Critical Thinking . Critical Thinking Is A Major Component

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.

Healthcare is a complex business. Highly specialized knowledge is required to make life and death decisions, in a system with many moving parts. Nurses are important in today’s healthcare system. Nurses are the largest group of healthcare workers and spend the most time direct time with patients. Americans have identified nurses as having the highest honesty and ethical standards for the last 14 years ("Gallop Poll," 2015). This adds up to a system and patients and a profession that makes significant demands on today’s nurses. Critical thinking and reasoning has been identified as an essential skill set that nurses must possess. How are nurses prepared to meet these demands and expectations and develop the critical thinking skills that

As the nurses who participated in a study (Jones & Cheek, 2003) overwhelmingly advised, there is no such thing as a typical day for a nurse. Nurses face new situations everyday and it is important that they can adjust their knowledge and skills accordingly. Critical thinking and reflection are essential skills because they can enhance nurses’ ability to solve problems and make sound decisions. Critical thinking skills enable nurses to identify multiple possibilities in clinical situations and alternatives to interventions; weigh the consequences of alternate actions; and make sound judgement and decisions (Brunt, 2005). Through reflection, nurses can examine their practice, explore feelings and reactions and connect new meanings to past experience (Brunt). Reflection can enhance self-awareness, foster professional satisfaction and growth and increase the possibility for change and improvement in nursing practice and therapeutic relationships (Thorne & Hayes, 1997).

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,

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

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.

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.

The level of critical thinking endowed in a nurse trained at BSN level is far higher than one trained at the ADN level. The California Critical Thinking Disposition Inventory (CCTDI) and California Critical Thinking Skills Test (CCTST) conducted a study to test the

Critical thinking under the limelight when considering accuracy of diagnosis related to nurse’s decision which involves seven cognitive abilities and ten phases of mind. (Lunney & Margaret, 2003). However, when all these factors are established, critical thinking would then setup gaols and derive a plan to identifying, interacting thoughts and interconnecting numerous elements. These all would in return help implantation and evaluation and leading to strong decision making. Moreover, critical thinking is very crucial and important for clinical nursing and its shuffling and implementation further promotes development and decision making criteria (Videbeck, Jan 1997).

Critical thinking is known as two different definitions. A common academic definition for critical thinking is “the objective analysis and evaluation of an issue in order to form judgment (Google).” In nursing, critical thinking is known as “purposeful, self-regulatory judgment which results in interpretation, analysis, evaluation, inference, as well as the explanation of the evidential, conceptual, methodological, criteriological, or contextual considerations upon which that judgment was based (Turner, 2005).” Although, these two definitions are similar, the nursing definition is more in-depth and clearly leans more towards how critical thinking is important for the nursing profession. Academic critical thinking is used in everyday life whether

Gaberson, K.B; Oremmann, M. H; & Shellenbarger, T. (2015), critical thinking is defined as the mental process of actively and skillfully perception, analysis, synthesis and evaluation of collected information through observation, experience and communication that leads to a decision for action. In nursing education there is frequent reference to critical thinking and to the significance that it has in daily clinical nursing practice. Nursing clinical instructors know that students face difficulties in making decisions related to clinical practice. The main critical thinking skills in which nursing students should be exercised during their studies are critical analysis, introductory and concluding justification, valid conclusion, distinguish

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

In “Knowledge mobilized by a critical thinking process deployed by nursing students in practical care situations: a qualitative study“ by Lechasseur, Lazure, & Guilbert (2011), research was conducted on how nursing students use various types of knowledge within their practice setting, and how the usage of the critical thinking process aids them in their practice. Leschasseur et. al believes that student nurses in practice are not given enough critical thinking training, and that leads to an inability to contextualize their knowledge during clinical care. This paper is a summary of Lechasseur et. al’s study, methods, results, and conclusion.

The nursing process and Watson’s theory both provide a framework to promote critical thinking by the nurse so conclusions can be made and they can have a caring moment. This is completed by “assessment, plan, intervention, evaluation.” (Nursing Theories, 2012, p.4) The theory is well organized, not complex and “can be used to guide and improve practice.”(Nursing Theories, 2012, p.4)