A Native American Girl with a Large Second Degree Burn
Nursing is a profession that encompasses the natural attributes of care. Nurses have to take care of the patient professionally while enhancing the personal responsibility of care. It is part of the human nature that one cannot abdicate to anyone else.
The two-year-old Native American girl had sustained a large second degree burn on her right leg. As part of the follow-up process, the public health nurse had to pay a visit to the family to take care of the wound (Boykin & Schoenhofer, 2001). The treatment consisted of applying the ointment and bandaging the wound. The childs mother thought that it was also her responsibility to ensure that the wound healed fast (Smith, Turkel & Wolf, 2013). She used to remove the bandage to air the wound. It was because she thought that by covering the wound, the nurse was causing it to gain a lot of heat which would delay the healing process. But the nurse was trying to prevent an infection due to the prevailing circumstances in the house (Boykin & Schoenhofer, 2001). All of them were applying their caring roles for the girl, and yet in different ways; one as a profession, and the other as a responsibility and care as a parent (Reed, Shearer & Nicoll, 2004).
Anne Boykin and Savina Schoenhofer Nursing as Caring
Nursing as Caring theory is a wide theory with very many aspects that cover care (Boykin & Schoenhofer, 2001). There are a few assumptions that Anne Boykin and Savina Schoenhofer considered as very important in accommodation of this theory. One is that persons are caring by virtue of their humanness. It is in the human nature to be a caring person (Masters, 2012). Persons live their caring from moment to moment. The mother to the Native give would always ensure that she did her best according to the knowledge she had to care for the girl.
Persons are whole or complete at the moment of care (Alligood & Marriner-Tomey, 2010). One can only reach fulfillment in life when he or she cares for others. Personhood is living the life grounded in caring (Smith, Turkel & Wolf, 2013). One can enhance personhood through participating in nurturing relationships with caring for others. Apart from that people understand and think about nursing as a discipline and profession (Boykin & Schoenhofer, 2001). Caring for human beings is innate. One, therefore, needs to develop the full potential of caring as an ideal and lifelong process (Boykin & Schoenhofer, 2001).
The theory promotes the basic requirements of nursing and advances principles that make it a standalone theory. However, it can also work with other theories to promote diversity (Boykin & Schoenhofer, 2001). Nursing promotes nurturing caring that is essential for the wholeness of a person. Caring is also a process that everyone grows through and ends up practicing in life (Alligood & Marriner-Tomey, 2010).
Madeleine Leininger- Culture Care: Diversity and Universality Theory
Madeleine was a nurse who, through experience, learned the importance of caring in nursing. She discovered that it was central to the development of the profession (Leininger & McFarland, 2006). When she worked in a , she found out that recurrent behavioral patterns in children appeared to have a cultural basis (Alligood & Marriner-Tomey, 2010). The reason nursing was not doing well was because there was a lack of cultural and care knowledge. It led her to come up with the new phenomenon that she called transcultural nursing (Leininger & McFarland, 2006).
The theory was supposed to provide care that worked together with ones or a groups cultural beliefs. For instance, the mother of the American girl had believed that the healing of the wound was dependent upon the balance between heat and cold things (Leininger & McFarland, 2006). The ointment was providing healing by cooling the wound. However, the bandage added too much heat due to the covering of the wound. It is the reason she always removed the bandage to air the wound and allow it to heal naturally (Leininger & McFarland, 2006). The clinician had to discuss the matter with the mother so that they can come up with a common solution. It was to encompass the mothers traditional views while accepting the modern treatment. They applied the culturally congruent care that Madeleine had come up with, years into her discoveries.
She outlined some assumptions to go hand in hand with the key terms she developed for this theory. Care is the essence and central focus of nursing. Caring is very important in a persons life especially for health and well-being, and among other areas of concern (Masters, 2012). Culture care is a broad and holistic perspective that guides the nursing care. For anyone to promote the culture, there are values that influence its operation and existence. The values include religion, language, spiritual, social, and political view. All these are just part of the enormous list of essential assumptions (Leininger & McFarland, 2006).
