Essay Critical Thinking: Beneficial in Nursing Education

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.

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 does requires the application of knowledge and experience to identify patient’s problems and to direct clinical judgment and actions resulting in positive patient’s outcomes. Nurses use critical thinking skills when they reflect on knowledge derivative from other interdisciplinary subject areas such as the biophysical and behavioral sciences and the humanities in order to provide holistic nursing care. These skill are cultivate by nurses who display the virtues of critical thinking including independence of thought, curiosity, courage, humility, empathy and fair

Critical thinking refers to the ability to think rationally and clearly. It enables one be able to think well and be able to solve problems in a systematic manner. It also plays a role in evaluating ideas and acts as a tool for self evaluation. In nursing, critical thinking for clinical decision making refers to the process of thinking in a logical and systematic manner. Nursing practitioners who are critical thinkers strive to be clear, accurate, significant, precise and logic when carrying out their daily activities ADDIN EN.CITE Mateo2009451(Mateo & Kirchhoff, 2009)4514516Mateo, M. A.Kirchhoff, K. T.Research for advanced practice nurses: From evidence to practice. 2009New York, NYSpringer( HYPERLINK l "_ENREF_6" o "Mateo, 2009 #451" Mateo & Kirchhoff, 2009). Critical thinking in nursing involves some elements of thought. It involves being able to figure out a problem, issue or views of somebody else. The goal of thinking is to figure out what one hopes to accomplish ADDIN EN.CITE Sheridan19841096(Sheridan, Vredenburgh, & Abelson, 1984)1096109617Sheridan, John E.Vredenburgh, Donald J.Abelson, Michael A.Contextual Model of Leadership Influence in Hospital UnitsThe Academy of Management JournalThe Academy of Management Journal57-782711984Academy of Management00014273http://www.jstor.org/stable/255957( HYPERLINK l "_ENREF_7" o "Sheridan, 1984 #1096" Sheridan, Vredenburgh, & Abelson, 1984). Critical

Without the ability to critically think during the diagnosis process, nurses are denying their patients the care they need and deserve. The process of critically thinking about the patient’s condition and best treatment method is the fastest and most convenient way of treating them. Before a nurse can help their patient “they must know ‘what is’ the problem, risk state or readiness for health promotion …” (Lunney, 2010). In order to actually help the patient, the nurse must use his/her CT skills to determine how best to execute proper care. According to Chitty & Black (2011) a nurse who properly uses CT skills in her everyday practice does the following:

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.

Over the last thirty years, the health care system has incurred dramatic changes, resulting in new advances in technology and medical theories. Greater demand for quality care by consumers, more knowledgeable patients, remarkable disease processes, shorter hospitalizations, and the continuing pressure to lower health care costs are all contributing factors in the necessary changes to the nursing practice. In order for nurses to deliver optimum care, they must develop a higher quality of thinking capability. We will review the information given in this research paper to discuss the impact of critical thinking in the nursing profession, as well as the various strategies / techniques used in assisting

When a nurse has a problem with any elements in the skill of critical thinking or she neglects any skill process; this will lead to a bad decision. One good instance is an incident that occurred in our hospital. One nurse working in medical-surgical department was having a patient who had head injury. Accordingly, that patient was uncooperative. One morning when the assigned nurse went to check on him, she found the patient lying on the floor. Only to find out, patient went

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.

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.

The co-operative nursing assignment has given me the opportunity to use my critical thinking, decision-making, leadership, and clinical nursing expertise learned throughout the RN-BSN program. “The fostering of critical thinking as one of the terminal learning goals of nursing education based on the idea that critical thinking is important not only in the nursing workplace, but also in nursing education” (Shin, Jung, Shin & Kim, 2006, p. 233). My

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

Critical thinking used throughout the nation in nursing everyday to protect and treat patients in the most effective way. An example would be if a patient walked in to the hospital with a platelet count of 1, the nurse would know that they have a risk for bleeding and would place them on “risk for bleeding” protocols. Without critical thinking, the nurse would not know what to do. Critical thinking is a learned skill that every nurse should acquire, not only during his or her education, but also throughout his or her career.

Nurses probably hear about critical thinking on the first day of a nursing school program. In fact, nurses are encouraged to use critical thinking to solve daily tasks and problems (Bridget, 2014). After carefully reviewing the Critical thinking Wheel I discovered a few weakness of my critical thinking. The most important one is understanding my point of view. I sometimes fail to recognize another way to look at a situation or a problem. Instead, I focus on trying to prove to others and myself the relevance and reasoning behind my point of view. This approach limits the possible outcomes to problem or task. A good leader should be open to alternative solutions and ideas in order to facilitate the best outcome.

Critical thinking and clinical judgment are important skills that professional nurses use in every day clinical setting. In 2012, a mix method qualitative study by Dr. Jeanne Mann was done to evaluate the effectiveness of educational strategy to develop clinical judgment skills in nursing students. In this study, the population was identified as volunteered Level II baccalaureate nursing students from a Midwest nursing program. The variables identified in this article are the relation between critical thinking and clinical judgment. The title of the article clearly indicated the focus of the study and created an interest in reading the research due to nurses utilize their ability to critical think and