Stay at Clinical Nursing School - Essay Example

I have a BS in Nursing from the Philippines and have been in the profession for the past few years. Most of my experiences have been during my stay at Clinical Nursing School where I learned not only the theoretical foundations of Nursing but also grasped the practical aspects of the professional. I am currently working as a hotel nurse as well as operating a walk-in nurse at my place. While living in a very small town, most of my walk-in clients are poor and come from different areas scattered throughout my vicinity.

As a part of my assignment to write a reflective paper on my experiences and how they relate to the theory, I am choosing Roy’s adaptation model to explore and relate to my experiences.

This theory is based on the assumption that a person is a combination of different systems and a system can interact with its environment. Based on this assumption, health is considered as a managed system and the role of nursing is to support the adaptation of their patients to that environment. The adoptive modes under this theoretical model comprise physiologic, self-concept, role function, and interdependence. (Benner). This approach is considered holistic as it attempts to be unifying and purposeful and as such since health is considered a positive response towards the environment. Therefore, the role of the nurse is to promote such an adaptation.

As described above I live in a very small town and most of the patients are poor with lesser access to better health opportunities. Therefore, as a nurse, I always remain focused on facilitating them to cope with their environment. As a part of this process, my experiences are related to helping my patients understand and learn how to deal with four different adaptive modes.

As a part of this reflection. However, I feel that real-life experiences do not fully match or augment this theory because some other factors restrict the ability of my patients to successfully interact with the environment.

At the individual level and being a part of a society that lacks adequate economic resources, my ability to manipulate different stimuli to promote adaptive responses is limited. I still remember one of my patients who could not cope with her mental disorder situation only because of the lack of resources either social or economic which can support her to respond positively to such a situation.

As such learning about this theory has instilled in me a systematic approach to adapting to the profession more professionally by realizing the bigger role, I, as a nurse, have to perform.