Ways Of Knowing In Nursing

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Ways of Knowing
It is important to develop a solid base of knowledge prior to entering patient care; a foundation to build upon throughout a career of nursing. A nurse’s tacit knowledge, gained from the experiences incurred, will continue to grow throughout the nurse’s career. This author has developed an explicit knowledge during her formal training and a beginning tacit knowledge through experiences obtained during a multidisciplinary medical career. During this paper, the author will reflect on one patient’s care and identify how Carper’s patterns of knowing in nursing were utilized to aid the patient in the healing process.
While working in home health as a field nurse, seeing patients in their home environment, this author was tasked
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P’s wound management was conducted by this author and by the patient daily. The patient had wounds from his recent hospital stay and surgeries, but also fresh wounds from falls that occurred after the patient arrived home. The patient was educated on the proper care for his wounds through demonstration and observation of his wound care. He had to learn of proper nutrition for wound healing and was reluctant to use his tube feedings; due to not wanting to be attached to a machine. Through encouragement and proper education, the patient began to use continuous tube feeding at night and would stay off during an 8-hour period during the day. This aided in the healing of wounds that were otherwise not healing. The patient eventually healed from his surgery and could intake food orally and use the tube feedings as a supplement rather than the main source of nutrients, and eventually became strong enough to discontinue tube feeding and have the tube removed.
Mr. P’s house was not arranged in a way that aided him being able to safely move around the house. He spent most of his day sitting in a recliner or lying down in bed. Prior to his discharge, the family had boxed up his wife’s belongings and had left the boxes in various areas throughout the home. The patient would have to alter his path of travel due to furniture and boxes. This author moved things in the patient’s home, with permission, to allow for him to have direct paths to areas that were traveled
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Nursing does not consist of only following a set list of protocols for a symptom or problem that the patient is currently dealing with but involves a deeper level of thinking so that the patient can be cared for: physically, socially, and mentally. Carper sought out a holistic approach that would move nursing to a more adaptable model. Carper’s patterns of knowing gave a new approach for nurses to perform self-reflection and evaluate their own practice to deepen their knowledge, whether it be explicit from research or tacit from the experience. Nurses can, in turn, use their new-found knowledge to provide a better level of care in future patient encounters (Zander,