Reflection In Nursing Management

Reflection

Since I joined the nursing profession, I have always known that I have to be so serious in my job. I have a challenging task of delivering high quality and holistic nursing services to the satisfaction of my patient. Whenever I am given a chance to attend to a patient, I try my best to serve them well and adequately address their needs. In this reflection, I will use the Gibbs reflection cycle to present the description, feelings, evaluation, analysis, conclusion, and the action plan.  

I would like to give a reflection of a case in which I was caring for a patient who had just undergone a knee surgery. I was assigned to be in charge of this patient because he had been monitored and assessed by the physician who ordered for 5,000 units of heparin. My task was to inject the patient with the drug. I have a feeling that the patient was undergoing some pain. Therefore, as a nurse, I had to use my expertise to help him minimize pains and improve the quality of his life (Manuel & Crowe, 2014). I have a feeling that I was supposed to take my job seriously and provide the patient with the care that he requires. Among the things I had to do was to monitor the patient, assess his condition, give injections, and closely work with other colleagues. I cooperated with the patient and gave him a therapeutic care that he deserved. I also managed to successfully give the patient a subcutaneous injection (Lowe, Plummer & Boyd, 2013).

In my analysis, I would like to express that there are I did a commendable job. I succeeded in doing a number of activities that I was supposed to do. First, I managed to successfully inject the patient with the recommended medication. To do this, I had to use the subcutaneous injection strategy because it is the most effective alternative to use when administering heparin which would be relied upon to prevent the patient from developing prophylaxis (Lowe, Plummer & Boyd, 2013). The other activity that I performed well is I exhaustively and accurately explained the therapeutic effects of the drugs to the patient. It was a good thing to do because it is the responsibility of a nurse to equip the patient with the information that can help him to understand the condition and the recommended interventions (Fairman, Rowe, Hassmiller & Shalala, 2011). However, despite all these, I failed to do some things that I was supposed to do. In the first place, I did not explain the side effects of the medication to the patient. I made a mistake because I was supposed to do so. Besides, I went ahead to snap the neck of the patient without showing other nurses the ampole. Lastly, I did not properly sanitize my hands as expected.

Based on these facts, I would like to conclude that I did not fully succeed in discharging my roles as a nurse. Although I made commendable steps, I still failed because I never discharged my role as expected. The fact that I injected the patient with the right units of medication shows that I was concerned about his recovery. At the same time, providing the patient with therapeutic information on the drug shows that I was concerned about informing him about his condition. However, I failed in two things. One, I did not establish a good working relationship with my fellows. In addition, I failed to observe hygiene because I did not wash my hands as expected.  

As a professional, I was supposed to do everything in the right way. I was not supposed make these mistakes because they would hinder me from delivering excellent services to the patient. In my action plan, I would make the necessary improvements to ensure that I satisfy the needs of my patient and provide a mistake-free service. If granted another opportunity, the first thing I will adjust is to improve my communication skills. I will have to ensure that I provide therapeutic communication and explain everything to the patient. I will have to acknowledge that I have an ethical obligation of providing the patient with all the necessary information before prescribing and injecting drugs including its benefits and side effects. Communication is an important tool whose usage can help in improving the quality of services (Craig, 2013). In addition, I will have to adopt a collaborative approach by cooperating with my colleagues at all times. Finally, I will have to observe hygiene and cleanliness at all times. In order to prevent the spread of Hospital-Acquired Infections, I will not hesitate to clean and sanitize my hands before and immediately after touching the patient, treatment, and coming into contact with body fluids that might have some contaminations.

References

Craig, R.T., (2013). Constructing theories in communication research. Theories and models of communication, 1, pp.39-57.

Fairman, J. A., Rowe, J. W., Hassmiller, S., & Shalala, D. E. (2011). Broadening the scope of nursing practice. New England Journal of Medicine, 364(3), 193-196.

Lowe, G., Plummer, V., & Boyd, L. (2013). Nurse practitioner roles in Australian healthcare ettings: Grainne Lowe and colleagues report on a study to explore how clinicians,

managers and policymakers perceive nurse practitioner roles and to elicit their views on barriers to their introduction. Nursing Management, 20(2), 28-35.

Manuel, J., & Crowe, M. (2014). Clinical responsibility, accountability, and risk aversion in mental health nursing: A descriptive, qualitative study. International journal of mental health nursing, 23(4), 336-343.