Nursing: Clinical Reasoning And Critical Thinking In Nursing

771 Words2 Pages

When it comes to nursing school and nursing as a career, clinical reasoning and critical thinking go hand in hand. The APA states that critical thinking is defined as, “purposeful, self-regulatory judgment that uses cognitive tools such as interpretation, analysis, evaluation, inference, and explanation of the evidential, conceptual, methodological, criteriological, or contextual considerations on which judgment is based”(as cited in Clinical Reasoning, Decision making, and Action: Thinking Critically and Clinically, Benner,Hughes,Sutphen, 2008). Also stated by the APA, clinical reasoning is defined as, “a situated, practice-based form of reasoning that requires a background of scientific and technological research-based knowledge about general …show more content…

In school I have learned about what level of care is required for certain things such as a low oxygen saturation, a high blood pressure, or a low heart rate. When I am out in the real world these most likely will not be the only problems my patients will have, so I am going to have to think critically in order to prioritize my care. By using clinical reasoning and critically thinking I can break down all the problems my patients are having, rate them on a scale of most demanding to least demanding, and urgent versus not as …show more content…

Especially if the nurse is a new graduate nurse, “today 's new graduate nurses are exposed to increasingly demanding and complex acute care environments that require an ability to effectively think and reason to provide quality patient care,”(Oja, 2011). Many factors can contribute to the complication of certain tasks. Time can be a very complicated aspect in a shift at the hospital. Being a nurse involves helping and caring for people. Depending on the acuity of the nurses workload they could struggle with how exactly they can care for all their patients while being on a schedule. Certain medications are due at certain times, patients need toileting, bathing, feeding, turning, ambulating, and many more tasks need completed. Critical thinking can be used to help with completing these tasks because as a nurse we will have to think about tasks that can only be completed by a Registered Nurse and the certain things that can be delegated to UAP’s such as toileting, bathing, vitals, feeding, and other patient care

Open Document