Reflective Practices and Health Care

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In recent years, reflection and reflective practice have become well-known term with in the health care arena. They are words that have been debated and discussed with in the health care setting (Tony and Sue 2006). Reflective practice is essential for nurses, as nurses are responsible for providing care to the best of their ability to patients and their families (NMC, 2008). Reid (1993) states reflection is a process of reviewing an experience of practice in order to describe, analyse, evaluate and so inform learning about practice. Johns (1995) notes that reflection enables practitioners to assess, understand and learn through their experience. Reflective practice, therefore, offers nurses an opportunity to review their decisions and evaluate learning to learn from past lessons and positively influence practice in the future.

I have chosen Gibbs reflective model (1998) as my model. Gibbs model incorporates all the core skills of reflection. Arguably it is focused on reflection on action, but with practice it could be used to focus on reflection ‘in’ and ‘before’ action.

Description of experience:

During the placement in mental health ward, the student nurse observed the administration of subcutaneous insulin, which the student nurse never done it during the previous placements. Initial discussion of diabetic disease condition and insulin administration procedure were felicitated; because of the student nurse did not prepare adequately, made me to discuss with the student nurse about the diabetic disease and importance of insulin administration in depth.

During the procedure the he emphasized that, in other wards the patient themselves administer insulin with the help of insulin pen. I explained the accuracy and ...

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...vities to support learning and assessment. Subsequently, regular up dates are important to inform mentors of developments in the curriculum and the assessment process (Stuart 2003).

Action plans:

Carefully planned and effective sessions can lead to higher morale among students, with concomitant lowering anxiety (McClure 2002). The above reflective practice, as a student mentor, I realised the importance of student – mentor relationship in the basis of creating learning environment. I think, the feed back was very useful for the development of teaching skills and decided to plan more teaching sessions with adequate preparation in the future. Gibbs model was effective to identify and solve the issues aroused during and after the session and I wish to continue to use this reflective model again in the future to improve my professional and teaching skills.

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