As a little girl I was in the hospital a lot because of a heart condition I was born with, so I was around a lot of nurses and health care workers in general. When I think back to that time I can actually remember those certain nurses that were so kind to me. They would make me feel like I was the most important one in the hospital, even though I now know I was not! Sitting here thinking about how I can still pick out those nurses years later makes me realize that the littlest things, even just being kind, can make such an impact on your patient’s life. Nurses carry a lot of traits that make them into the kind, caring people they are. Two of those traits that enable nurses to have such caring personalities are; empathy and compassion.

Being able to feel empathy and compassion as a nurse is very important when taking care of patients. Empathy can be thought of in two ways, affective and cognitive. Affective empathy are the sensations and feelings people get in response to someone else’s emotions. Cognitive empathy enables a person to identify others emotions and actually understand them. People may thing compassion and empathy are the same, but they are not (Greater Good Magazine Staff, 2020). Compassion is the feeling that a person gets when they are confronted with someone else’s suffering, which allows that person to feel motivated to relieve their suffering (Greater Good Magazine Staff, 2020). I feel as though empathy and compassion go hand in hand even though they are not the same. The way I look at it, someone should feel empathy toward another person in order to be motivated to relieve their suffering because it starts with understanding and feeling for another person and their struggles. So, empathy is more taking another person’s perspective and feeling their emotions, while compassion is taking those thoughts and feelings and being motivated to help them.

Jean Watson developed 10 Carative Factors that should be used by nurses when in a caring role. Summed up into one word, these critical factors include: embrace, inspire, trust, nurture, forgive, deepen, balance, co-create, minister, open (Jean Watson’s Theory of Human Caring). Putting these factors into care will allow a nurse to see their patient as whole person and not just their patient that needs to be fixed. In order to easily incorporate the Carative Factors into every day care, it is important that the nurse understands empathy and compassion. Factor one, embrace includes the selfless behaviors that may be triggered by feeling compassion toward your patient. In order to inspire a patient and instill hope into them, the nurse must understand where they are at in this process and understand their feelings. Those are just two examples, but in order to effectively put all of them into daily care, empathy and compassion need to be felt. Feeling empathy toward a patient will enable the nurse to put themselves in the patient’s shoes and understand how they may be feeling by seeing things through their eyes. Feeling compassion will allow the nurse to strive to make a positive difference in their patient’s lives. By having that motivation based off of empathy and compassion, the nurse will have an easier time incorporating the Carative Factors into their everyday lives. It is obvious that using these factors into everyday care will make a positive impact on patient’s lives. Showing empathy and compassion toward patients will allow for a trusting relationship to be built. It will make the patient comfortable sharing any thoughts or feelings with the nurse, which is much needed when developing a plan of care. It will also allow the nurse and patient to work more closely together to form goals and plans that the patient is willing to work on and have the patient be more motivated when doing so. From experience, when a patient feels that the nurse genuinely cares about them and wants them to get better, the patient is way more motivated, so the outcomes are positive.

Over the summer I got a job at a long-term health care facility. It was my first experience working in health care, so everything was pretty new to me. I was not a CNA yet, so I could not do much besides making beds and answering call bells. At first, I was frustrated with having limitations on what I could do when all I wanted to do was help, but I ended up realizing that you can help a person and make a difference in their life without preforming direct care on them. This was a very important realization for me because it made me cherish and take advantage of the time I spend with a patient when I walk into their room because I know in some way, I am making an impact on them. Throughout my time at the nursing home and clinical, I have met very wonderful people and had many different experiences.

My experience with one specific patient at the nursing home really stands out to me when I think of putting empathy and compassionate care into action. I started working there during COVID, so the residents are not allowed to leave their rooms and the nurses and CNA’s always seemed too busy to talk to them. They were finally able to have a person from their family visit if they were taken outside, which I had the pleasure of doing as well. This woman had a visit so I went into her room to make sure she is ready so I could take her down. She was struggling with her wig and she was trying to do her makeup because she wanted to look good for her family. I saw her struggling so I asked her if she needed help. It almost seemed like she was surprised I was even giving her the time of day, which made me really sad. She ended up allowing me to help her, so I fixed her wig and I put her makeup on how she wanted it. That may seem like a little thing to help someone with, but I could tell that she appreciated it by the way her face lit up when she looked at herself in the mirror. I finally brought her outside and I was able to meet her granddaughter because that is who came to visit. She started telling her granddaughter how wonderful I was and how amazing she looks because of me even though I had just met her. She was talking to me during her visit with her daughter telling me about her life when she was younger and explained how she was a Rockette. When the visit was over her granddaughter asked when the person that does their nails would be back because she loved having her nails painted. I knew that they would not be back for a while, and as I was walking her back in I really tried to put myself in their shoes and realize how hard it must be to be in a place like this especially during COVID. I thought of ways I could help her without actually doing care on her, so I set up a “nail salon” in her room. I found a bunch of colors she could choose from and tried to bring all of the materials that a real nail person would have. She was so excited and happy, which made me very happy. I sat there and did her nails and she was talking to me more about her life and how it is here. Doing those simple acts of kindness for this woman ended up forming a trusting relationship, every time I see her she tells me I make her day. She even had her granddaughter bring in a scrapbook with pictures from when she was a Rockette to show me!

I will always remember the experiences I had with this woman and the impact I made on her life. I want to bring that type of care to any patient I come in contact with. I aspire to be the type of nurse that people will remember years later, just as I have. I will work hard to incorporate Watson’s Carative Factors into my everyday patient encounters to be able to see any patient as a whole person and not just a patient that needs to be fixed. I will go into every situation with an open mind and an open heart allowing me to feel the empathy and compassion that is so greatly needed in health care.