Importance of Critical Analytical Thinking in Nursing Profession
Nursing can be considered a profession that demands both responsibility and moral investment from the professionals on a daily basis. It has to be understood in this context however, that the nursing students require extreme critical analytical thinking and interpretative skills in order to provide the optimal and most effective patient centered care to the patient. However, it also has to be acknowledged that in the nursing profession there are various factors that can have a significant impact on the professional practice of the nursing professional and can be the contributing factor behind the most of the professional misconduct of the nurses. However, it has to be understood that the importance of professional conduct is extreme when it comes to the profession of nursing and health care, hence there is need for critically evidence based and clinically reasonable practice in the clinical setting (Huston, 2013).
However, the most of the professional issues that predominates the clinical practice of a professional nurse begins in the educational stage itself. And hence the nursing professionals must take into consideration that fact that the educational learning plans and strategies can help the graduating nurses overcome the professional issues before they can affect the professional practice of the nursing professionals (Cherry & Jacob, 2016). This assignment will evaluate the professional issues experienced by the nursing student Karen and attempt to formulate a personalized learning plan that will help her overcome the issues and engage in efficient evidence based and patient centred care practice.
There are a myriad of different challenges and obstacles are represented in the path of professional discovery for the graduating nursing professionals making the transition towards the practice scenario. And there are various contributing factors that define and facilitate the changes in the occupational growth of the nursing professionals. And one of the most serious and most influential contributing factors in any professional practice that gives rise to the most of the issues and conflict is the language barrier (Por et al., 2011). It has to be mentioned in this context that the impact of language barrier in the public service professions that intricately dependent upon compunction is crucial. For a nursing professional language barrier can affect not just the effective team working capabilities in the nursing professionals but also impact the interpersonal communication between the patients, their families and the care providers. It has to be understood that patient centred care has become one of the most primary requirements in the practice standards or the NMBA, and hence each and every health care provider must ensure that the patient preferences and grievances are given the highest priority while designing and implementing the care plan for the patient (Arnold & Boggs, 2015). Hence, a severe gap in the communication between the care provider and the patient can impact the patient centredness of the care as well. Considering the care study opted for the assignment, the nursing professional under study had been an Indonesian student who had English as a second language all throughout her schooling career. And hence, upon transfer to the Australian nursing and health care educational sector had been experiencing language issue in verbal communication in English, although she did not have much issues with understanding and writing in English language (Morton, Fontaine, Hudak & Gallo, 2017). The most of the issues that Karen has undergone is in the placement workshops and seminars where she had to deal with verbal communication in English where her limited experience with verbal communication in English, which would eventually facilitate a few grave concerns when beginning professional practice in the Australian health acre facilities where English is the only communication medium, in case of both verbal and nonverbal sectors. Hence, the personalized learning plan for Karen must focus on improving her verbal communication skills and should emphasize more on this skill improvement as it is one of the short term goals for the student (Iacobucci, Daly, Lindell & Griffin, 2013).
Professional Conduct and Practice
Another very important issue with the graduating nursing students that has been discovered is the fact that the international students transferring to the Australian professional sectors experience the most critical issues while adapting to the Australian educational and professional culture and standards. It has to be mentioned in this context that the nursing student under consideration in the assignment is also experiencing a few issues and challenges while going though the process of both personal and professional acculturation. In this case Karen had trouble with both record keeping activities and team-working activities while in the coursework activities (Levett-Jones, Gersbach, Arthur & Roche, 2011). It has to be understood in this case that the educational structure and standards that are followed in the Australian sectors are different from the Asian countries and hence the most of the students struggle to keep up with the different assessment structure and exhaustive coursework schedule due to which Karen struggled to keep up with record practices. Now, given her limited verbal english communication powers her ability to participate primary in the team-working capabilities as well. And hence, both of these issues also need to be addressed as the short term goals in her personalized learning plan as these issues can potentially impart severe negative effects on the professional career of the nursing student as the nursing practice is intricately linked with regular and meticulous record keeping and team-working activities (Melnyk & Fineout-Overholt, 2011).
