Reflective Essay For The Nursing Program

As my senior year here at Jersey College of Nursing moves quickly to its end, I reflect on how far I have come and what exactly my experience here at Jersey College of Nursing has meant to me.

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.

This objective will affect my future nursing practice because conducting physical head to toe assessments and obtaining vital signs is a different process when working with paediatric patients rather than adults. It is crucial to note any changes that I can catch throughout my assessments, and vital signs since paediatric patients might not be able to communicate with me if they feel any changes in their health. By understanding the anatomy and physiology, the developmental stages of children, and obtaining accurate vital signs and assessments, it will increase my knowledge, skill, ad judgment to successfully complete and distinguish any abnormities and changes during my assessments. Also, knowing the developmental stages and distraction therapy method techniques can help me provide thorough examinations and find ways to help my patients cope if they are feeling anxious and scared.

Conducting an interview with someone makes you see things in many different perspectives and in a new light. The person I interviewed saw nursing as a broader term that saw things in a different way even though she has just started. She knows that special people need to take roles in being a nurse. I interviewed my aunt, Ann Juknevicius. She is 30 years old and she has been a nurse for 2 years in Illinois now. Relatively she is a new nurse. One of the main reasons why I started the nursing program is because I look up to Annie a lot and she showed me so many different perspectives on how to look at people, different situations, and the way you handle things. I thought that it would be a great interview session to see if Annie’s expectations were the same as the nursing reality.

In this case study I will use Gibbs (1988) model of reflection to write a personal account of an abdominal examination carried out in general practice under the supervision of my mentor, utilising the skills taught during the module thus far.

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

Nursing can be a demanding career, but the benefits far much outweigh the challenges. Most importantly, it’s the rewards it offers by allowing an opportunity to make a difference in another person’s life through the provision of care when they need it. Just as Patricia Benner theorized in her book “Novice to Expert,” nursing encompasses both educational knowledge and extensive clinical experience acquired throughout one’s career. This far, I continue to acquire knowledge and clinical knowhow which will promote proper and efficient care to patients. Since I began practicing one year ago in a long-term healthcare facility, I have interacted with patients, families, physicians and other members of the healthcare team to coordinate patient’s care which has enabled me to gain confidence in myself. While I cannot deny that it was difficult to transition from a student to a licensed nurse, I learnt to overcome these challenges and focus on my strengths. Practicing as an LPN has provided a platform to learn and gain experience even though the duties and responsibilities are limited by the scope of practice.

The standards of practice describe a competent level of nursing care as exhibited by the critical thinking model known as the nursing process. This practice includes the areas of assessment, diagnosis, outcome identification, planning, implementation, and evaluation. The nursing process includes significant actions taken by registered nurses (RN) and forms the foundation of the nurse’s decision-making (“American Nurses Association,” 2010).

Target population was pregnant women less than fourteen weeks gestation that had a sedentary lifestyle. The researcher used two data collection instruments to complete this study. The first is The Cornell Protocol Fitness Tool that measured cardiovascular fitness level and peak oxygen consumption. The second data collection instrument used was The Minnesota Leisure Time Physical Activity Questionnaire assessed energy expenditure and daily physical activity. Candidates were excluded if they had chronic hypertension, gestational diabetes, and any medical condition that will prohibit daily exercise, communication problems, or recommendation of primary care provider not to participate (Yeo 2009).

Nursing Practice Review Mentoring Keywords: Mentoring/Continuing professional development/Portfolio ● This article has been double-blind peer reviewed CPD for mentors: creating a portfolio Mentors can use a portfolio of evidence to show continuing professional development

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

NOTE: You will create a new Word document for this Assignment instead of typing directly into this document.

This essay is a discussion about my experience during the first two weeks of my clinical placement in an older adult ward. My experiences will be demonstrated using the various nursing skills acquired thus far. The reflective account used is adopted from the work of Driscoll (2007) which splits the essay into three segments namely a) what happened, b) so what, (what were my feelings, what was good and what was wrong about the experience, c) now what, (if I find myself in that same situation what would I do differently).

My organization is in the process of integrating with a much larger system which requires an overabundance of changes as we are adopting the policies and procedures of the system. We are in the process of transforming the nurse assistants’ roles to include phlebotomy. The nurse assistants were informed of this decision months prior, but no update had been given since. A week ago, the nurse managers were informed that the classes have been arranged and will begin the second week of February. The nurse assistants are quite frustrated with the abruptness of the news and some that are nearing retirement do not believe that they should be required to get this training.

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.