Reflective Writing Nursing Profession

Question: Discuss about theReflective Writingfor Nursing Profession. Answer: Introduction: Reflective writing has become a significant area in the nursing profession that has attributed to the development of critical, autonomous as well as also advanced nursing staffs. Often researchers have suggested that reflective practice has in turn helped in developing the professionalism and quality of the work. This is mainly done by enhancing their nursing care by a patient centered approach and a better understanding of the their actions. This in turn has a very positive impact on their nursing skills (Chan, 2013). Reflective practice is often considered as a continuous cycle in which the experiences and the consecutive reflections on the experiences are interrelated. These implies that those nurses who provide correct reflection to their practices are often more matured and skilled than the others who do not follow up with the process (Bulman Scutz, 2013). Very important criteria associated with the success of reflective learning are that the nurse should possess certain traits like open mindedness, courage, and willingness to accept. They should have the capability to accept criticism and thereby act on the criticism to make herself successful in her profession. My Role in the Aged Care Facility: I was placed in Aged care facility, as the part of the curriculum demanded me for vocational placement. During my on job days I could effectively utilize my theoretical knowledge in my practical works in the aged care. I had to undertake a number of activities while providing care and service to the resident aged patients of the facility and could enhance my knowledge in every fields of the practice. I got enough chances to implement my theoretical knowledge in the fields like proper infection control principles, development of clinical skills while testing the vital signs, different neurovascular observations, urine analysis, hand hygiene, catheter care, BGL monitoring, mobility or transfer assistance, feeding assistance, pain assessment, fluid balance chart and many others. A large number of experiences have taught me the various positive and negative aspects associated with each day of my practice and helped me to learn the points, which are necessary to be followed before conduct ing a specialized treatment approaches. In this report, I would like to adopt one such experience that I have faced which have made me more experienced in the profession and has helped me to analyze the ways that could make my skill more polished and enhance my skills. While presenting the reflective cycle, we can choose the Gibbs model which will help to portray the situation systematically so that a clear reflection can be observed in the form of the following cycle: Source: (Brookes.ac.uk, 2016) Description of the Event: While handling an old female patient of BMI 25, I faced a serious incident while manually handling the patient. The patient had a fracture in her left leg and was completely plastered. She was advised not to put any weight in the affected leg. I was given the responsibility to transfer her to a wheel chair to be carried to the X ray room to carry out her X ray. I had organized a proper wheel chair and carried on the initial ethical considerations like whether the patient was able to respond and understand my comments and work accordingly. After being satisfied with the response from the patient, I placed the chair on the side of the chair and instructed the patient to sit over the side of the bed and then hop on the crutches to sit on the chair. This movement was immediately rejected by my mentor who instructed that patient is mobilizing on a very narrow base, which increases the risk of falling from unbalancing. It also signified that high risk is associated with my taken procedure since the patient may fall due to sudden unexpected movement. Feeling : I believed initially that as the patient had a BMI of a normal healthy human being and so therefore she would not have any problem in balancing herself from the bed on the crutches and can thereby sit on the chair by my help. The idea of losing balance and the risk of fall was not at all assessed by me as I thought it would not be difficult for a healthy being to balance herself to prevent herself from fall. Evaluation and Analysis: From the entire incident I learnt that the risk assessment associated with fall should always be conducted not only for patients with high BMI. They should also be conducted for normal healthy patients. This is because the response of the strength and balance of her body may not always be obtained from her health conditions and BMI. Rather safer approaches should be made that would be free from risks and chances (Abedini, Choobineh Hasanzadeh, 2015). As the mentor had instructed me with the right technique at the right time which had resulted in the prevention of any accidents. Otherwise, accidents might have occurred due to my inability to assess the risks associated with it and thereby it would have negatively affected my career. However, the positive aspect is that it had helped me to understand my mistake and learn from my faults. Action Plan and Conclusion: I should have properly analyzed the risks associated with the crutches. I should have adopted techniques that should not have any strains on her leg and would have been safe from any sort of accidents due to disbalance due to the approach that I had taken to transfer the patient from the bed to the wheel chair. From next time if I have to handle similar patients, I will place the wheel chair at the side of the bed after removal of the armrest and place a lateral transfer board underneath her. I shall ensure that proper brakes have been applied to wheelchair and bed. The chair and bed should have been kept at optimal heights. Then the patient should be instructed to slide over the transfer board while I will support her legs. This will be the correct way of manual handling (Poole-Wilson et al., 2014). Conclusion: Gibbs model is indeed a very effective model while explaining any experienced by a nurse that in turn help her to learn a lot from her own experiences (Brookes.ac.uk, 2016). It thereby also gives scope to analyze her approach and modify it by undertaking correct measurements against it. Reflective learning thereby help an individual healthcare professional to implement her own learning in her practice that would help her to develop skills and knowledge and come out successful in her profession (Amtfield et al., 2016). References: Abedini, R., Choobineh, A. R., Hasanzadeh, J. (2015). Patient manual handling risk assessment among hospital nurses.Work,50(4), 669-675. Arntfield, S., Parlett, B., Meston, C. N., Apramian, T., Lingard, L. (2016). A model of engagement in reflective writing-based portfolios: Interactions between points of vulnerability and acts of adaptability.Medical teacher,38(2), 196-205. Brookes.ac.uk. (2016). Reflective writing: About Gibbs reflective cycle - Oxford Brookes University. [online] Available at: https://www.brookes.ac.uk/students/upgrade/study-skills/reflective-writing-gibbs/ [Accessed 6 Dec. 2016]. Bulman, C., Schutz, S. (Eds.). (2013).Reflective practice in nursing. John Wiley Sons. Chan, Z. C. (2013). A systematic review of critical thinking in nursing education.Nurse Education Today,33(3), 236-240. Poole-Wilson, T., Davis, K., Daraiseh, N., Kotowski, S. (2014). Documenting the amount of manual handling performed by nurses in a hospital setting. InProceedings of 2014 Symposium on Human Factors and Ergonomics in Health Care: Leading the Way. Chicago, IL: The Human Factors and Ergonomics Society.