Critical Thinking Nursing

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.

When people think about nurses, many ideas come to mind. They think of the hideous old starched, white uniforms, a doctor’s handmaiden, the sexy or naughty nurse, or a torturer. The media and society have manipulated the identity and role of nurses. None of these ideas truly portray nurses and what they do. Nurses are with the patients more than the doctors. People do not realize how little they will encounter the doctor in the hospital until they are actually in the hospital. People quickly realize how important nurses are. Because nurses interact with their patients constantly, nurses are the ones who know the patients best.

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 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.

How often, and under what circumstances, do you ask questions that start with “But what if…?” or “It depends…?”

There has been a lot of talk about critical thinking during my four years of nursing school, with an array of different meaning and explanation; some was even unfathomable and baffling. Not so long ago, during my early years as a novice nurse, I didn’t pay much attention to the word, critical thinking. From where I used to work, decision making skills of nurses do not have a strong foundation. Every time there was a problem regarding patient care, it was immediately referred to the attending physician and then I would just carry out orders without sometimes thinking it through. I was a task-worker who simply carried out doctors’ orders and followed a fixed set of rules. That is how I practiced before, reckless and impulsive. I never rethink and reconsider decisions made by doctors. I never admit to a lack of knowledge. I was too proud of myself .Luckily, it didn’t cost any patient lives but it could have. I wasn’t thinking and acting like a professional nurse. To think like a nurse requires that to learn the content of nursing; the ideas, concepts and theories of nursing and develop intellectual capacities and skills so that we become disciplined, self-directed, critical thinkers (Heaslip, 1993) ¬ a realization that I just have found out recently. My perspective about critical thinking change immensely while taking this course. Not only because it covered different aspects of critical thinking but also

The ability to think critically is vital to a nurse 's role as nurses are faced with constant decision-making in which the answers are often not completely clear or definitive but the consequences of which affect human lives. Critical thinking involves the use of a specific thought process to guide complex clinical decision-making (Arnold & Boggs, 2011). According to Arnold and Boggs (2011), to apply critical thinking, one must: clarify concepts, identify his or her own values, integrate data and identify missing data, obtain new data, identify the significant problem, examine skeptically, apply criteria, generate options and look at alternatives, consider whether factors change if the context changes, make the final decision. Barriers include attitudes, habits, cognitive dissonance, and clashing of personal and professional values. Some important characteristics to a nurse being able to think critically are: the ability to reflect on

You have a good initial post for module three. I agree with you the RN did not use critical thinking in this situation. I like that you included that the nurse should have evaluated alternative treatments for this patient. According to our textbook, Bransford and Stein's IDEAL problem-solving method included: identifying the problem, defining the problem, exploring alternative approaches, acting on a plan, and looking at the effects (Harrington & Terry, 2013, p. 219). The RN should have never offered to give the patient an addition dose of her pain medication in hopes of it having a sedative effect for the ride home. The patient is no longer experiencing any pain, and she has already conveyed to the nurse that the medication makes her feel nauseated. In addition to your post, another way the RN could have used critical thinking would have been by looking up the pain mediation's side effects and looking for any underlying causes of the patient's nausea.

Nurses are known as the heart of health care. Being a nurse is a demanding job that requires commitment, but does not lack rewards. A fact stated by the American Association of Colleges of Nurses claims that “Nurses comprise the largest single component of hospital staff, are the primary providers of hospital patient care, and deliver most of the nation 's long-term care” (“Nursing Fact Sheet”). With many roles throughout the healthcare system as a whole, nurses are a large, very important role that interacts with every other part of the health care system. They have great qualities that not everyone has. They are highly compassionate, caring, professional, diligent and understanding individuals. A nurse experiences people at their worst and still care for patients in a way that no one else would. All these honest points prove that nurses are the most important members of the health care system because, nurses spend the most time with patients, nurses are the managers of patient care; they are teachers and are great with conflict resolution.

Integrating is blending or combining something together into a whole. When the instructor used the term integrative abilities I believed it meant that the APN have the ability to combine skills, and understanding of prior knowledge learned to current practice to better care for patients. According to Maten-Speksnijdera et al. (2015), nurses who are able to take the time to view past and current experiences can use this information to serve as a guide for future behavior applied to practice. The APN use of critical thinking skills in practice is pertinent to facilitate care for the best patient outcome. The nurse should be able to integrate their knowledge in order to deliver the best practice. In an article presented by Dragon (2016), as

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 defined by Victor-Chmil as “the cognitive processes used for analyzing knowledge” (2013, para.1). Critical thinking is knowledge based and dependent on the nurse’s knowledge base on a particular subject (Victor-Chmil, 2013). It is based on evidence and science. With critical thinking, problems are solved by evaluating information gained through knowledge. “Critical thinking involves the application of knowledge and experience to identify patient problems and to direct clinical judgments and actions that result in positive patient outcomes” (Benner, Sutphen, & Hughes, 2008, p. 2). According to Kramer (1993), critical thinking is a natural process that is developed naturally by all learners, just needing developed in regards to relationships, perspectives, and nursing practice.

1. This week my goal for clinical is to work more on connecting with my patient on a personal level; I want them to know that they are more than just their illness to me and that I am there to help them and make sure everything that is done is in their best interest.

The complexity of healthcare is increasing, so is the accountability of the nurses to increase hence critical thinking is becoming an important skill in the classroom, boardroom, and the bedside. Evidence-based nursing solely relies on critical thinking features that are essential for providing an objective, and goal-oriented methodology for practice (Papathanasiou et al., 2014). The skills that are integral to nursing practice include analyzing, seeking information, logical reasoning, discriminating, applying standards, predicting as well as

Over the years, the scope of practice, nurses have increasingly begun to consider what they do as professional activities. Professionalism takes on a immense significance. A nurse can be trying to allocate patient for shift and work out the medications at nine to about twenty four clients and watch two aids, at the exact same time. “Yet some people question whether the search for levels of professional status is worth the price that must ultimately be paid for what nurses do to help the world.” (Joseph T. Catalano, 2015). Nurses use skills like assessments and knowledge to have the ability to reason, and make a routine of judgments based on the client’s conditions on a daily basis. Nurses without a doubt have and must have a high intellectual level. The public didn’t even think that nurses as having enough knowledge to be held accountable for errors to a human in client care.After a certain amount of clinical experience, the nursing student will realize that actual nurses truly possess explore extraordinary physical strength or intellectual ability but may continue to cling to the idea.