Nursing Reflection

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.

This reflective essay is based on the personal SWOT (Strength, Weakness, Opportunity and Threats) analysis, to understand my leadership potential. It will define leadership within the context of the National Health Service (NHS) leadership as well as highlight some of the current incidents relate to poor leadership. Additionally, it will briefly discuss some of the relevant leadership theories that can be applied to nursing practice whilst exploring my own leadership style. Lastly, this essay will reflect the scenario from practice to support my “strengths” and “weakness” whilst developing a SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time-Bound) goal plan to address one of my weaknesses and then the conclusion will be drawn summarising

In today’s world, where globalization and the internet has shrunken spaces and reduced distances, it is only natural that we come across people of different cultures living in harmony. As a nurse practitioner, one experiences several circumstances where the patients are from different cultural backgrounds, varied religious beliefs and also from the other part of the world. While a nursing practitioner has a challenge of treating every patient with utmost care and concern, there are times where our strengths and beliefs come in between our duty (Maier-Lorentz, 2008). A nurse practitioner might have to face situations where they might not have any control over, and still should show their best face. This is where their values, beliefs and behaviors might help them to achieve the impossible.

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.

This essay will discuss a clinical skill in which I have become competent in practicing as a student nurse.

I attended the Indiana State Boards of Nursing meeting on October 16th, 2014 in Indianapolis. State Boards of Nursing protects the public by ensuring and overseeing that nurses are competent and safe in their practice. The board of nursing takes disciplinary action against licenses of nurses who have exhibited unsafe nursing practice.

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

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.

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.

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.

Learning goals I have set for myself during the course of this class are to gain an understanding and foundation of nursing theories, gain and understand the impacts of nursing practice as it relates the theories, and how to apply nursing theories to practices as appropriate and necessary. These goals were chosen because they will help set a foundation in nursing theories. Looking at the different topics to be discussed the two most interesting are (1) Theory of Cultural Care Diversity and Universality and (2) Nightingale’s Environmental Model (George, 2011). The two topics that are the least interesting are (1) Child Health Assessment Interaction Model and (2) Maternal Role Attainment/Becoming a Mother (George, 2011).

The following reflection demonstrates my awareness for my own cultural influences. Through the cultural lenses of a student nurse and a tennis member. They have impacted the way I view others and is a guidance to my bicultural professional health care relationship.

Furthering nursing research is essential, as it forms the basis for evidence-based practice in healthcare today. With this in mind, developing the skills to critically appraise research articles is of the utmost importance in order to determine the relevance of research findings for clinical practice. As I pursue a doctorate degree in nursing practice, I am reminded of the necessity of these skills. Thus, in the following paragraphs, I will reflect on the research goals I developed at the beginning of the Critique and Design of Nursing Research course, and will discuss my views on the role of the graduate nurse in regard to