The purpose of this reflective essay is to critically analyze compassionate care and key elements. Compassionate care is an understanding of patients suffering and placing patients them at the heart of care (Chochinov, 2007).The format of this essay will follow Gibbs reflective cycle (Gibbs, 1988) as a reflection technique to evaluate and explore. The care aspect to be examined is compassion in wound management. Cutting (2010) highlights that nurses are required to have a good knowledge when managing a wound. Therefore it is a valuable and crucial skill that nurses can reflect on their past and present experiences to strengthen their clinical decisions and approaches (Jasper, 2006). To maintain confidentiality the patients name has been changed to “Beth”, this is within accordance of the Nursing and Midwifery Council code of practice (Nursing and Midwifery Council, 2015). Description My mentor and I were allocated six patients to look after. One of the patients we looked after was Beth. Beth was a 79 year old lady who had an elective knee replacement and has never been in hospital before. We took handover and left the nursing station. It was my first day and I was not sure what to expect and was nervous. I said to my mentor that I did not recall from handover that Beth’s dressing had been changed. I then challenged my mentor as to why it had not been changed, as I thought that dressings needed frequent changing. My mentor said to me check the dressing and see if
To adhere with the Nursing and Midwifery Council, Code of Conduct (NMC, 2008) all patient details have been changed, to protect their identity from being revealed.
The following essay is a reflective account on an event that I, a student nurse encountered whilst on my first clinical placement in my first year of study. The event took place in a nursing home. All names have been changed to protect the confidentiality of the patient (NMC, 2008).
For my book review assignment, I decided to choose the book titled “The Other End of the Stethoscope: 33 Insights for excellent patient care”. This story deal with Marcus and how he experiences the good and the bad of patient care after suffering severe injuries from a drunk driver. The reason I decided to choose this book is because this book provided a great perspective from the patient point of view of how a patient is cared for and treated in the hospital setting. One of the most important themes from the book was to understand the relationship between the caregiver and the patient, which is patient care. Marcus states the relationship between the health care provider and the patient are similar to that of a relationship between a parent and a child. The patient depends on us and looks to us for support and comfort. One of the fundamental components of forming good patient care is to be compassionate. Compassionate care could mean the difference between life and death for a patient. From reading this book, I understand that giving compassion to someone can take all shapes and forms. As a healthcare provider, we could make such a difference for a patient in need. You could have such a huge impact on patient, even if you only deal with one for a few minutes. Simple ordinary gestures of kindness such as telling a patient you are here for them or a simple smile can give a patient a good impression of the kind of care he or she will receive. For Marcus, it was the medical
The nursing practise has continually evolved and can be described as autonomous due to the significant involvement of nurses in patient care. This then necessitates critical reflection as a way to continually develop and improve the nursing practise. The Gibbs' model, one of the reflection models, assists nurses in complying to the codes and guidelines of nursing practice. For example, developing action plans, evaluating patient outcomes, and thinking critically. This essay will describe an event involving nurses and explain the feelings it evoked. It will also provide an evaluation of the positives and negatives, analysis and enhancement of learning, and an action plan.
Even though I had been caring for this lady for the duration of my shift I was unprepared to give the next shift a handover. I assumed my mentor would do it since she had been doing it on all my previous shifts. However, on this occasion my mentor said to do it at the end of her last handover. I listened to her giving the handover for her patients then when it was my turn, I panicked and muffled up my information. I started with basic information about the patient such as name, date of birth , age and the reason for her admission. Unfortunately, I became flustered after that and it was clear to both my mentor and the other nurse that I was out of my depth and needed help. My mentor then took over and continued the handover.
During my first day of clinical, I encountered an issue that I believe is very significant. As a student nurse, our duty for this day was to follow our health care aide around the ward and assist in completing resident care. The resident required assistance in many of her daily tasks. The health care aide asked if I would perform one of those and do perineal care for her. I turned down her offer because I did not feel comfortable with my skill level. The resident had a bowel movement during the night. There was a significant odour in the room that overwhelmed me. I really wanted to leave the room because it was so unpleasant, but I stayed in the room so that the resident would not be embarrassed. This feeling of embarrassment, I assume,
Compassion is one of the fundamental characteristics implemented into patient care by health care providers. Compassion signifies “a feeling of deep sympathy and sorrow for another who is stricken by misfortune, accompanied by a strong desire to alleviate the suffering” (Compassion, n.d.). Nurses and other health care providers provide selfless service, tireless dedication, compassion, and often neglect their personal needs, which
For the purpose of this assignment the patient will be given the pseudonym Susan to protect her privacy and confidentiality in line with the guidelines set out by the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) (2015).
