Reflective Assignment on Compassion
Kamryn Compton
Nursing (BSN), University of New England
NSG 351: Integrating Experience
Professor Susan Goran
November 18th, 2020
The art of nursing is defined as “the intentional creative use of oneself, based upon skill and expertise, to transmit emotion and meaning to another” (Jenner, 1997). Some essential building blocks of the art of nursing are empathy and compassion. Empathy is an objective understanding of the way in which a patient sees his or her situation; identifying with the way another person feels, putting yourself in another person’s circumstances, and imagining what it would be like to share that person’s feelings (Taylor, Lynn, & Bartlett, 2018). Compassion is identifying with the suffering of another in such a way that you “suffer together”, and are willing to make or take efforts to relieve that person’s suffering (Rischer, 2015). Empathy refers more to our ability to take the perspective of and feel the emotions of another person whereas compassion is when those feelings and thoughts include the desire to help. Empathy and compassion are a critical component of nursing and providing holistic and quality care to our clients to improve client/ family outcome and satisfaction.
From 1975 to 1979, Dr. Jean Watson created the Theory of Human Caring, based on her personal views of nursing and her experience. Her hope was that her theory would serve as a blueprint to help nurses restore the art of nursing practice and better care for their patients and themselves (Duque, 2016).Dr. Watson developed 10 Carative Factors to support her theory and serve as a guide for the core of nursing practice. These factors are: 1. Embrace people’s worth and practice love and kindness with yourself and everyone you meet. Respect for the patient will allow you to be available to him/her. 2. Always give others hope and respect; in this way, you will honor them. 3. Be sensitive and embrace your own and others’ beliefs and practices. Ask the patient about their particular health beliefs and incorporate them into their plan of care. 4. Develop relationships that are based on trust and caring. 5. Listen to everyone’s story intently and accept their positive and negative feelings. By actively listening, a sense of trust is formed. 6. Utilize creative methods to problem solve, such as creating a picture board of common needs for a person who is hard of hearing. 7. Teach others in a way that will be easy for them to understand and learn. Tailor all patient teaching to meet individual needs and learning styles. 8. Create a healing environment that will support and nurture others. Ask friends or family to bring some comfort items, such as a pillow or favorite blanket, from home to make the patient feel more comfortable. 9. Help others meet their spiritual, emotional and physical needs. For example, arrange for visits from their pastor, make sure they have adequate meals and ask about their emotional state. 10. Be open to miracles. Believe that they can and do happen every day (Duque, 2016).In light of caring for our clients in hope to improve their satisfaction and overall outcome, one of our biggest responsibilities as a nurse, Dr. Watson established the transpersonal caring relationship. This is the nurse’s moral commitment to enhancing human dignity (Duque, 2016). By making this commitment a nurse and client can begin to form a relationship in which they are both vested in each other and contribute to each other’s search for meaning and wholeness. By doing all this and putting an emphasis on empathy and compassion, a caring occasion can occur between the nurse and client and can alter the persons involved tremendously (Duque, 2016).
Studies have shown time and time again that patients of caring and engaged nurses have better outcomes. Using Dr. Watson’s 10 Carative Factors and placing an emphasis on empathy and caring behaviors creates a healing environment that can positively influence our clients. It is shown that clients that experience this type of care and emotional encouragement by nurses have enhanced healing, decreased length of stay, an increased well-being and physical comfort (Rischer, 2015). A client who is not receiving this type of care or the opposite of this can often lose a sense of hope and a sense of connection to others as a result of their illness and feel that they do not matter (Rischer, 2015). Because of this it is extremely important that as nurses we take all of this into consideration when caring for all of our clients.
