Relationship between ’being a professional’ and Reflective practice
Author Note
Introduction
The essay demonstrates the importance of student nurses adopting the operative transition to the role of a newly qualified nurse. In this phase of transition, nurses require supportive supervisory and conducive working environments to curtail the theory-practice gap.
The Department of Health and The Nursing Midwifery council, are concerned about how these nurses must be prepared to compete in a new nursing position. However, the literature highlights that student nurses are not supported with pre-registration pieces of training leading them towards the unsuccessful training. The student Nurses in the result are poorly prepared to get their theory translated into the professional nursing field.
Thesis Statement
The essay will demonstrate the relationship between ‘being a professional’ and ‘Reflective-practice’. Smooth transition of student nurses towards professionalism is challenging, for safe clinical practice.
“Being a professional nurse means the patients in your care must be able to trust you, it means being up to date with best practice, it means being accountable” whereas “Reflective practice is a way of studying your own experiences to improve the way you work.”
The relationship will be explained by keeping in view the provided case study. In the second section, the essay will further include a critical analysis of the relationship and Nursing roles transitions. The critical analysis will highlight the problems and possible solutions leading to the discussion section. Finally, a concluding paragraph will briefly explain the importance of the whole discussion in determining how the reflexive practice is important for being a professional midwifery nurse in future.
Critical Analysis
The newly qualified nurses are expected to demonstrate their skills in reflexive practice to become a professional nurse/midwife be professional. The term Reflective-practice is accompanied by learning in professional nursing contexts. It means taking our skills as an initiative for our learning and professional development ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"Ua0X04RF","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Hunt et al. 2016)","plainCitation":"(Hunt et al. 2016)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":280,"uris":["http://zotero.org/users/local/55bqtMd8/items/ICLMRSNI"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/local/55bqtMd8/items/ICLMRSNI"],"itemData":{"id":280,"type":"webpage","title":"The New Nurse: Strategies for Transition into Practice","container-title":"Daily Nurse","abstract":"“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.” —Winston Churchill New nurses must achieve myriad milestones. Most new nurses breathe a collective sigh of relief upon passing their licensure exam. However, this period of jubilation leads to the next milestone, which includes securing one’s first position and …","URL":"https://dailynurse.com/new-nurse-strategies-transition-practice/","title-short":"The New Nurse","language":"en-US","author":[{"family":"Hunt","given":"Deborah Dolan"},{"literal":"PhD"},{"family":"Hunt","given":"RNDeborah Dolan"},{"literal":"PhD"},{"literal":"RN"},{"family":"Academe","given":"is an associate professor of nursing at The College of New Rochelle She is the author of The New Nurse Educator: Mastering"},{"family":"Practice","given":"The Nurse Professional: Leveraging Education for Transition","dropping-particle":"into"},{"family":"Nutshell","given":"Fast Facts About the Nursing Profession: Historical Perspectives","dropping-particle":"in a"}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2016",9,21]]},"accessed":{"date-parts":[["2019",10,18]]}}}],"schema":"https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json"} (Hunt et al. 2016). To become a professional, reflective practice allows the new graduate nurses to learn from their experiences and results of new perceptions made based on practice.
Although reflective-practice is an important component of professional development in the field of nursing, it often depends upon the choice of the healthcare professional to be reflective in his practices or not. The process of learning from reflective practice enhance knowledge and communication skills and bring self-awareness to become a nursing professional. In reflective practice, nurses participate in self-observation and evaluate themselves based on their actions towards patient care.
Being a student or newly graduated nurse, it is important to observe the repetitive procedure to gather much amount of information. His practical experience would have serious implications on the client's health. To transform nursing theory into practice, a fresh graduate nurse needs to learn several ways of nursing through visual learning tactics ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"B9xTQbTV","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Makua 2016)","plainCitation":"(Makua 2016)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":274,"uris":["http://zotero.org/users/local/55bqtMd8/items/QVPX2SEC"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/local/55bqtMd8/items/QVPX2SEC"],"itemData":{"id":274,"type":"article-journal","title":"Transition from Student Nurse to Professional Nurse: Induction and Professional Development Support of Newly Qualified Professional Nurses","author":[{"family":"Makua","given":"Memme Girly"}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2016"]]}}}],"schema":"https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json"} (Makua 2016). Therefore, reflective practise is important during the training phase of nursing education.
On the other hand, not necessarily all reflective practice experiences carried out perfectly, there is a possibility of an unexpected experience because of some unprofessional people, even after everyone is working to their potential ability. In the field of nursing, this can be very distressing ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"X3n6Lqty","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Magnussen and Amundson 2003)","plainCitation":"(Magnussen and Amundson 2003)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":277,"uris":["http://zotero.org/users/local/55bqtMd8/items/BD9C25FW"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/local/55bqtMd8/items/BD9C25FW"],"itemData":{"id":277,"type":"article-journal","title":"Undergraduate nursing student experience","container-title":"Nursing & health sciences","page":"261-267","volume":"5","issue":"4","author":[{"family":"Magnussen","given":"Lois"},{"family":"Amundson","given":"Mary Jane"}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2003"]]}}}],"schema":"https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json"} (Magnussen and Amundson 2003).
