Becoming a Nurse or Midwife Essay

Critical thinking is a term you will often here in regards to nursing education and the ability to be a successful nurse. Critical thinking is one of the most important skills of a nurse. Nurses must be able to constantly asses and analyze situations in order to prioritize what is the most important task to accomplish next. This is an ever changing situation in health care and especially in the Intensive Care Units.

para. 1). Registered Nurses should be emotionally stable, so they can help the families through rough times (“Registered Nurses” U.S. para. 47). An RN also needs to be organized, and to make sure the patient gets what they need when needed (“Registered Nurses” U.S. para. 48). All RN’s will need to have the patients medical issues, and problems handy and to give the patients, and their medicines when the patients need it (“Registered Nurses” U.S. para. 8). An RN will usually records what the patient is doing, sometimes work with medical machinery, talk to doctors about the patient, and help the patient and the patient’s family on how to deal with their medical problems (“Registered Nurses” U.S. para. 8). Another important thing that an RN will need is to have the physical stamina and to be ready to lift or transfer patients (“Registered Nurses” U.S. para. 49). An RN will have to be able to lift at least 10 pounds, maybe even 20 pounds (“Registered Nurse” para. 4). A person in this career should have an energy level that is somewhat high, has a skill that is interpersonal, and a knowledge that is a little scientific (“Career” para. 6). If you happen to be an RN in a nursing home, an RN will watch over the LPN’s and CNA’s, may start fluids for the patient, make plans for treatments, and manage the patients health

Reflective practice in nursing is the process where we examine our nursing ability’s and practice in order to critically think and analyze the way we work and think about the views of others in our practice, what we could have done and we could have achieved a greater result by doing this also allows us as nurses to include best practice and use our own judgment in patient care to show the factors that either aid and hinder nurse to patient relationship. (Lowenstein, Bradshaw and Fuszard, 2001) described reflecting in nursing practice “the nurse must first come to understand what he or she defines as ideal practice”.

Some other traits include having good communication skills, being emotionally stable, good physical endurance, and diligence. Since nursing consists of talking a lot, ones communication skills should be very well. They must be able to understand what patients are saying, what orders are given by the doctors, and how to successfully chart ones activity. An important trait is being able to be emotionally stable. It is crucial in order to survive all the ups and downs of emotions nurses must experience. For instance, if one has become good friends with a patient and they pass away. It would be hard, but they would need to pull through and put their job first. For nurses to succeed, they should have good physical endurance. Nurses have very few breaks and they are on their feet all day. Being a nurse means having diligence and a positive work ethic. One needs to have a constant and earnest effort to accomplish what

In addition to these characteristics, nursing also involves critical thinking. "Critical thinking is the active, organized, cognitive process used to carefully examine one's thinking and the thinking of others. It involves the use of the mind in forming conclusions, making decisions, drawing inferences, and reflecting" (Perry,

Critical thinking is a nursing process that includes reflective practice, problem solving and decision making which are connected to one another. The definition of critical thinking is transferring and applying knowledge and skills in a new situation. The critical thinking is needed in a lot of aspects of the nurses’ job such as when the nurses need to provide the precise identification in the specific problems had by the patients. They need to be in detail and also critical to themselves in every time in order to be able to provide identification precisely. When you have the profession in nursing, it is important to be critical thinker. The nurses have the high responsibilities and their responsibilities are increasing from time to time.

A Registered Nurse is a healthcare professional that is involved in direct patient care. They are responsible for giving patient care while educating them on their condition in words they understand. Registered Nurses inform the public on the current health conditions they see coming through their place of work. Nurses are also required to provide physical and emotional support while advising patients on the best steps they can take. A major focus of the healthcare field is care planning and prevention; RN's must have a vast range of knowledge to be able to stop and ailment before it happens.

Underlying both the clinical decision-making process and the nursing process is the skill of critical thinking. Critical thinking has been described as the ability to gather and process data in such a way as to arrive at the best conclusion using the filters of prior knowledge, experience and external resources to overcome personal emotions, biases, and assumptions. (This description was developed during NUR/300 class, University of Phoenix, S. Colorado, March 16, 2006) Note that critical thinking is described as a

The national league for nurses defines critical thinking in the nursing process as “a discipline specific, reflective reasoning process that guides a nurse in generating, implementing, and evaluating approaches for dealing with client care and professional concerns” (Kozier, 2008). This definition is imperative to help a nursing student learn how to think in terms of nursing care. Nursing students must achieve a comprehensive understanding of critical thinking in order to understand the nursing process. The purpose for this paper is for nursing students to learn how to use the nursing process, how to properly document their findings and assessments, and correctly implement APA formatting in a formal paper.

Personal reflection in nursing is essential and critical as it allows for continuous development and re-assessment of skills whilst working within a health care setting (Reflective practice: a tool to enhance professional practice 2011, pp.1-3). Personal reflection is important as reflective practice allows for the ability for one to reflect and examine their actions and experiences which overall will increase and enhance their clinical knowledge, as well as developing and improving their practice (Reflective practice: a tool to

To have a successful career in nursing one must have certain skills and abilities. A nurse must always be looking for ways to help her patients. Critical thinking is important because sometimes a nurse must make quick decisions that may benefit or harm the patient. Medical tools are always used while on the job and a nurse must know what these tools are and how to operate each one. A nurse must also know what tool is best needed for a certain patient when trying to make them better.

The major study variables in this investigation were critical thinking and clinical judgment skill of nursing students. Critical thinking was operationally defined with the ATI Critical Thinking Test and clinical judgment was operationally defined with the Lasater’s Clinical Judgment Rubric (Mann, 2012). The independent variable was identified as the Level II baccalaureate nursing students. The dependent variable was identified as the critical thinking and clinical judgment skills of the nursing students. The demographic variables included the gender and age of the

Critical thinking and clinical reasoning are similar in the fact that each term represents a set of methods that guide the nurse to reliable evidence-based practice while delivering care. Critical thinking and clinical reasoning are centered on knowledge base that is associated with the discipline of nursing. With each concept, the nurse must have an existing developed knowledge base in which to apply each concept to. Nurses apply critical thinking and clinical reasoning skills when patient care decisions are made. With both critical thinking and clinical reasoning, information about the patient is collected and examined. They work together to produce clinical judgment. They both direct nursing care to meet patients’ needs resulting in higher quality of care and better patient outcomes.

In this essay, I will share my experience when I was still a novice in the nursing profession and how my understanding of critical thinking has radically transformed, the importance of critical thinking skills in this profession and useful ways on how to develop this specific skill.

There are many things I would like to achieve during my life span. My main goal is to become a midwife, a woman who assists another woman in childbirth. I want to become a midwife because I have always had a passion for babies and soon after career research, I knew that midwifery was what interested me the most. Becoming a midwife will take a lot of school and patients, these are few steps I have to take to accomplish this goal.