Values

Curiosity

Curiosity is the desire to learn. Nursing is a lifelong learning profession, and as nurses, we never stop learning. We are always encouraged to ask questions and improve our skills to better serve our clients. Whether it’s a new medication prescribed for a client or a new method of providing care, we should question what these changes are and how they impact our clients’ health outcomes. As a RPN, doctors sometimes prescribe new drugs to my clients that weren’t there the day before. I become curious about these sudden changes, so I research what those drugs are and why they were introduced. By staying curious and continuously seeking knowledge, I can provide safe and effective care for my clients.

Human Dignity 

Human dignity refers to treating individuals with respect, ensuring privacy during care, and recognizing their rights regarding their health. Clients seeking medical help are often in a vulnerable state, where their dignity may not be protected. As nurses, it is important to ensure that our clients are valued and that their choices regarding healthcare services are acknowledged. I demonstrate the maintenance of human dignity by drawing the hospital curtains when providing hygiene care to my clients and by complying with my clients’ code status. Preserving our patient’s dignity helps create a safe and respectful environment where every patient feels valued and heard to make informed decisions about their health.

Accountability

Accountability means to be responsible for our actions and decisions. Before we are nurses, we are humans, and as humans, we are bound to make mistakes. However, what truly matters is being accountable for those mistakes and owning up to them so we can learn and grow. Accountability also involves me taking deliberate efforts to prevent errors and seeking help when needed, ensuring that I am providing safe and compassionate care to my patients. As a nurse I am accountable to myself, my patients, my license regulatory board and my healthcare team.

Altruism

Altruism, to me, means caring for and helping others without expecting anything in return. I put this down as one of my values because I believe that to be a good nurse, one must sometimes go the extra mile in taking care of patients. Nurses are often the closest to patients during their most critical moments, and it’s in these times that we offer not only medical care but emotional support. Whether it’s comforting a terminally ill patient, staying behind when a patient goes into cardiac arrest, or assisting a colleague who is overwhelmed with their workload, nursing often requires us to be benevolent, putting others’ needs before our own.