Critical Thinking In Clinical Practice

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.

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,

160) Knowledge elevates the power of critical thinking. Critical thinking is very essential to work in areas such as Intensive Care Units, Emergency Care Units. Assessment, diagnosis, planning, implementation and evaluation are best done by a BSN than an ADN because of the power of critical thinking. The skills of critical thinking, better problem solving, and development of clinical judgment are important for increase patient acuity. Since BSN is better in critical thinking and evidence based practice, they lower mortality rate significantly. (Aiken, 2003)

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.

After reading the Nurse of he Future Nursing Core Competencies (NOF), I believed it was created to help nurses used critical thinking when delivering care. Being a nurse had empowered me to know the important of critical thinking when caring for patients. “Nurses use critical thinking to integrate objective data with knowledge gained from an assessment of the subjective experiences of patients and groups, and to apply the best available evidence and research data to the processes of diagnosis and treatment”.

The critical thinking approach is one that became synonymous with nursing as the profession focused more toward evidence-based practice (EBP). EBP dramatically help produce better patient outcomes. Wasn’t enough that nursing was emerging as a profession, but nurses quickly became aware that new knowledge needed to be developed in a way that other nurses can test them. Nursing theory transformed clinical knowledge into a useful scientific process. Theory impacts nursing by placing the profession as a powerful team within the healthcare system who makes meaningful impact on health outcomes. The use of nursing theory can lead to better patient outcomes. Better patient outcome is due to research and data that can be proven by others.

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.

from the novice to the expert nurses. Highly trained and qualified nurses and scholars with sound

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

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)

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.