirable aspects of sympathy and empathy, and is superimposed with small acts of kindness; simply put, it is to “suffer with” (Sinclair et al., 2017). The Canadian Nursing Association [CNA] Code of Ethics (2017), states that providing …show more content…
Indicator fifteen highlights the importance of support between nurses in providing patient-centered (therefore compassionate) care (CNA, 2017). I noticed that the nurses at the Tom Baker Centre were very supportive of one another, and the light-hearted dynamic between them invited compassion into care. They were eager to assist one another with tasks, void of lateral violence, and quick to joke in a wholesome, uplifting manner. When they did criticize each other it was done constructively; no one was ever publicly shamed or embarrassed. They were also role models for each other through the care they gave, addressing patients by name, remembering details about their lives, engaging them in quality conversation, communicating compassion through non-verbals, and in being sensitive to individual needs. A study on the influence of role models on adult nursing students states the obvious, “It is important for practice-based mentors, formally allocated or otherwise, to be willing and able to role model professional attributes” (Felstead & Springett, 2016). The simplest way to support and encourage compassionate care in coworkers is by being a role model and offering constructive criticism when necessary. Compassion in care is an essential value of the professional nurse and other nurses should be supported and encouraged in their efforts to include it in