Supplemental Bullets #002

• A theory is a well-defined, testable description of a subject. It can be tested in practice.
• A conceptual model is a group of ideas that serves as a framework upon which theories can be developed and tested.
• Nursing involves the diagnosis and treatment of human responses to actual or potential health problems.

• Nursing is the act of utilizing the client’s environment to assist him/her in his/her recovery.
• Nursing refers to assisting or helping infants, children and adults who are wholly or partly dependent.
• Nursing refers to developing a system of knowledge about persons that is used to observe, classify and relate the process by which persons positively affect their health status.
• Prescriptive theories explain, relate and in some situations predict nursing phenomena.
• Interdisciplinary theories enable nurses to practice in today’s health care system, with a strong scientific knowledge base from nursing and other disciplines, such as physical, social and behavioral.
• Health and wellness models assist nurses in understanding and predicting the client’s behaviors, including use of health care services and adherence to recommend therapies.
• Developmental theories assert that development begins with conception and continues through death in an orderly manner.
• Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs is useful to nurses who continually prioritize a client’s nursing care needs. The basic of first level needs include air, water and food.
• Leininger’s theory of cultural care diversity and universality specifically addresses caring for clients from unique cultures.
• The caregiver role of the nurse emphasizes recognition of needs of clients.
• As a client advocates, the nurse defends the rights of the client.
• In his/her collaborative role, the nurse initiates nursing actions with co-workers. 
• Respect for persons must always be upheld in resolving ethical dilemmas. The inherent dignity of a person must be respected.  
• The principle of inviolability of life states that it is not ethical to violate or destroy human life from the moment of conception and through the subsequent stages.
• Humble position is a type of nursing approach that often decreases the client’s defense and makes client more willing to listen without feeling embarrassed.
• The principle of non- maleficence exemplifies that the health care team will provide care to their clients in the least painful and harmful way possible.
• Beneficence is exemplified when a child’s immunization is administered even if it may cause discomfort during administration; but the benefits of protection from disease, both for the individual and society, outweigh the temporary discomforts.
• Fidelity is the principle involved when the nurse monitors the client’s response to the plan when a nurse assesses a client for pain and then offers a plan to manage the pain.
• Practice of advocacy calls for the nurse to assess the client’s point of view and prepare to articulate this point of view.
• When a head nurse observes poor staffing in a unit, she should discuss this with her supervisor.
• When a staff nurse observes a confused co-worker taking two tablets of sedatives before preparing the client’s medication, the staff nurse should call the head nurse immediately.
• A nurse manager should delegate responsibilities to staff members according to their abilities. Major responsibilities include preparing staff schedules, ensuring that standards of care are met, coordinating and delegating client care.