Clinical Reflection: Empathy Analysis

As a Registered Nurse who knows the duties that his work demands, I have to demonstrate deeper understanding of the Health Directorate's core values of care, excellence, collaboration, and integrity in my professional nursing practice and patient care. To conform to the above mentioned values, I endeavor to appreciate that improving a patient's experience is integral in patient care. This can be achieved by doing away with fear and anxiety that protracts patients' healing process. Enhancement of the communication between my patients and I will also go a long way in hastening their recovery and their self-management.

I feel so proud and yet so humbled to be a nurse. Helping a post-operative surgical patient regain the strength to walk brings me immense satisfaction. Collaborating with physicians to advocate on behalf of unstable patients makes me feel like a valued part of a team. Consoling tearful, discouraged patients can be gut-wrenching, but it teaches me the power of empathy. Making a real, tangible difference in my patients’ lives is what drives me toward this next phase in my career.

Being able to grasp the patient’s views, habits, and behaviors gives me the knowledge to assist the patient in making better choices. I have noticed in my workplace, how some nurses are better at conveying information to a patient and presenting it in a way that assist the patient in understanding the complexities of the issues. They do this with humor, challenging the patient’s reasoning, confidence, and solid examples of the matter. Observing these interactions has allowed me to intercede into my patient’s reasoning. There are times when I have been successful and moments when other nurses ask me to come and speak with their patient to assist in these difficult

First of all, I recognized that I was dealing with humans, and not just dealing with a disease process and application of the nursing process in the aspect of restoring patient health. I was dealing with emotions, and families, and cultural beliefs that influenced individual’s aspects of care. I started to see that health did not just incorporate healing the disease, but also recognized the importance of making sure patient’s felt that their

I sincerely believe that I accomplished my goals this week. I realized that I served 14 patients by combining the ability of knowledge, my attitude for excellence that I have consistently defeat the odds to become the very best Nurse practitioner; I can become. This clinical experience brings forth many opportunities and achievements. The most important experience this week; I had the ability to identify as primary healthcare provider a high risk need for the patient to be transferred to the Hospital for further evaluation without delay; due to complaints of “leg cold from the knee down to the feet”, which my evaluation was based on evidence practice knowledge of compassion and skill with the autonomy to practice, diagnose, and treat patients

Empathy should play an active role in the daily lives of everyone, but in particular in the day-to-day lives of a healthcare professional. Healthcare professionals have the unique and challenging job of counseling patients in times of need, whether that is in the setting of a newly diagnosed disease or in the death of a family member. This unique challenge requires all healthcare professionals to be skilled at using empathy in the appropriate circumstances.

During this week’s experience, three components of my nursing skills expanded – communication skills, assessment data, and attention to detail. Although I still find myself nervous to approach a patient and openly discuss thoughts of suicide/homicide and trauma, I found myself more open to the experience this week. As I continue to increase my confidence and comfort with the psychiatric population, the ease of the conversation will come naturally. I am learning when and what questions to ask the patients to gain the highest quality information. Alongside communication skills, my assessment skills expanded during this week’s experience.

Third week into clinical. So far, things are slowly improving, however I do need to work on critical thinking and being less task oriented. I had my very own patient. The clinical objective was to be able to perform a successful health assessment on a patient and to identify factors in the environment that would impact patient care. Hopefully from there, my critical thinking skills will develop through experience and to fill my concept map thoroughly. On Tuesday, my patient was an older gentleman who came in with destruction of the liver due to medication. When caring for my patient, I made sure that he received everything that he wanted. I felt that I did well in that aspect for seeking good for the patient. I was told to get his good and make his bed. I don’t know why making his bed didn’t occur in the beginning. But, I learned that in the beginning, it’s important to make sure that the environment is clean, their bed is made, and ask if they needed a show. The important thing that I received from this is asking yourself what would you want the nurse to do if you were the patient. One thing I do realize is that my ability to work with patients and communicate with them with some baseline knowledge is good. With these, I am able to be more confident in my work. But, I do need to work on looking at the full picture when gathering information from the patient. I tend to overlook things but I will improve by realizing my failures.

