Reflective Practice in Nursing - Essay Example

Introduction This essay is going to touch on how as a registered nurse with degree i.e. Bachelor of Science in nursing (BSN) program in relation with the level of profession I achieved my goals following the vast experience in terms of role and practice. The essay will also describe behavior, the skills and attitude before and after a cooperative nursing experience the weekly journal log of practice, my philosophy in nursing while joining the career and several research paper will be used in constituting my reflective essay of nursing. My entry in nursing was particularly moved by my desire to care for the people where I started with my immediate family members. To be precise my siblings in whom it happened that I was their first born and therefore their ‘nurse.’ The desire moved a notch higher when I worked closely with qualified nurses who took care of my grandmother that was paraplegic due to stroke. That is how the profession was ingrained in my spirit. Academically, the spirit has gone through exposure of myriad of practice and programs such as cooperative nursing work experience which has subjected my behavior, skill, and attitude as BSN in relation to practice to changes. My documentation acumen has been revolutionized, leadership skills modelled in a way that team dynamic are tailored toward productivity and performance and art of delegation well mastered. In subsequent paragraphs the changes and entire experience will be described in trifecta of evidence based practice, professionalism and team dynamic Evidence Based Practice Evidence base practice is defined as explicit and judicious use of current best evidence in making decisions about health care of patients. This is the practice that integrate clinical expertise and patient values with best available research evidence (Melnyk, 2002.pp45). This goal was to be achieved through experience and skill when placed in pulmonary unit to take care for the patients who were stable vent from intensive care unit. The nurse to patient ratio was to be 3:1 and primary care to ensure we achieve the goal through collaborative discussion among ourselves. The experience related to evidence based practice were several and included making strategic decision, communicating key competencies and articulating clear and compelling purpose to ensure that right staff is working in better combination. The goal achievement was not achieved in a proper manner because of the hurdles such as client characteristic, their culture the staff characteristic and entire organizational climate affected the capacity of the program to be effective. On the impact of the experience the hardship in achieving the goals, the following are my future plans. One as leader one has to stress on evidence based practice by designing, implementing and assessing the theories, models and practice guideline for leadership traits and style which can change to large extend affect management capacity. This is through designing of organizational performance and effectiveness in achieving the desired outcome. Professionalism Second goal was professionalism. Professionalism is defined as meticulous adherence to undeviating courtesy, honesty and responsibility in ones dealing with patients and other staff and level of excellence that goes beyond and above preset standards. Nursing has the following attributes which were to be considered when in our cooperative nursing experience. That is knowledge, inquisitive, autonomy, innovativeness, advocacy, accountability, collegiality and collaboration, honesty and integrity and attitude and finally appearance (Daly, 2005 pp57). Some of this attributes future in the cooperative log journal. On date17/4/ 14 is when in particular this goal of professionalism was covered. My nursing supervisor pulled a Tech from another unit of the hospital and the nurse to patient ratio was brought to considerable figure of 4:1. On top of this ratio, there was tech to take the vitals and she was assigned by to registered nurses to two patients to perform ADLs. Basing on earlier days of my cooperative nursing experience, this act of our nursing supervisor was in consistence with advocacy which is one of the ramification of professionalism. We were able, in that unit, to take the opportunity that presented itself to make advocacy. This cause enable one to play a crucial role in assisting nurses to feel safe, respected and valued and provide safe, competent and very ethical nursing care of which is very rewarding not only to the patient but also to the nurse providing the care. The advocacy as a ramification of professionalism was possible because of the shortcoming of the previous days and the ability of our supervisor to note and redress them through advocacy of patients. The future endeavors of advocacy proved to me how the nurses can advocate for nursing as part of our daily activity at whatever level ranging from care nurses, nursing managers or even nurse educators. Working in any set up and at any level should come with advocacy for any shortcoming whether on the side of staff, whether on the side of patients or even the relatives of the patients, the advocacy should be given prime concern as it work even for the good of the organization progress and productivity. Team Dynamic Team dynamic is defined as psychological forces which are unconscious that influence the direction of a team’s behavior and performance. They are synonymous with undercurrents which can carry boat in different direction to the one the team intend to sail (Housel, 2002 pp97). They are as result of nature of the teams work, the personalities within the team, their working relationships with other people and the environment in which the team execute their work. The team dynamic can be good if they are productive and increase performance. They can also be bad when they cause unproductive conflict, demotivation and prevent the team from achieving the goals. On our experience, I was charged in distributing assignments based on patient acuity and nurse skills. Here I assigned four patients to more than experienced nurse. I realized that exerting good management skills was part of being a good leader. In addition, being effective in communication, being flexible, showing and exuding competency capped with ability to make critical and quick decision was part and parcel of creating a healthy team dynamic. It’s evident, that the future of nursing should be endowed and rooted on strong nursing leadership that is about critical thinking to tell the personalities of individual which can sway the direction of team goal to a bad or good direction (Mirr, 2010.pp81). Also action and advocacy should play role in assisting nurses to feel safe, respected and valued which lead to formation of a very healthy team dynamics. On the day of Good Friday too we were less. This derailed the attitude and motivation of the staff the entire team dynamic of the day because the working environment was stressful for the understaff work place of the day. My resolve for the future endeavor is to work on behavior change which constitute support systems i.e. team dynamics. Even to encourage evidence based practice then the team dynamic of any group should be healthy. My behavior underwent transformation in that I realized that nurses are charged with quantitative work and in doing them they can degenerate into a very negative team dynamics. These will in turn lower the level of performance and productivity of the work force. To solve this vice the better management skills must be put into the fore. An example in offloading the quantitative work of nurse is by delegating to others which in turn will offload the psychological forces that will impact negatively on the team dynamics. Conclusion The entire cooperative nursing work has been eventful. It has too much of hand on paper documenting every move that I take. From journaling to writing the goals and even the reflective essay. It has impacted on my profession positively in that coming up with clear records and making improvement based on the record is now easy. Another aspect is good documentation skilled that have been cultured in my hands. I n nursing its usually said if isn’t written then isn’t done (Bulman, 2013 pp 32). The art of documentation is now part of me. In future practice I will inculcate the skill of journaling into the nursing so as to make good changes where they are needed and revealed by reflective nursing. Following a decline in general doctors to take care of primary care, the nurses are taking over on that role of primary care as shown by my philosophy of nursing. Having increasing role will call on the improvement through thorough documentation and reflective nursing, good leadership and having evidence based practice intertwined with healthy team dynamic and professionalism. Reference Bulman, C., & Schutz, S. (2013). Reflective practice in nursing. Hoboken: Wiley-Blackwell. Daly, J. (2005). Professional nursing: Concepts, issues, and challenges. New York, NY: Springer Pub. Co. Housel, D. J. (2002). Team dynamics. Cincinnati, OH: South-Western. Melnyk, B. M., & Fineout-Overholt, E. (2011). Evidence-based practice in nursing & healthcare: A guide to best practice. Philadelphia: Wolters Kluwer/Lippincott Williams & Wilkins. Mirr, J. M. P., & Zwygart-Stauffacher, M. (2010). Advanced practice nursing: Core concepts for professional role development. New York, NY: Springer. Read More