Critical Reflection In Nursing

Throughout my time on the Mother Baby Care Unit, I have faced many instances in which I have been able to reflect on both my patients and the care that I was providing them. One situation in particular that I found myself critically reflecting upon involved a new mother who was feeling slightly stressed about being discharged as her newborn son would not be going home with her. For confidentiality reasons, this patient will be given the pseudonym of Kayla for the remainder of this reflection.

Critical reflection is vital to develop evidence based practice for safe and quality approaches to professional nursing practice. Nursing professionals should critically reflect on events to identify what health professionals might do to improve their practice and reduce the risk of a similar error. Reflective practice can help to learn from their mistakes, be empowered and most importantly to deliver best possible care to patient as nurses must work closely with their patients to develop a therapeutic relationship. Critical reflection is a valuable skill to ensure patient centred care. This practice promotes personal development by enhancing students’ self-awareness, their sense of community, and their sense of their own capacities for

Reflection is a process of exploring and examining ourselves, our perspectives, attributes, experiences and actions / interactions. It helps us gain insight and see how to move forward (Nursing Times 2018). I believe reflection is particularly important when it comes to Nursing, as medicine is constantly changing/ improving and us ourselves medical professionals must adapt with the changes in medicine. I find that reflection is extremely useful in doing this as we can look over procedures or experiences that we have had, how that made us feel, whether we would change anything, then in the future we can see the changes that may have been made, whether this has changed our feelings and opinions on medical practice.

Skin integrity is an important concept that’s nurses assess on their patients. A key skill in nursing practice is to frequently assess the skin for possible breakdown or decreased skin integrity. Skin assessments should be conducted thoroughly once a shift and frequently reassessed for any signs of change. Skin discrepancies may be the first sign of an underlying issue. Early detection of any breakdown can help to implement interventions sooner. Unfortunately, unless there is a major skin discrepancy, skin issues can easily get overlooked, specifically in documentation and report. The focus of this paper is to research new skin integrity assessments to improve documentation effect and accuracy, resulting in decreased prevalence of skin breakdown in hospitalized patients. Topics discussed include reviewing current practices and new skin assessment techniques that decrease the prevalence of skin breakdown and pressure ulcers.

The following essay is a reflective account on an event that I, a student nurse encountered whilst on my second clinical placement in my first year of study. The event took place in a Fountain Nursing Home in Granite City. I have chosen to give thought to the event described in this essay as I feel that it highlights the need for nurses to have effective communication skills especially when treating patients that are suffering with a mental illness. Upon arriving to the Nursing home for the second time on Thursday November 14,2013; assigned the same patient as before. On meeting my patient the first thing I noticed myself doing without even thinking about it was giving her a visual inspection. Before nursing school I never really looked at

In this case study I will use Gibbs (1988) model of reflection to write a personal account of an abdominal examination carried out in general practice under the supervision of my mentor, utilising the skills taught during the module thus far.

The objective of this reflection is to explore and reflect upon a situation from a clinical placement on an orthopedic unit. The incident showed that I did not provide safe, timely and competent care for my patient when the oxygen saturation was low. Furthermore, this reflection will include a description of the incident, and I will conclude with explaining what I have learned from the experience and how it will change my future actions.

Starting the Registered Nurse (RN) to Bachelorette of Science in Nursing (BSN) program at Jacksonville University in June 2015 was a simple transition for me. I had graduated an Associates Degree in Nursing (ADN) program in December 2014 and became a licensed RN in January 2015. I had just gotten hired for my first nursing position the month prior to the start of class and had not yet started working. I was very much still in student mode. While this makes it a bit easier to learn and process information in a classroom setting, I had no real world experience to help guide me. Through the knowledge I have gained as a student at Jacksonville University I have become a competent and well-rounded nurse. I am able to quickly problem solve and utilize critical thinking to identify and rectify issues. I have even put together, and will be presenting, and presentation about nursing practice for staff members at the facility where I work.

I was waiting for my father to finish surgery when I heard a woman screaming for help. Peering outside, I saw a man collapsed on a bench. Despite shouts for help, the hallway remained empty and still. It was only when I looked at the clock that I realized that most of the doctors and nurses would have already left for lunch. I did the only thing I could think of, I grabbed the pager on my dad’s desk and repeatedly paged the Operating Room. After what felt like an eternity, my father and several nurses raced down the hallway. I watched as they expertly insert an IV and used a defibrillator. Within minutes, the gentleman had regained consciousness and was breathing again. When I saw him next morning, for someone who was close to death the day