One of the most important aspects of reflective practice is to learn the personal emotive response to critical situations. The fresh graduate nurses are extremely worried about missing something important while taking a patient's history, and this consciousness is problematic, as it distracts them from their professional duties ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"YyKFSM8i","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Jarvis 1992)","plainCitation":"(Jarvis 1992)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":272,"uris":["http://zotero.org/users/local/55bqtMd8/items/7C4ZF4WD"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/local/55bqtMd8/items/7C4ZF4WD"],"itemData":{"id":272,"type":"article-journal","title":"Reflective practice and nursing","container-title":"Nurse education today","page":"174-181","volume":"12","issue":"3","author":[{"family":"Jarvis","given":"Peter"}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["1992"]]}}}],"schema":"https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json"} (Jarvis 1992). In this situation, reflective practice plays an important role, because evaluating the personal response to such a scenario is only helpful to learn how to tackle the potential problem.
Along with the positive aspects of reflective practice, there are some disadvantages associated with it. The reflective practice may result in phycological stress, because sometimes newly graduate nurse feels unable to identify the problems observed during reflection ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"63165mfL","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Hannigan 2001)","plainCitation":"(Hannigan 2001)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":282,"uris":["http://zotero.org/users/local/55bqtMd8/items/JRFXL44T"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/local/55bqtMd8/items/JRFXL44T"],"itemData":{"id":282,"type":"article-journal","title":"A discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of ‘reflection’in nursing practice and education","container-title":"Journal of clinical nursing","page":"278-283","volume":"10","issue":"2","author":[{"family":"Hannigan","given":"Ben"}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2001"]]}}}],"schema":"https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json"} (Hannigan 2001).
There are some barriers in the transition of student nurse towards being a professional through reflective practice. Getting experience through reflective practice takes too long to be a professional nurse. It is understood that the change will not come overnight by just observing and evaluating the self-experiences. Another barrier to this type of nursing practice is the lack of mentorship ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"JIM4MLVD","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Iosr and Famutimi 2015)","plainCitation":"(Iosr and Famutimi 2015)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":263,"uris":["http://zotero.org/users/local/55bqtMd8/items/SAUGMHMY"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/local/55bqtMd8/items/SAUGMHMY"],"itemData":{"id":263,"type":"paper-conference","title":"Reflective Practice: Implication for Nurses","source":"Semantic Scholar","abstract":"Reflective practice is a frequently used but inadequately defined concept in nursing. This may be attributed to the inadequate conceptualisation of the process of reflection. This paper agreed that now is an appropriate time to critically examine the notion of reflective practice and maintains that there is a need for more robust debate and research into the nature of reflection in nursing. Although reflective practice has been identified as a valuable tool to help nurses recognise their own strengths and weaknesses, even though many still find it difficult to embrace. This article dispels some of the myths surrounding reflective practice and offers examples on how it can benefit nurses both on personal and professional level. The study however observed that reflective practice is associated with learning from experience, and is viewed as an important strategy for health professionals who embrace lifelong learning. This paper extensively examined the attraction of reflective practice to different interest groups and concludes by examining the implication of reflective practice for nurses.","DOI":"10.6084/m9.figshare.1485543.v1","title-short":"Reflective Practice","author":[{"family":"Iosr","given":"Journals"},{"family":"Famutimi","given":"Esther Oluwatoyin"}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2015"]]}}}],"schema":"https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json"} (Iosr and Famutimi 2015). Without the support of professionals, nurses cannot enhance their professional knowledge. They will have less power to take any initiative in the healthcare profession.
Reflective practice enables the newly graduated nurses to plan their activities and evaluate those plans to ensure, whether it's benefits for patients or not. Reflective practice encourages a graduate nurse to make autonomous decisions in the best interest of the patient as a self-directed professional.
The reflexive practice is accompanied by the improved quality care of the patients, and stimulates the professional growth of newly graduated nurses, by shrinking the gap between nursing theory and practice. to grow in the evidence-based nursing profession, it is important for all fresh graduate, as well as professional nurses, participate in reflective practice.
Discussion
According to Benner’s stages of clinical competence, the process of transition of a student nurse to become professional involves five stages. “In the acquisition and development of a skill, a nurse passes through five levels of proficiency: novice, advanced beginner, competent, proficient, and expert” ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"JvinuDkG","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(novice-expert-benner.pdf n.d.)","plainCitation":"(novice-expert-benner.pdf n.d.)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":266,"uris":["http://zotero.org/users/local/55bqtMd8/items/LQNGYITW"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/local/55bqtMd8/items/LQNGYITW"],"itemData":{"id":266,"type":"article","title":"novice-expert-benner.pdf","URL":"https://www.health.nsw.gov.au/nursing/projects/Documents/novice-expert-benner.pdf","accessed":{"date-parts":[["2019",10,17]]}}}],"schema":"https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json"} (novice-expert-benner.pdf n.d.)