Lastly, it has to be mentioned here that evidence based practice is the most crucial requirement of the patient centred modern day care practices according to the NMBA practice standards. However, the evidence based practice is a critical and meticulous strategic activity that needs to be completed with clinical reasonable skills and critical research based critical analytical decision making, in this case the nursing students often have to employ different strategies nd theoretical framework along with application based practical scenarios, and successfully aligning all these interconnected activities is a sector where the international nursing students struggle with (Townsend & Morgan, 2017). However, evidence based practice not only helps in facilitating patient centred care but in also provides the nursing professionals with the opportunity of ensuring optimal safety of the patients and the care provided to the patients. Hence, the importance of enhancing the ability of the nursing student under consideration will need to invest a vast amount of efforts and strategies in order to improve the evidence based practice or research based practice, so the personalized learning plan must provide a long term plan for this challenge. Along with that reflective practice is very beneficial for improving the competence and skill enhancement; hence the reflective practice must also be taken into her personalized learning plan as a long term goal (DiCenso, Guyatt & Ciliska, 2014).
Challenges of Graduating Nursing Professionals
The personalized learning plan has attempted to address all the factors associated with the different activities that need to be taken into consideration while attempting to improve her professional competence. However, it is also extremely crucial for Karen to regularly monitor the learning activities that she is going to partake in, in accordance with that she needs to track her progress rate so that the personalized learning plan that can be utilized optimally. First and foremost, it has to be understood that her English proficiency and verbal communicational prowess can be monitored with active participation in workshop seminars and aptitude tests. Along with that she can opt for reflective journal record keeping activities to track her progress with the record keeping practices and team working skills. In order to check her evidence based practice skills improvement, there are various aptitude tests and framework based exercise to test her progress and adherence to evidence based practice (Schneider & Whitehead, 2013).
Based on the short term and the long term goals I as the final year nursing student has undertaken the responsibility to supervise Karen. I am working as final year nursing student and Karen has approached me with her issues in professional and academic life. Having experienced then her I have decided to use evidence based strategies to help her work in team and prevent her from failing in the unit of study.
|
Objectives |
Outcomes |
Resources/Strategies |
Rationale |
Evidence of achievement |
Timeframe |
Criteria for evaluation |
Progress status |
|
English proficiency |
Ability to fluently communicate in English |
· Teach vocabulary related to nursing · Conduct conversations in English by creating hypothetical nursing situations · Involve Karen in oral presentations and increase listening, reading and writing in English · Teaching with the use of resources such as projector, white board, nursing scenario cards · Encourage the student to brainstorm ideas when working in team · Involve student in reflective writing in English language (DeWit & O’Neill, 2013) |
English language is essential as the common language used in English curriculum and in nursing practice Learning English and gaining proficiency in it will help Karen to learn the nursing vocabulary English language is essential to interact with team members and the health care professors (Crawford & Candlin, 2013) |
Karen can demonstrate the meaning of phrases and words during oral presentations and meaning of the informal texts in the unit of study |
Within six months |
Karen speaks and writes in English about the complex informational texts Karen demonstrates language choices to purpose task and team members when writing and speaking in English |
During the mentoring experience I will check the progress on learning plan at the end of one month, three months and six months |
|
Effective communication skills |
Karen will become an effective communicator. She will well communicate with the other nursing students and demonstrate the collaborative skills with nurses and patients |
· Guide student to attend the workshops to learn the verbal and non-verbal skills required in nursing · Encourage the student to engage in discussion with the senior nurses and registered nurses to learn what is the therapeutic communication and interpersonal communication skills · Guide through videos and power point presentations · Guide student to participate in the seminars for poster presentations on any topic (Billings & Halstead, 2015) |
As Karen is from Indonesia, effective communication skills is needed as she is trying to cope up with the Australian work environment Further lack of high English proficiency is added barrier to effective communication skills which is the priority need of nursing students (Bramhall, 2014) |
· Karen makes more friends in Australia · Karen consult with professors for opinions and clarification of theories in unit or current semester · Karen communicates s with the other nursing students to learn theories and concepts and prevent failing in unit |
Within six months |
Karen communicates with the professors and overcome learning difficulties Karen demonstrates the confidence to apply theory to practice in current semester or unit of study Demonstrates the ability to work in team using verbal and non verbal skills |
Check the improvement in the communication skills by taking online tests and tracking the changes after every third week |
|
Improve the skills to research literature, to assess the relevance of evidence to practice based on current standards |
Utilises nursing research from multiple disciplines and can select best practice when caring the individuals |
· Teach the student in group setting with lot of interaction · Guide the student to attend the interactive research conferences to learn evidence based practice · Encourage the nursing student to attend “lunch and learn sessions” and value the perspective of peers |
Learning evidence based practice will help in better clinical judgement (Houser, 2016) |
