NR 390 Week 2 Discussion, Practices from the Past

NR 390 Week 2 Discussion, Practices from the Past Catherine McAuley’s philosophy of careful nursing was applicable in pre-Nightingale times and is applicable today. Select one of the 10 key concepts of the philosophy of careful nursing and describe how it might have been applied in McAuley’s time and how it might be applied in your professional nursing practice today. Hello Professor and Class! In the 19th century, the careful nursing was developed by Catherine McAuley who was part of the Religious sisters of Mercy. Their care was based on the physical, emotional and spiritual aspect of care (Meehan, 2003). In today’s nursing we see it as part of the holistic nursing that allow us to take care patient addressing every aspect of their lives and not just the condition they are facing. I think we put into practice the 10 concept of nursing in our present day nursing practice. The 10 concept are a reflection of the nursing core competencies that guides our practices today. The key concept that stands out to me is fostering safety and comfort. In the McAuley era of nursing, safety and comfort was very important because care was mostly influenced by faith traditions which requires compassion, safety, cleanliness and also comfort. On the other hand they had some outrageous policy pertaining to nursing in the 18th century like making people do nursing work as punishment as oppose to going to jail. According to Judd, hospitals became full of nurses who were not trained, motivated, or qualified to care for the sick, thereby increasing criminal activity than caring for patients (Judd, 2014). In today’s nursing era, I think nursing is portrayed as that career that pays well and has flexibility and one can earn a living out of it. In my opinion, the people who get into nursing for all the wrong reasons are not very different from the people who were forced into nursing as a form of punishment. For the nurses who gets into nursing because of the love for the job, they create history daily in several different ways. These nurses always put patient first before anything else, they see these patients beyond their illnesses and has a major objective of improving quality of care for patients regardless of their illnesses. Elizabeth References: Meehan, T. C. (2003). Careful nursing: A model for contemporary nursing practice. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 44(1), 99-107. Judd, Deborah. A History of American Nursing, 2nd Edition. Jones & Bartlett Learning, . VitalBook file.