Novice
This stage comprises of all the fresh graduate nurses, with nil experience to work in complex situations they are expected to perform. Nurses at this stage experience lack of confidence to start their practice, and they need continuous physical and verbal support of their professionals. Training is within an extended period and the nurse is unable to use open judgement.
Advanced beginner
Advanced Beginners shows slightly acceptable performance because the nurse follows the reflections of their senior staff in actual situations. At this stage, He/she is efficient enough in parts of the practice area and requires sporadic supportive prompts. Along with the reflective practice, mentorship adds too much to the experience of a fresh graduate nurse.
Competent
A nurse is expected to be competent if he/she has been on the same job for more than two years. At this stage, a nurse can work with greater efficiency, a higher level of confidence and better coordination with the experienced nursing staff. A competent nurse is expected to establish his/her perspectives based on considerable consciousness, intellect and logical observation of the problem. The conscious, planning one of the characteristics of competence which helps to achieve organizational efficiency, whereas patient care depends upon the reflective practice of his/her own experience of emotional situations.
Proficient
This is an advanced level of competence in which a competent nurse is supposed to perceive every aspect of the situation as a whole rather than bits of the aspects. A proficient nurse should be able to thoroughly understand the situation for its long-term goal of being a professional. A proficient nurse learns more from his/her own experiences, how to cater to difficult problems of patient care and how to develop a modified plan in response to those problematic situations.
At this level of competence, a nurse can easily identify the situation when the projected normal picture does not appear. Understanding the situations deeply improves the decision-making power of a proficient nurse. Proficient nurses are less laboured because in most of the situations because they can now use various existing aspects and attributes to cater to the current situation.
The Expert.
This is the last stage in the process of transition from student nurse to a professional nurse. At this stage, the nurse has an instinctive grip on each situation and in identifying the exact region and cause of the problem without wasting any time in considering fruitless, alternative diagnoses ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"ihWrobH3","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Duchscher 2008)","plainCitation":"(Duchscher 2008)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":276,"uris":["http://zotero.org/users/local/55bqtMd8/items/HRR3B2Z7"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/local/55bqtMd8/items/HRR3B2Z7"],"itemData":{"id":276,"type":"article-journal","title":"A process of becoming: The stages of new nursing graduate professional role transition","container-title":"The Journal of Continuing Education in Nursing","page":"441-450","volume":"39","issue":"10","author":[{"family":"Duchscher","given":"Judy Boychuk"}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2008"]]}}}],"schema":"https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json"} (Duchscher 2008). The Expert nurse works from a profound understanding of the entire situation. The expert nurse demonstrates flow in his/her performance and is shows flexibility and proficiency in decision making. However, an expert requires skilled analytic ability in situations which are new to them and they have no prior experience to tackle those situations.
Conclusion
The essay throughout the discussion is focused on the process of transition from a student nurse to an expert. It discussed that how reflective practice plays its role to enable a new graduate nurse to gain practical experience through his/her response to critical situations, and the ability to make quick but fruitful decisions for the individual patients and the organization as a whole.
Furthermore, it is observed that reflective practice alone cannot lead a fresh graduate nurse to be a professional nurse. Working with others as a team, under competitive leadership is also very important for becoming an expert. Along with gaining experience from the reflections of his/her responses to the situation and the reflections of proficient nursing staff, on the job training are vital for safe practice. There is a need to introduce the training programs in which nurses can put their theory into practice during their study phase.
References
ADDIN ZOTERO_BIBL {"uncited":[],"omitted":[],"custom":[]} CSL_BIBLIOGRAPHY Duchscher, Judy Boychuk. 2008. “A Process of Becoming: The Stages of New Nursing Graduate Professional Role Transition.” The Journal of Continuing Education in Nursing 39(10): 441–50.
Hannigan, Ben. 2001. “A Discussion of the Strengths and Weaknesses of ‘Reflection’in Nursing Practice and Education.” Journal of clinical nursing 10(2): 278–83.
Hunt, Deborah Dolan et al. 2016. “The New Nurse: Strategies for Transition into Practice.” Daily Nurse. https://dailynurse.com/new-nurse-strategies-transition-practice/ (October 18, 2019).
Iosr, Journals, and Esther Oluwatoyin Famutimi. 2015. “Reflective Practice: Implication for Nurses.”
Jarvis, Peter. 1992. “Reflective Practice and Nursing.” Nurse education today 12(3): 174–81.
Magnussen, Lois, and Mary Jane Amundson. 2003. “Undergraduate Nursing Student Experience.” Nursing & health sciences 5(4): 261–67.
Makua, Memme Girly. 2016. “Transition from Student Nurse to Professional Nurse: Induction and Professional Development Support of Newly Qualified Professional Nurses.”