As complicated as all this seems, through my short time in clinical practice it is extremely easy to differentiate between quality care, the kind of care that exemplifies Dr. Watson’s theory that places an emphasis on empathy and compassion in which a nurse goes above and beyond, versus care that just simply meets the clients basic needs. During my first clinical rotation on the 4thday I got paired up with a nurse and I met a client who was much younger than the rest of the clients on the unit. When I first met the client, she was extremely emotional and having a rough morning. She had suffered a stroke at a very young age and was struggling to come to terms with the complications as a result of her stroke. That morning her blood pressure was too high, and they could not perform physical therapy, this caused them to have to reschedule it for the afternoon. Because of this a visitor that was scheduled to see her in the afternoon would not be able to come, which made her extremely upset. While caring for my client I could see Dr. Watson’s 10 Carative factors come into play. When we first walked into the client’s room and she began to cry, the nurse, who had an established relationship with this young woman gave her a big embrace (1). The nurse reassured the client that she was making great progress (2). Once the client had calmed down, she was very excited to see a new face and her and I began to strike up a conversation which led to her expressing a little bit more about why she was so upset (3). It was very obvious to me that the client and the nurse I was following had a good caring relationship, so it was easy for me to be included in conversation (4). Since the client was so young in age, I felt we were able to form a connection right from the start, she was very open about her health history and expressed to me some of the challenges she faces as a result of her stroke (5). I spent a lot of time with my client that day and one of my tasks was switching out her current bed for a different, more advanced bed to better suit the client’s needs (6). Since the client was so outgoing and friendly, she was extremely receptive to teaching and what both her doctor and physical therapist had to say to her (7). I felt like the client and I were able to talk about a lot of things including the pictures she had in her room, and she even told me about a bear she brought with her that she had had since she was little (8). The nurse went above and beyond to make sure this client had everything she needed from a vegan meal, to ice packs, to a caring support and I really admired that, it was clear my nurse went above and beyond to care for all of her clients. (9). The nurse was hopefully the client would regain a lot of mobility (10) and her positivity definitely rubbed off on the client and together I believe they were able to achieve a caring relationship and a caring occasion occurred.
While the nurse I shadowed on this day was a great nurse and teacher, I have also followed some nurses, that while still very good nurses from a technical standpoint, seemed to do their jobs like passing out medications and that was really all they seemed to have time for, and seemingly lacked empathy and compassion. I was able to complete vitals for them and change beds, and communicate with the clients but you could definitely tell there was almost a lack of energy and excitement on the unit, and I do believe that this would have as much of an impact on the clients outcomes or in some cases a negative one, such as if nobody addressed the feeling of the client spoke of earlier. She would have felt, perhaps, like she did not matter and that would not have helped her perform better at physical therapy that day, lower her heart rate, or console her, leading to an unwelcome patient outcome.
Since it was my first clinical rotation and my scope of practice was somewhat limited I felt like I spent a lot of time observing and learning, taking away things that I would like to carry over into my practice as a nurse as well as some things I would probably do a little differently. I felt like in both situations I provided a positive presence for my clients and was able to just spend a little bit more personalized time with them and get to form that caring relationship. I feel like going forward I would want to work on just being more confident and become more comfortable initiating those interactions with my clients. I, at first, feel I appear timid and would wait for my clients to strike up a conversation and then I would really come out of my shell and that’s when I feel those relationships would form. If I was able to do this sooner, I feel it would not also benefit me in the future but benefit my clients as well during my clinical care. I feel that I have a great understanding of what it means to be empathetic and compassionate and I have a strong desire to provide that for my clients. Going forward in my clinical care I hope to put an emphasis on the 10 carative factors and empathy and compassion to benefit not only myself but most importantly my clients.
References
Duque, M. (2016, October 17). Jean Watson: Biography and Nursing Theory of Caring. Retrieved from https://study.com/academy/lesson/jean-watson-biography-and-nursing-theory-of-caring.html.
Jenner, C. A. (1997). The Art of Nursing: A Concept Analysis. Nursing Forum, (4), 5–11. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1744-6198.1997.tb00970.x
Rischer, K. (2015). Think Like a Nurse: Practical Preparation for Professional Practice 2nd Edition(Second Edition). Bethany Press.
Taylor, C., Lynn, P., & Bartlett, J. (2018). Fundamentals of Nursing. Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.
