Personhood

Instructions: Response must be at least 310 words written in current APA format with at least two academic references cited. References must be within the last five years. Response must extend, refute/correct, or add additional nuance.

Personhood reflects one’s own consciousness, reasoning, self-reflection, identity, values, intentions, and morality (Butts, & Rich, 2018).  It is being your own authentic self. Personhood can be related to consciousness on how pain is perceived.  It can include reasoning on how we critically think as nurses. Characteristics that make you a unique individual such as hobbies, personality traits, morals, and values are all included in personhood (Butts, & Rich, 2018).  Nurses view personhood as living to care for others. Caring for the health outcomes of our patients is an attribute to personhood.

Nurses exemplify personhood in the roles that we take with patients.  Being educators, motivators, confidants and healers are what people view nurses as.  Personhood describes caring as an innate trait or acquired trait modeled from another.  This behavior could have been acquired from a mentor, parent, sibling, patient, or anyone who has made an impact on your life.  Leading a life of value is what makes the field of nursing remarkable (Toomey, 2021).  The life we live as nurses impacts others within the community and in our own homes.  The care we give to our patients regardless of their aggression, anger, and despair is what we inadvertently hope to receive from others.

Personhood reflects motivating ourselves daily regardless of what we may be personally experiencing.  It is putting on our game faces to be an inspiration to others.  At the same time, the nurse must have self-awareness into partaking in activities that can destress us.  Maintaining a balance is the way we achieve the qualities of personhood.  An evolution of caring that may not have been an initial trait is reflective of personhood.  For example, there are some people who may go into the field of nursing and do not feel empathetic for patients.  These individuals may have suffered unusual circumstances within their own lives that make it difficult to express caring gestures.  The ability to acquire caring traits through multiple interactions with patients is growth in personhood (Toomey, 2021).

Living to care is a definition of personhood.  This is a challenge for new nurses who must learn to ignore rude and irritable patients.  They must continue to have thoughtful gestures through the verbal abuse.  Some of these patients will insult you and call you names.  As nurses, we learn what our main objective is.  With experience, these statements and the abusive nature of patients can be ignored.  In mental health, nurses learn that through traumatic experiences patients will lash out on the vulnerable ones.  We know that major depressive disorders can cause irritability.  Knowledge empowers us to be consistent in our generous nature of providing high-quality, culturally competent care to our patients.  We know to forgive and excuse those that may be struggling with obstacles or challenges whether it is financial, physiological, or mental.