Introduction
(Who you are and where you practice nursing)
Definition of Nursing
If a Martian were asked to pick the most appropriate definition of nursing, it would certainly focus on the care and responsibility for human wellbeing. In an age of rapidly changing definitions of health and sickness, and in the face of the deconsolidation of healthcare into numerous professions and schools, the role of “the largest single group of staff working in the health service” (Marcovitch, 2005, p. 502) is more holistic than ever before. Hence, in order to properly consider the diversity of nursing activities and the basic needs this field intends to address, we should define nursing as the body of knowledge, practice and research on the promotion of wellbeing and prevention of one’s dissatisfaction regarding one’s physical and emotional conditions, while applying to knowledge, needs and abilities of the applicable healthcare environment.
Assumptions or Underlying Beliefs
For more than 60 years, the World Health Organization has advocated the notion that “Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity” (2003). Conventional and widely accepted as it is, this basic assumption is arguably not adequately practiced in modern healthcare. That is, following the definition of nursing suggested above and the definition of the WHO, clinical parameters are not sufficient to identify the extent of well-being and the proper nursing intervention required for providing the individual with the best possible care.