I arrived at the clinic early one day for a splinting class. We had planned to go over placing different types of casts on each other. The class was about 3 hours long, and afterwards I went into the walk-in clinic department. Shortly after starting my regular job, the lady who normally registers the patients came over to me and asked: “Blake, will you go check on the gentleman in the bathroom? He went in there about ten minutes ago, and he didn’t look so hot.” I told her that I would go check on him. As I stepped into the bathroom, expecting to find the gentleman puking or washing his face, I witnessed a much more shocking situation. The man was laid out on his back on the floor, with his arms spread out. His eyes were turning a bluish-grey hue, and his face was turning pale. I checked to see if he was responsive, and then yelled down the hall for help. I went back into the bathroom and began performing CPR. I did not have a resuscitation mask, but I gave breaths as needed because I did not want to leave any doubt that I did everything I could to save this man’s life. After what seemed like a lifetime, several other doctors arrived and began an IV and pushed epinephrine. The man was immediately rushed to the emergency room and was successfully revived. I hoped that the man would go on to live a long time, but the damage to his heart was too significant. On the bright side, he was saved for long enough for his family to say their final goodbyes. From this experience, I learned how serious and immediate heart issues can be. The autopsy found that the man had hypertrophic cardiomyopathy and, due to his significant alcohol use, his heart stopped working. What started as a fever and shakiness ended in a much more serious and eye opening experience. Often times, it hard for us to recognize that everyday people have these health issues that

As higher standards expected are from the public and higher patient safety demands are expected from health boards, therefore, there is a need for a way of measuring standards of practice which can be achieved through active thinking in a clinical environment brought about by critical reflection (Rolfe, Jasper & Freshwater 2011). Reflection has become such a key component in the role of a nurse that the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) have seen it fit to include it in their professional code of conduct the Code: Professional Standards of Practice and Behaviour for Nurses and Midwives, hereafter referred to as the Code (Nursing & Midwifery Council [NMC], 2015). With reflection being a vital skill for nurses to continue their professional development (Parrish & Crookes, 2013), an analysis of what it means to reflect within nursing is needed by all who intend to enter the profession to ensure its effective use is applied.

My supervisor, one of the head nurses, hurriedly pulled me to the corner of the bleach white hospital room and directed me to put on gloves, an eye mask, and a face mask. I felt as if I was preparing for war as I put on all of the required gear. The sound of expensive shoes click-clacked down the hallway indicating the arrival of two doctors who rushed into the room and shouted out orders to the staff while pulling the doors to the room shut along with the curtains. Two doctors, eight nurses, an intern, and a dying patient squeezed into the already claustrophobic ten by fifteen-foot room. The machine monitoring the patient’s vital signs continued to beep incessantly as my heart rate accelerated. Throughout my internship, I had never seen a patient in critical condition until that moment. I remembered my teacher’s advice if we were ever in a situation such as this: take a few deep breaths and sit down if you feel like you’re going to pass out. In that

Signals of pain, nausea, or discomfort were able to slightly be given; slowlybut surely progress was being made, or so we thought. Out of the blue, my dad’s heart rate became usually slow, and his blood pressure dropped to an extremely low and worrying level. A nurse rushed into the room checking every possible thing he could; he drew multiple tubes of blood, changed the I.V. in case of possible infection, and did numerous other things and tests, but nothing worked and nothing abnormal was revealed in his blood or the tests completed. My mom and I were told the tragic news; my dad’s organs were shutting down, and he was not showing positive signs that he would make it. Once I heard those appalling words, it was as if my entire body became paralyzed. I could not make a single movement, all I could do was witness what was happening right in front of my eyes. My dad lying in that bed, ignorant of all that is going on around him, ignorant of his condition, ignorant of what was yet to come. Nurses and doctors were steadily entering and exiting his hospital room. Two nurses slowly removed the small tube that was pumping out all the acidic, rust colored, infection infested liquid out of my dad’s body. One nurse slowly and softly tugged and pulled on the tube while the other applied pressure to certain areas of his body, and made sure no complications had occurred. The bag filled with antibiotics that was connected to his I.V. was disconnected and replaced with a bag that contained a water resembling liquid. The heart monitor was the only device that was not tampered with because the doctors and nurses wanted to continuously be aware of his vital sign information in case of any unexpected

The Royal College of Nursing defines reflection as the process of thinking deeply with the purpose of understanding (RCN 2013). Reflection is a way people recollect, think and evaluate their knowledge which is a vital part of learning. (Boud et al cited in Royal College of Nursing). Reflection allows us to be conscious of any form of discrimination. It enables learning from mistakes and prevents future occurrence (RCN 2013). In addition, Jasper et al (2013) looks at reflection as a way professionals learn through various experiences in their role. They also went further to say, for development to happen in our roles as professionals, there is the need for continuous process of building our knowledge.

Critical thinking is defined as a disciplined, self directed thinking that meets appropriate intellectual standards within a particular mode or domain of thinking (Paul and Elder, 2014). In Nursing, the possession of this important skill helps a nurse to assess a given situation, identify the main problem, determine a perfect solution and implement an effective method of dealing with the problem.