Approaches to Professional Nursing

In today’s rapidly changing healthcare environment, the nursing profession is becoming more aware concerning the need for evaluating and enhancing its practices. As the change is occurring continuously, it is necessary for a nurse to be able to analyze and respond to the new and different challenges in an active manner. “The quality of patient care is ensured through critical reflection”. In this essay, the importance and benefits of critical reflection for the nurses and the patient, how the nurses obtain their sources of research and the role of critical reflection that assist in practices of nursing will be discussed.

Critical reflection is an important activity in the nursing practices as the nurses are able to recall their own experiences (Walker et al., 2013). They think, mull over and evaluate the experiences efficiently. Through critical reflection, they place themselves into their individual experiences and explore personal and professional knowledge in order to understand the experiences and observe them differently. Critical reflection facilitates the nurses in avoiding their previous mistakes and increases the opportunities for obtaining knowledge. It is essential for the nurses and the patients because the nurses who reflect critically with respect to their practices. It helps them to face the challenges that are related to provide care to the patients. It also assists them to become critically reflective practitioners. The depiction of their practices offers them a platform through which they can ask questions related to their practices of nursing. The reflective process can be improved if the nurses acquire a critical approach of their individual reflection. Critical thinking assists critical reflection. If they will make use of a critical approach then they will be able to ask questions concerning their own practice. Critical reflection is improved if the nurses apply it in their daily practices (Tashiro et al., 2013).  

Several challenges are faced by the nurses in finding and using relevant information in making clinical decisions and to meet the expectations for the evidence-based practices in their profession (Paterson & Chapman, 2013). The nurses access most of the required information by utilizing different type of sources such as textbooks, internet, journals and online databases. Several nurses retrieve and review the studies that are related to health through the professional databases in order to support the evidence-based nursing practices. They always search for reliable and relevant information or data. The decisions of care made by them rely on the best evidence-based peer-reviewed research articles. They also make use of internet, search engines and databases to find out medical or clinical information. They learn a number of diverse new topics, when they refer to the tutorial sites, which are published by different universities and organizations. It is necessary for the nurses to assess the quality and relevancy of the information, which they find in the different sites of the internet. They frequently discuss regarding any sort of information with their seniors and colleagues. All these methods, helps them in finding the different sources of research that is required in their nursing practices (Paterson & Chapman, 2013).

In the profession of nursing, critical reflection plays an important role in helping the nurses to base their nursing practices on evidences. The nurses are able to recall their experiences through critical reflection (Moon, 2013).  They look at the fundamental possibilities and question themselves concerning the strength of assertions, judgments, and even the actuality of a particular situation. In their nursing career, critical reflection is necessary as it generates scientific ideas. For the professionals of nursing, it is a very important skill. It helps them to rethink the outdated approaches for preventing illness and complications. It also helps them to promote health. Critical thinking ability makes use of reflection, investigation, initiation, judgment, and review of data and information for guiding the process of decision-making (Price & Harrington, 2015).  The nurses for updating their professional skills require reflective practice. They are provided with substantial opportunities to reflect on their ongoing process of development. They gain the ability for identifying their strengths and weaknesses with respect to their professional and personal development. Nursing profession relies on mutual support and the professionals of nursing should always aim to become independent, attentive and helps them to remain associated with their environment (Siles-González & Solano-Ruiz, 2016).

To conclude, in the rapidly changing environment of nursing profession, critical reflection plays an important role to shape the nursing professionals in a personal and professional manner. It helps them to face the challenges that are related to their profession, mainly in providing care to the patients, it is an essential skill for the nursing professionals as they learn by placing themselves into the experiences and discovering personal as well as professional knowledge in order to understand the experiences and observe them differently. The nurses can improve it by taking a critical approach of their individual reflection in an efficient manner.

References

Moon, J. A. (2013). Reflection in learning and professional development: Theory and practice. Routledge.

Paterson, C., & Chapman, J. (2013). Enhancing skills of critical reflection to evidence learning in professional practice. Physical Therapy in Sport, 14(3), 133-138.

Price, B., & Harrington, A. (2015). Critical thinking and writing for nursing students. Learning Matters.

Siles-González, J., & Solano-Ruiz, C. (2016). Self-assessment, reflection on practice and critical thinking in nursing students. Nurse Education Today, 45, 132-137.

Tashiro, J., Shimpuku, Y., Naruse, K., & Matsutani, M. (2013). Concept analysis of reflection in nursing professional development. Japan Journal of Nursing Science, 10(2), 170-179.

Walker, R., Cooke, M., Henderson, A., & Creedy, D. K. (2013). Using a critical reflection process to create an effective learning community in the workplace. Nurse education today, 33(5), 504-511.

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