Karen will be able to research article and critically analyse them Karen will be able to collect evidence related to surgical nursing and extract relevant journals Karen will actively participate in 3 lunch sessions during the winter |
Within six months |
The student may be able to lead a discussion on research article with peers Karen will demonstrate introducing of research article that is relevant to the current study unit Karen will be able to explain in the student discussion group that why an examination in nursing practice is important |
During the mentoring experience I will check the progress on learning plan at the end of one month, three months and six months |
|
Improve the nursing assessment skills |
Ability to integrate the nursing theories and concepts and implement in nursing practice Evaluate the outcome of care Ability to use systematic approach for decision making and clinical reasoning |
· Help Karen to enrol in the physical assessment course · Teach how to review the process of physical assessment in nursing textbook · Encourage Karen and guide through lung assessments and mentor in physical assessment process (Callen et al., 2013) |
Review of the physical assessment and mentoring through it will help strident to observe and learn the nursing concept. It will help learn the verbal and non-verbal skills required to conduct the assessment (Weber & Kelley, 2013) |
Karen will be able to extract the patient details appropriately such history of medical illness and other data Karen will be able to increase the undersigning of the disease process and its relationship with the findings Karen will be able to recognise the changes within the clients |
Within three months |
Karen will be able to assess the patient the generate the report Karen will demonstrate the ability to communicate with the physicians and colleagues about the patient’s condition Demonstrate the best care decision |
The progress in assessment skills will be tracked after every alternate three weeks |
|
Cultural sensitivity |
Demonstrate the knowledge of cultural and social factors that influence the nursing care in Australia Able to provide the care that is holistic in nature and population cantered nursing care |
· Explain how to eliminate the health disparities by videos and real life examples · Attend seminars or workshops to apply the knowledge of cultural and social factors while maintaing relevant nursing standards · Instil commitment to the health of vulnerable population |
Karen requires cultural awareness as she is from Indonesia. She must know the cultural diversity in Australia and how it impacts the nursing practice (Loftin, Hartin, Branson, & Reyes, 2013) |
Demonstrates the cultural awareness when dealing with patients and tend to avoid health disparities Respect the values and preferences of the patient during assessment and care |
Within six months |
Karen demonstrates the skills to patients satisfaction when dealing with culturally diverse patients Karen is able to promote the patient centered care by understanding their needs and respecting their cultural practices |
During the mentoring experience I will check the progress on learning plan at the end of one month, three months and six months |
|
Reflective practice skills |
Ability to reflect on the clinical practice and make evidence based decisions to improve the care delivery |
· Guide to write journals and record keeping of events in the academic and the nursing practice · Guide in using systematic approach to analyse events and resolve the issue, clear mind and generate ideas · Record keeping of positive and negative outcomes in study and at work · Teach different models of reflection such as Gibb reflective cycle (Morris & Faulk, 2012) |
Reflective practice helps in addressing the health and well being issues of the patients in nursing Reflective practice helps in the identifying the behavioural, thinking and emotional pattern and effectiveness of the approach Reflective practice helps to enhance the nursing care (Grove, Burns, & Gray, 2012) |
Karen indentifies the strength and weakness at personal and professional levels through reflective journals Karen indentifies atleast three communication related issues faced by her Karen indentifies and develop strategy for learning unit outcomes |
Within one month |
Karen demonstrates the understanding of the pros and cons of her present actions as nursing student in Australia |
Check the progress in reflective practice after alternate week by checking journals and video recordings Progress can be checked by online test scores that reflect the critical thinking skills of Karen |
|
Record keeping |
Ability to keep the records of the patients and learn the importance of privacy and confidentiality |
· Help improve the communication between team members and professors · Support her through delivery and continuity of care · Ask her to demonstrate the clinical judgments and decision making · Tech the way to identify the patient risks (DeWit & O’Neill, 2013) |
Record keeping is the integral part of nursing practice It is important to provide safe and effective care and is one of the main standard of Nursing practice in Australia (Nelson & Staggers, 2016) |
Karen demonstrates the understanding of record keeping , accountability, legal purpose, and interventions Karen demonstrates the understanding of documenting records |
Within three months |
Ability to identify the factors causing documenting errors and what is called effective documenting At the end of three months Karen demonstrates effective record keeping skills |
Check the accuracy in documenting after very alternate one month |
Conclusion:
On a concluding note, it can be stated that the profession of nursing is associated with various risks and responsibilities and the nursing professionals cannot even attempt to make a single mistake, as that can potentially affect the life expectancy and safety of the patient considerably. That is the reason why the nursing professionals have to invest effort and dedication to ensure that they retain all the attributes and competences that are required to facilitate patient centred and safe evidence based care for the patients. This assignment had discussed the professional issues that most of the culturally diverse nursing students face when they begin professional practice in Australian health care system. The personalized learning plan had been attempted to effectively address all the professional and personal development issues that Karen had been having and the monitoring activities are also specific and yet applicable to the similar scenarios that the internal students starting practice in Australia face.