So when my mentor Mary and I were preparing the trays we made sure that everything he wanted was on the trolley. As I was working under supervision of Mary and the Circulating nurse Mark, they were explaining to me about the importance of preparing the theatre according to each surgeon’s preferences. After all the necessary checking’s and preparations in the anaesthetic room done, Mr Dillon was brought into the theatre after he was given general anaesthesia and Mr Mann started the surgery. Everything was going well until Mr Mann started to fix the tibial implant. As per surgeon’s instructions we had it ready but unfortunately the ‘71’ size he had requested was a bit smaller and he asked for a ‘73’ size. But Mary told him that it is not available in the tray so she asked me to get it from the tray room. Mark left me to go on my own to the tray room and I could not find it. I was afraid to go back into theatre to tell the surgeon. When I finally went back and told, the surgeon that I could not find it, he started shouting. Mary stepped in and told me to go with Mark so I could see where it was kept. That made the surgeon to calm down. We ran back again and got it. Mary, Mark and I were so relieved. The time taken for such a small incident was almost 10 -15 minutes which was really stressful to the whole team and very dangerous to the patient. Luckily everything went
The purpose of this essay is to look at barriers of compassion and what nurses could do overcome these barriers. Three sub topics will be looked at over the course of this essay and a conclusion will be made to evaluate these essays findings and to provide some input into battling these barriers so that patients can receive high standards of patient care.
During my clinical competency placement, I was working on a surgical ward when a registered nurse on duty asked me to assist Mr. A with his shower. This incident happened on the fifth day of my clinical practice. He was a dementia patient and had undergone right knee total joint replacement. She also informed me that the patient did not like too many people in his room because of his dementia. When I went into his room, his wife was there with him. I talked to the patient about having a shower and getting dressed to look smart and he agreed to have a shower. The patient got out of the bed and walked to the bathroom and sat on the shower chair to have his shower. Then I asked his wife if I needs to stay with him to assist with shower, she said she can help him as she was taking care for him at home since he has been diagnosed with dementia. Therefore, I left the patient with his wife to help with his shower and told her to ring the bell if she needs any help. After some time I left the room, the wife rang the bell. As soon as I entered the room, I heard him shouting at his wife and she started crying and left the hospital. So I had to stay with him. He was very capable of washing himself and I just had to help him wash his back as he requested. After he had washed, I asked him if he was ready to get out of the bath, he started shouting at me.
I am a second year nursing student in my third week of the practicum placement on a surgical ward with my co-student and the morning shift registered nurses. We had just finished analysing the patients handover report (Levett-Jones & Bourgeois, 2015) and I had been assigned to work with the registered nurse. I was looking after Mrs. Brown (pseudonym) is 82 years old New Zealander was admitted to surgical ward on the 08/06/16 for multiple SCC removals from L) hand and L) foot with skin grafts.
On a second thought I decided to tell my mentor what had happened. McCabe, (2004) has demonstrated the value of patient-centred communication in facilitating a positive nurse-patient relationship towards the delivery of quality nursing care so in that light my mentor suggested we meet with Trisha in private and discuss the incident. She admitted that she has never liked the size of the tablet and we offered to ask the doctor to prescribe her a dispersible alternative to which she readily agreed. I am pleased to now see her take her medication without anymore dislike for it because of its size. This means she no longer misses out on a vital part of her prescription. After the incident, my nurse- patient relationship with Trisha suffered as she struggled to trust me again.
During the home health observation day, there were several opportunities to observe a variety of patients with varying levels of functioning ability, different illnesses, and different needs and levels of interaction with the nurse. The first patient seen was a seventy-three year old Caucasian female with an ulcer on her right heel. Several weeks prior, she had scratched her left leg and she also had several small wounds on her left leg. The orders were to clean and redress the ulcer. She has a history of end stage renal disease, pneumonia, weakness, diabetes, dialysis, and right hip fracture. Upon entering the home, the patient was found to be sitting in a wheel chair in the living room watching television with her husband close by her side. She greeted the nurse with a smile and began to update her on her current condition. Her heel was “hurting” and she rated her pain an 8 on a scale of 1 to 10. She also had some “swelling” that she could not “get to go away; because, she could not get up and walk. They need to fix my foot so that I can get up and get around.” She told the nurse that she had been to see the doctor “yesterday” and the doctor had given her a written order that she wanted her to see. The order was written for an evaluation for a soft pressure shoe fitting. The nurse read the order to
During a late shift on the ward, my mentor asked if I would stay with Mrs Smith whilst she gave out medication in order to ensure she wouldn’t be left on her own and fall. I introduced myself to Mrs Smith and sat with her in her room. It became apparent to me quite quickly that she was obviously very confused and she was not fully aware that she was in a hospital, as she repeatedly asked me where she was. On being told she was in hospital she would say no and shake her head. It wasn’t long before she asked me when her husband would be there to take her home, to which I replied