Coat of Arms Assignment

Nursing is a demanding profession that not only requires the right technical skills but also the right personality. Successful nurse professionals have unique qualities to ensure the best possible patient care. The Coat Of Arms(COA) is the visual representation of the nursing key qualities, expressed in a creative way. The six qualities illustrated in the coat of arms are compassion, caring, empathy, respect, courage, and knowledge. Compassion allows the nurse to establish a strong bond within a nurse-patient therapeutic relationship. The importance of the therapeutic bond is illustrated by the size of the heart and how it is centered in the COA. This embodies the patient’s feeling towards a compassionate nurse providing care, respected and trusted. Caring is the foundation of the human aspect of nursing without this innate quality of having concern for others and meeting them with kindness, it is not possible to provide holistic client-centred care. It is illustrated by the realistic hand holding together the other nursing qualities, for caring is an exclusively human trait, hence a human body. It is a core quality within the nursing profession because without caring for the patient the other qualities are relevant. Empathy is represented by the symbol of a shoe, situated in the middle inside the shield, so the placement states that it is of core importance. Nurses are able to put themselves in their patient’s shoes to see their side of the situation to better understand and strengthen the nurse-patient relationship. Respect influences the satisfaction of the client, it is illustrated on both sides of the COA. The two people who are bowing between the other qualities represents the respect for the COA and for each other. Also the two people represent the nurse and client coming together and meeting at the same level despite each other’s differences. Courage is the ability to address and tackle agony, pain, and challenges. It enables nurses to speak up and do the right thing for patients, accordingly represented by a lion in the center. Knowledge is the science of nursing and is portrayed by the book in the center of the coat of arms. It stands for the science behind the nursing profession and how they acquire the different attributes to ensure patient safety. The book is open with pages flaring out to represent the different types of knowledge needed for different situations as a nurse.

Knowledge is one of the essential qualities of the nursing profession, it ensures patient safety while providing quality care. It is important to keep up-to-date with education and understanding that best practice care is vital to the nursing profession. The knowledge refers to the science of nursing, providing evidence and guidance in managing illnesses. Being educated in the nursing profession helps to understand care plans, follow-ups, medications, referrals, and types of equipment. A lack of sufficient education can lower a nurse’s confidence in applying scientific knowledge to practice. This could also influence the patient-client therapeutic relationship with uncertainty and self-doubt which can be dangerous in critical situations. Crowea suggested that nurses are expected to have the knowledge to swiftly and efficiently assess patient condition if this does not occur it leads to improper patient care and even deaths. Factors that influence the delay or absence of action are knowledge, communication, and confidence. Research recommendations and simulation education have significant impacts on nurses confidently identifying patient care (2017). Indicates that professional nurses are expected to have appropriate knowledge for safe, competent practice and uphold the professional standards. Due to the simulation education, nurses show increased performance in diagnostic recognition while obtaining more confidence and better therapeutic relationships (Crowea, 2017). Identifies the significance of knowledge in improving nursing performance and shows relevance to communication and confidence. Nursing is seen as a science and art field, science is represented in the form of a nurse’s knowledge, while the art is demonstrated in the form of empathy; this enables in a patient-centered practice.

 Empathy is a key part of the professional nursing value integral to understanding, validating and resonating another’s frame of reference. An emphatic nurse can build connection while empowering patients with dignity and respect. The importance of empathy is the recognition and affirmation of a patient’s emotions in a therapeutic way. McKinnon identifies empathy as a process of emotional intelligence in understanding the rationale behind the emotive and mental being. It is integral to the nursing therapeutic practice of understanding another’s perspective and emotional state. The study confirmed the importance of empathy in the nursing profession due to the powerful skill of emotional kinship and personal connection empowering patient health. Fostering empathy for the nursing student will result in a more effective interpersonal, skilled professional nurses (2017). For instance, the article discloses the positive impacts of empathic nursing and how it increased patient satisfaction by making credible connections. Empathic care increased professional nurses critical thinking and better decision making due to the recognition of the alternative client perspective (McKinnon, 2017). Indicates, an empathetic nurse is capable of put oneself in another’s shoe by understanding the patient’s experience and acknowledging their emotions. Empathy is sometimes misunderstood as compassion, both play vital roles in the therapeutic nurse-patient relationship but offer different values.

Compassion is a sympathetic response to a patient’s distress with an urge to ease the pain. Compassionate care is a fundamental aspect of the nursing profession, and it provides patients with more comfort during hard times. Patients feel supported and confident with a compassionate nurse during the recovery period, they also show dignity even though privacy is limited. The importance is to provide patients with emotional support because an absence can lower the patient’s self-status. Nyatanga states that it should be an innate act for nurses to want to help patients cope. He believes it should apply as a constant to everyone as a minimal human instinct. The recommendation for permanent transformation would be the bottom-up approach, but due to the department of healthcare, it would be a better approach to do a top-down. So that the movement is implemented fairly to accommodate everyone and executed smoothly (2013). This explains compassion was a domino effect, where it not only benefit the patient but also the healthcare environment, strengthening the sense of human connection. When a nurse relates to a patient on a deeper level it gives them self gratification.

My current perspective of the nursing qualities has not evolved much since the first semester of nursing theory. The most amazing discovery was the uniqueness of my groupmates’ perspectives of their qualities and the subjectivity of our Coat Of Arms. My understanding of empathy and compassion has slightly changed from reading academic articles. It should also be applicable to the healthcare environment with colleagues not only on patient-centered care. In Mckinnon, there are many examples of people trying to make things better in difficult situations. But what I understood and was struggling previously with was that people just need someone to listen to them without necessarily needing answers. Because the truth is a human connection is far superior to any words. Overall the assignment had many hurdles with one golden nugget of useful information, which will come in handy throughout my life.

References

• Crowe, S., Ewart, L., & Derman, S. (2017). The impact of simulation based education on nursing confidence, knowledge and patient outcomes on general medicine units. Nurse Education in Practice, 29, 70-75. doi:10.1016/j.nepr.2017.11.017
• McKinnon, J. (2017). In their shoes: An ontological perspective on empathy in nursing practice. Health & Medicine Week, 4875. doi:10.1111/jocn.14610
• Nyatanga, B. (2013). Bringing compassion back into caring: An equation of reciprocation. British Journal Of Community Nursing, 18(6), 299. doi:10.12968/bjcn.2013.18.6.299