References:
Arnold, E. C., & Boggs, K. U. (2015). Interpersonal Relationships-E-Book: Professional Communication Skills for Nurses. Elsevier Health Sciences.
Impact of Language Barrier on Professional Practice
Billings, D. M., & Halstead, J. A. (2015). Teaching in Nursing-E-Book: A Guide for Faculty. Elsevier Health Sciences.
Bramhall, E. (2014). Effective communication skills in nursing practice. Nursing standard, 29(14), 53-59.
Callen, B., Smith, C. M., Joyce, B., Lutz, J., Brown?Schott, N., & Block, D. (2013). Teaching/Learning Strategies for the Essentials of Baccalaureate Nursing Education for Entry?Level Community/Public Health Nursing. Public Health Nursing, 30(6), 537-547.
Cherry, B., & Jacob, S. R. (2016). Contemporary nursing: Issues, trends, & management. Elsevier Health Sciences.
Crawford, T., & Candlin, S. (2013). A literature review of the language needs of nursing students who have English as a second/other language and the effectiveness of English language support programmes. Nurse education in practice, 13(3), 181-185.
DeWit, S. C., & O’Neill, P. A. (2013). Fundamental concepts and skills for nursing. Elsevier Health Sciences.
DiCenso, A., Guyatt, G., & Ciliska, D. (2014). Evidence-Based Nursing-E-Book: A Guide to Clinical Practice. Elsevier Health Sciences.
Grove, S. K., Burns, N., & Gray, J. (2012). The practice of nursing research: Appraisal, synthesis, and generation of evidence. Elsevier Health Sciences.
Houser, J. (2016). Nursing research: Reading, using and creating evidence. Jones & Bartlett Learning.
Huston, C. J. (2013). Professional issues in nursing: Challenges and opportunities. Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.
Iacobucci, T. A., Daly, B. J., Lindell, D., & Griffin, M. Q. (2013). Professional values, self-esteem, and ethical confidence of baccalaureate nursing students. Nursing ethics, 20(4), 479-490.
Levett-Jones, T., Gersbach, J., Arthur, C., & Roche, J. (2011). Implementing a clinical competency assessment model that promotes critical reflection and ensures nursing graduates’ readiness for professional practice. Nurse Education in Practice, 11(1), 64-69.
Loftin, C., Hartin, V., Branson, M., & Reyes, H. (2013). Measures of cultural competence in nurses: an integrative review. The Scientific World Journal, 2013.
Melnyk, B. M., & Fineout-Overholt, E. (Eds.). (2011). Evidence-based practice in nursing & healthcare: A guide to best practice. Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.
Morris, A. H., & Faulk, D. R. (2012). Transformative learning in nursing: A guide for nurse educators. Springer Publishing Company.
Morton, P. G., Fontaine, D., Hudak, C. M., & Gallo, B. M. (2017). Critical care nursing: a holistic approach. Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.
Nelson, R., & Staggers, N. (2016). Health Informatics-E-Book: An Interprofessional Approach. Elsevier Health Sciences.
Por, J., Barriball, L., Fitzpatrick, J., & Roberts, J. (2011). Emotional intelligence: Its relationship to stress, coping, well-being and professional performance in nursing students. Nurse education today, 31(8), 855-860.
Schneider, Z., & Whitehead, D. (2013). Nursing and midwifery research: methods and appraisal for evidence-based practice. Elsevier Australia.
Townsend, M. C., & Morgan, K. I. (2017). Psychiatric mental health nursing: Concepts of care in evidence-based practice. FA Davis.
Weber, J. R., & Kelley, J. H. (2013). Health assessment in nursing. Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.
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