(401007) Personal Reflection Essay: The role of critical reflection in nursing - Nursing Assessment Answers

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Introduction

The purpose of reflective practice is normally to make sense out of actions, situations and events taking place at workplace among the professionals such as nurses. In the nursing profession, there are programs that include modules on reflective practices. The modules assist in nurturing the reflection skills and abilities in individual nurses. This paper has critically analysed personal reflection both implicitly and explicitly with focus on its importance to patients, nurses and the entire nursing profession.

Benefits of reflective practice

Regular and effective reflective practice in health care professionals, especially among the nurses has been established to have positive results in terms of improvement of essential skills required at the workplace. Therefore, it is necessary for nurses to allocate time in their busy schedule to conduct a personal reflection even when they are engaged in Frontline services. This is significant for improving quality service, provision of the necessary staff support as well as improving personal development when nurses are working in a team (Dadich, Abbott & Hosseinzadeh, 2015). In addition, personal reflection facilitates the development of significant nursing skills through assisting the nurses to have a deep understanding of actions, events and situations personally experienced at duty stations as well as how to address those actions, situations and events with little or no difficulties. Furthermore, due to personal reflection, individual nurses may benefit greatly from interpersonal skills for example the ability to positively influence their colleagues. Studies have shown that positive influence on workouts is likely to initiate the element of working for a positive change and self-awareness among the nurses. These characteristics are crucial skills necessary for all practicing nurses. Additionally, critical reflection assists individual nurses to understand the general contribution of personal history as well as personality to actions, situations or events and how the nurse dealt with the actions, situations or events (Dijkers, Murphy & Krellman, 2013).

Regular and effective critical reflection has also been established to be beneficial to patients. For example, it has been found that personal reflection enhances the connection between the nurse and the patient with a consequence of the patient relating to certain aspects of the nurse’s personal life. This enables the individual nurse to consider the patient as a fellow human being who deserves care. This kind of connections positively influences the attitude of the nurse making the nurse to treat the patient with a lot of dignity and ultimately work effectively. As a result, the individual nurse will definitely handle emotive patients with great care and professionalism resulting to improvement in service delivery. This kind of professionalism is generally found in the NMBA codes and guidelines. The NMBA codes and guidelines advocate for development of professionalism continually among the nurses. In addition, the NMBA codes and guidelines outline that it is necessary to have regular and effective personal reflection among the nurses (Malik, McKenna & Griffiths, 2016). It is worth to note that regular and effective personal reflection has some benefits to the nursing profession as a whole since it helps in the transformation of actions, events or situations that seem to be disturbing, doubtful, conflicting, and obscure into actions, events or situations that are generally settled, clear, harmonious and coherent.

Studies have shown that critical reflection in regards to professionalism normally commence with anxiety about events, actions or situations that seems puzzling, but ends with some aspects of clarity and understanding of the events, actions or situations (Malik, McKenna & Griffiths, 2016). In Frontline practice, critical reflection among nurses ensures that the entire nursing profession understands the general frailties of the sick people such as mental ill health or physical health. In addition, personal reflections assists in the in-depth understanding of the relationship dynamics in healthcare fraternity and the systematic functioning of the dynamics as well as a nurse's response to actions, situations and events experienced at duty stations (Quinlan-Colwell, 2012).

Evidence-based sources for nurses

In this modern world, many sources are generally available at the disposal of the nurses to retrieve evidence that they may base their work or nursing practice. For example Western Australian Centre for Evidence Based Nursing and Midwifery usually abbreviated as WACEBNMA works in collaboration with Joanna Briggs Institute on researching on every aspect that affects the entire nursing profession in one way or the other. These research centres are resourceful in the provision of evidence base practice for the midwives and nurses in particular. The activities of WACEBNMA and Joanna Briggs Institute are broad but usually (Reay et al., 2012). This is not to say that nurses are limited to such research institutes, but they can also obtain information on evidence base practice from nurse guides, manuals, internet sources, books and other relevant publications.

The role of critical reflection in nursing

Critical reflection normally presents a nurse with some element of self-monitored and self-correcting form of thinking. Critical reflection is founded on the basis of high levels of nursing professionalism and stringent following of the same so as to ensure the well-being and the general comfort of the patient in a hospital set up. Moreover, personal reflection helps the nurses and other caregivers to develop the potential skills of handling and solving daily problems at the workplace. In addition, personal reflection is important in assisting the nurses to generally base their practice on evidence through focusing on communication as an effective tool to relate with nursing fraternity. It is worth to note that critical reflection entails the general commitment of the caregivers, especially the nurses to overcome selfishness and thinking about self which are considered as natural habits of all humans. Most importantly, nurses become critical thinkers and analysts. By so doing, they are able to make a quick judgement on events and decisions, thereby acting relatively quickly in case of emergencies (Dijkers, Murphy & Krellman, 2013).

Conclusion

Regular and reflective practice is significant for improving quality service, provision of the necessary staff support as well as improving personal development when nurses are working in a team. It has also been established to be beneficial to patients. For example, it has been found that personal reflection enhances the connection between the nurse and the patient with a consequence of the patient relating to certain aspects of the nurse’s personal life. Through regular and reflective practices individual nurse will definitely handle emotive patients with great care and professionalism resulting to improvement in service delivery. This kind of professionalism is generally found in the NMBA codes and guidelines. The NMBA codes and guidelines advocate for development of professionalism continually among the nurses. In summary, the purpose of reflective practice is normally to make sense out of actions, situations and events taking place at workplace among the professionals such as nurses.

Using Gibbs cycle in personal reflection

As an individual I have come to learn that Gibbs circle especially the critical thinking theory part as an essential tool for me as a nurse and the entire nursing fraternity. My personal reflection nursing-related learning event at the University go back to my internship placement at an orthopaedic ward. My duty was to take care of a 60 year old amputee who had lost his legs as a result of diabetic foot condition. The physician tasked with checking on the patient came in one day to address the wounds of the patient. After uncovering the wounds, he forgot to replace the bandage with new ones, but re-wrapped the wounds with the already used bandage. Since the physician was my senior, I was afraid to request him to change the old bandage with new ones. This made me feel guilty after the event and I decided to speak to the orthopaedic surgeon about it. The surgeon was so understanding and called to the physician to talk about the incident. The physician was so remorseful and swore not to repeat the mistake again. However, in my personal reflection, I felt that I should have reminded the physician to change the bandage. I currently believe that my judgement and decision-making skills needs improvement. My goal is now to improve my judgement and decision-making skills. This I will attain by consulting my seniors and colleagues at the workplace on strategies to improve the same.