COMMUNICATION BASED REFLECTIVE ESSAY The purpose of this essay is to critically reflect, using Gibb’s reflective model (1998), on an event from practice where communication had a significant impact on the care of a woman accessing maternity services. Fictitious names will be used throughout to maintain confidentiality, in line with regulations set by the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC 2008). One case that has been critical to my learning as a student midwife is that of Edivania; a 33-year-old Portuguese woman, who had lived in England for just under a year and had had her first child by emergency caesarean eleven years earlier in Portugal. I met her on delivery suite where she had self-referred in spontaneous labour, at 39 weeks. Before this she had, as documented in her notes, only accessed maternity and antenatal services three times.
She is now semi-retired, only teaching in the summer. She published her book “Comfort Theory and Practice: in 2003 Katharine Kolcaba’s “Concept of Comfort” unknowing began while she was working on her master’s degree with a class assignment in Introduction to Nursing Theory. She had to diagram her nursing practice using concepts specific to her that included what she hoped her patients would accomplish and how she could help her patients reach those goals. At the time Kolcaba was working as a head nurse on a dementia unit with mostly non-verbal patients. The goal for her patients was Optimum function, a term used to describe a cooperative state where patients could bath, dress, eat and socialize with others.
I have enjoyed a twenty-four year career of public service. I can recall countless of lives that I touched as a Paramedic. Two instances that touched my life while helping people were, the patient experiencing a diabetic coma after a drop on blood sugar, and the mother with no prenatal care that waited until the last minute to give me the honor of delivering her child. These patients were special to me and brought a great sense of accomplishment to my life. I first decided to become a nurse, because nurses are paid
As a young woman she felt called by God to help others. In 1850, She attended the first school of nursing. The Fleidner School of Nursing was located in Kaiser, Germany. She studied here for 3 months. After 3 months, she was considered knowledgeable and now was ready to practice as a nurse.
Being the #1 most trusted profession in the country allows nurses to truly take charge and make a difference in the policy arena. (N.A., Policy & Advocacy, 2013). The value of these benefits is what we make of them. It means that we are a part of the greater whole in the nursing profession. It means that we are an active and caring member involved in a deeper level with career and actively involved in helping others in the nursing profession.
The nurse should reflect a high degree of professionalism to patients, the public, and other professionals. Teamwork is a major characteristic of professional nursing. Many times nurses will need assistance helping their patients, and people will be more apt to lend a helping hand if you yourself go out of your way to help others. This not only helps your coworkers but in the long run provides faster more efficient care for the patients. Teamwork may be one of the most important professional characteristics in healthcare.
I did nursing assistant to take care of my disabled mother who passed away from cancer. It was a side job taking care of her while I worked in technology. Through this certification process, I learned a lot about outpatient care. I had the opportunity to work for Kindred hospital to gain the maximum experience to use for the care of my mother. After her death, I got more interested in pharmacy because the medication had prolonged her life and when the medication was cut on her because insurance did not cover her she passed away.
Clinical leadership Effective Clinical leadership has been acclaimed to be a major influencing factor on the delivery of high quality care (Allen, 2000). A Clinical leader has been described as ‘an expert clinician, involved in providing direct clinical care, who influences others to improve the care they provide continuously’ (Cook, 1999, p. 306). As a nurse working in the Emergency Department (ED) assuming a position of responsibility means being able to lead in many respects. Junior nurses often come to me for advice, a leader therefore needs to be approachable and foster an environment where staff feel that they are accepted. Valuing and nurturing staff is about seeing the bigger picture, it is imperative to empower staff by exploring ideas and encouraging dialogue about patient care.
Many times my nurse and I would discuss and collaborate on why some medications were given a certain route, what contraindications were present, and what we would need to assess for after administration. It was interesting to see through my clinical weeks that the younger nurses, who had graduated within the last 3 years, followed the 7 rights to drug administration better than more experienced nurses. There were multiple times where I would count the rights for good practice, and there would be two or more missing by the nurse. Once, I told my nurse she was on the wrong patient chart, when she was adjusting the PCA pump to a different rate. She was adjusting it to the wrong patient.
Introduction Therapeutic communication is the corner stone of good practice and paramount to the provision of good care. Doheny et al. (2007) observed that when certain skills are used to facilitate communication between nurse and client in a goal directed manner,the therapeutic communication process occurs. According to McCabe (2004) patient centred communication is a basic component of nursing and facilitates the development of a positive nurse - patient relationship. Nurses have a great opportunity to shape the future of the nursing practice through therapeutic communication Armold&Boggs, (2011).