Nursing - Value Clarification Paper

        Nursing; Values Clarification Paper

Student’s Name

        Institutional Affiliation

Values Clarification Paper

Introduction

        In the nursing profession, it is important to recognise and develop beliefs and personal values and at the same time function within the confines of the value systems and remain committed to them.  Personal values and beliefs have a huge impact on our attitudes and certainly our behaviours especially in the workplace.  Like many other professions, nursing entails maintaining commitments and promoting teamwork.  Nurses must, therefore, exercise honesty in meeting obligations towards themselves, the patients, their colleagues, the nursing profession and in general, the healthcare team (Orford, 2017).  Also, nurses are required to understand and internalise the uniqueness of individual patients in order to facilitate quality nursing and ultimately,  provision of effective healthcare. In my understanding,  quality nursing begins with the identification and clarification of personal values and beliefs.  Following this,  nurses must reflect on their core values which are the fundamental guiding principles of both the individual and the organisation. After working in a healthcare institution, I clarified my personal values and identified integrity, courage, perseverance, discipline and accountability as my core personal values in a workplace.

My Personal Values and Beliefs in a Workplace

        From my experience at work, I believe that integrity is fundamental in establishing an appropriate interpersonal relationship that is built on trust and honesty among co-workers.  Holding integrity as a core value enables an employee to demonstrate morally ethical principles at work (Orford, 2017). Integrity reflects dependability and trustworthiness among the co-workers and to a great extent, the clients.  While working at a health facility, I realised that patients are drawn to individuals who dependable and trustworthy. In addition, staff members and employers can count on a person with integrity even without much supervision (Stacey, Johnstone & Stikley, 2017). I also believe that courage is a necessary core value at work. Being courageous build confidence and enables an employee to make appropriate decisions when faced with risks and uncertainties. At my workplace, I concluded that courage promotes boldness and the ability to seek clarification and to admit inability to perform specific tasks.

        In addition to courage and integrity, my other core value at work is accountability. I believe that accountability is a demonstration of honour and commitment to an organisation’s goals and objectives. An accountable employee owns up to his/her results and admits mistakes or failures. From my experience at the healthcare facility, strengths and weaknesses of an individual can be assessed and evaluated by examining how accountable he/she is (Orford, 2017). As such, accountability and personal responsibility determine how committed an individual is as far as the achievement of the desired results is concerned. I also realised that perseverance, as a core principle, enables a person to honour commitments by every means necessary despite challenges and limitation ("Values Clarification Exercise", 2015). These should include arriving on time, attending seminars, conducting more research and allowing necessary corrections in order to achieve the desired results. At times, an employee must endure strong criticism from colleagues or complaints of poor service from clients.

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