My Story: Today, was an awesome, extremely busy clinical day; I absolutely loved it. I saw five total patients. The first patient that I saw was with Laura, this patient was diagnosed yesterday, 2/7, with cirrhosis of the liver and HEP C. The patient’s chart says he has a history of anxiety, however, the patient stated that his anxiety started when he was told in the ER on 1/25 that he could have cirrhosis of the liver (more information in part D and E). This patient was very interesting, and I was amazing by how much he was going through; I felt bad for him. I did vital signs and my part D and E with this patient, and built a therapeutic relationship with this individual. I completed my part D and E on my first patient, due to not knowing if other patients were going to cancel because of the snow, as well as I didn’t know what patients I could see because the NP, Tanya wasn’t in the office in the morning. At the end of the visit, the patient asked me if I would be coming back again. This made me feel good, because I knew listening and being there as support for this patient helped him. The rest of the day I followed the

Nevertheless, put aside of the attributes I possess, I am unable to separate empathy from sympathy. I am a very emotional person. But human service providers should have the ability of not being affected by clients’ emotions beyond understanding. Otherwise, the helping professional will not only be burned out easily, but also unable to solve customers’ problems effectively. Thus, I will keep working on distinguish empathy, which is being understanding, from sympathy, which is putting myself in the client’s positions.

She believes effective caring promotes health and the core to nursing is ‘nurse-patient relationships that result in a therapeutic outcome’ (Watson, 2002). A nurse’s attitude and competence can affect a patient’s world, making it bigger or smaller, threatening or secure. Watson believes these moments transformed the nurse and the patient and they were connected together.

The purpose of this journal is to reflect on my experience and skills gained during my clinical placement at Ben Taub Hospital. On my first clinical day, I was excited and nervous at the same time. My first placement was in the PREOP/PACU area. I was assigned to help a patient who had been in the PACU area going on 2 days. Normally, once the patient comes from surgery they are only in the PACU area for a short period of time before they are discharged home or given a bed in another area of the hospital. This particular patient still had not received an assignment for a bed. The physicians would make their rounds to come check on him daily. The patient was a 28-year-old Hispanic male, non-English speaking, he had a hemicolectomy. He had a NG tube, urinary Foley catheter, and a wound vac. My preceptor had just clocked in and she needed to check on the patient’s vitals and notes from the previous nurse. Once she introduced me to the patient and explained while I was there, she then asked me to check his vitals. (Vital signs indicate the body’s ability to regulate body temperature, maintain blood flow, and oxygenate body tissues. Vital signs are important indicators of a client’s overall health status (Hogan, 2014). I froze for a quick second. I have practiced taking vitals numerous of times and I knew I could do it correctly. I started with the temperature first, when I was quickly corrected on a major mistake I had made by my preceptor. I HAD FORGOT TO WASH MY HANDS and PUT

The first stage of this framework is coming to know the client, which requires the nurse to understand that the personal meaning of health and healing is individualized and the context of this area is highly subjective. Gillespie and Paterson (2009) state that “clinical decision-making processes are triggered by recognition of a cue from a patient” (p. 167). In the case of this patient, the decision was based off a cue; a change

Social Justice is defined as “the equal distribution of opportunities, rights, and responsibility despite differences in physical traits and/or beliefs and behavior. It is an international and multifaceted issue that fights for better treatment and equality of people.” (“Pachamama Alliance,” 2017). According to this definition, my understanding of social justice is that it is a way to advocate for other individuals in order to assist their needs in society. For example, I would want to advocate for Hispanic mothers and children who have been through abuse. My empathy towards this group started because of my personal history with an abusive father who suffered from alcoholism. “Empathy involves thinking about a person and the challenges he or she is facing and coming to understand what it is like for that person to have that experience.” (Cameron & Keenan, 2013, p. 72).

During my first semester student clinical rotation, I was introduced to patient, 76 year old AB who was being treated at an assisted living facility. She was a wonderful patient and someone I immediately connected with. AB had been medically diagnosed with COPD and displayed all the classic physical signs of the disease such as wheezing, deliberate breathing, severe shortness of breath and nutritional deficit. She was my first patient as a student nurse and the first person I was able to complete a health assessment and nursing care plan for. I recognized early on that AB was special and someone who would be a great person to communicate with. With the initial assessment she was a little scared, but