Critical Thinking in Nursing Education

Discuss about the Critical Thinking in Nursing Education.

Critical thinking can learn as the intellectual and disciplined practice of applying skillful analysis in one’s action or belief. In terms of nursing care, critical thinking is important to cope with the changing environment and also the role linked with the complexities of the healthcare system. Creative thinking involves flexibility, innovation, open-mindedness, and adaptability. Creative thinking is a personal trait that should be possessed by a nurse so that it can help in prerequisite understanding, implementing modifications and judging. Problem-solving is an ability of an individual to identify the problem associated with a specific process and overcome the problem through logical thinking and creativity. Regarding nursing care, the problem-solving process helps in identification of the problem, diagnosis, plan and implementation of the plan for effectiveness in the problem resolution (Middleton et al., 2013).

Although nursing process requires all the three traits to make the nursing practice more effective, the three process abilities differ on the nursing care. Creative and critical thinking are like the two sides of a coin. According to Chan (2013), creative thinking regarding nursing is original. The use of a new nursing intervention after diagnosis of the disease is an example of it. On contrary to this critical thinking is the analysis of the reason of the various solutions that may be existing or original. Problem-solving ability reflects on understanding a problem and resolving the problem. For example, patient care related issues. Critical thinking, on the other hand, travels beyond problem solving. Like, for example, critical thinking seeks an answer on all aspects of the situation rather than a specific solution based on health practice (Middleton et al., 2013).

I am engaged in one of the nursing homes in Brisbane city, and I am working as a personal care worker. This nursing home is a three-floor building that consists of around forty rooms. Each room consists of around four beds except the cabins. There is one bathroom attached to every single room. The nursing home also consists of a waiting room for the visitors, a communal bathroom, a pantry and a garden. I was assigned to the ward which consisted of drug addicted patient, and my shift timing was from 6.30 am to 1.30 pm. I was accompanied by two other experienced cares for the same shift (Titzer et al., 2012).

Simon was a twenty-six-year-old brown sugar addict. He was quite symptomatic with stomach cramps, dilated pupils, runny nose, muscle spasms, frequent chills, increased heart rate and pressure. Although his medical history reflects that he had no other psychological or medical problems, he sometimes used to get agitated and angry on small issues. His addiction even at one instance forced him to steal money from the reception and hurt few others. This incident took place when one of the cares assigned for Simon's care was involved in attaining another patient. The victims of this incident suffered for a long time, and one ward boy was spot death. Immediately I rushed near his self and applied intravenous injection called Olanzapine in him that was previously used to reduce his anger. This was possible since I started using the “SOAPIE” approach from the first day for my patients. This ultimately helped in controlling Simon (Choi et al., 2014).

Such a dreadful incident was a shock at the beginning of my career. On that particular day, I remained silent at home even as I felt guilty being a part of the whole reality. I started critically thinking that how I would have avoided such an unpleasant incident? Few days after this incident the supervisor and the top management took a session to discussion the whole episode and ensured safety. They even gave us ideas to manage the situation. Such a mis-management is called negligence (Earnshaw et al., 2013).

On undergoing evidence practice, I have analyzed “duty of care and negligence” and learned that even in the most difficult conditions, a nurse should prioritize the task assigned to avoid most of such health issues. Although I used to use the “SOAPIE” approach from the beginning only, still for maintaining safety I used follow the “SOAPIE” approach regularly to keep myself updated with the patient's documents. Moreover, I started reporting a few minutes early to my schedule time so that I could get the opportunity to understand patient’s condition through documents and also the previous shift cares and plan my action (Earnshaw et al., 2013).

The risk which was associated Simon was that his medical history reflects that he was ill-tempered. Additionally, he was a male which elevated the risk for me related to physical damage, sexual victimization, and psychological disturbances. According to Choi et al. (2014), in such cases, is should be kept in mind that as a nursing practitioner I, need to be open-minded and culturally aware. Secondly, my values should not be culturally biased. Thirdly, working collaboratively by accepting cultural differences in such situations can be effective.

The role of quality improvement programs and accreditation standards Australia are as follows:

• The security framework possessed by the government and health services organizations describes the quality of health services.
• It describes the strategies to create a “consumer-focused health care system” which involved consumers in the development high-quality medical for.
• The clinical handover sates about effective clinical communication systems as a strategic plan on the transfer of responsibility and accountability for nursing patients.
• It describes a system that adopts a strategy to minimize infection in the healthcare system.
• Medication safety would ensure that the health practitioners administer, or prescribe safe medication.
• The process of patient identification systems and strategies in line with their identification and proper use to determine the right treatment is described
• Blood and blood products, effective and secured administration in patient ensured by the system and using various strategies.
• The NSQHS describes the systemic strategies to reduce the occurrence of patient fall in the healthcare system (Monks et al., 2013).

References:

Chan, Z. C. (2013). A systematic review of critical thinking in nursing education. Nurse Education Today, 33(3), 236-240.

Choi, E., Lindquist, R., & Song, Y. (2014). Effects of problem-based learning vs. traditional lecture on Korean nursing students' critical thinking, problem-solving, and self-directed learning. Nurse education today, 34(1), 52-56.

Earnshaw, V., Smith, L., & Copenhaver, M. (2013). Drug addiction stigma in the context of methadone maintenance therapy: an investigation into understudied sources of stigma. International journal of mental health and addiction, 11(1), 110-122.

Middleton, B., Bloomrosen, M., Dente, M. A., Hashmat, B., Koppel, R., Overhage, J. M., ... & Zhang, J. (2013). Enhancing patient safety and quality of care by improving the usability of electronic health record systems: recommendations from AMIA. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, 20(e1), e2-e8.

Monks, R., Topping, A., & Newell, R. (2013). The dissonant care management of illicit drug users in medical wards, the views of nurses and patients: A grounded theory study. Journal of advanced nursing, 69(4), 935-946.

Titzer, J. L., Swenty, C. F., & Hoehn, W. G. (2012). An interprofessional simulation promoting collaboration and problem solving among nursing and allied health professional students. Clinical Simulation in Nursing, 8(8), e325-e333.

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