Clinical Reflection In Communication

The communication experience that I encountered was last semester during a clinical when a nurse used bad communication skills while talking to a patient. The patient was admitted to the hospital because of Gastrointestinal bleeding related to his ulcerative colitis. The patient needed to have surgery to remove part of his colon and was going to end up with a colostomy. This patient was very anxious and scared about the surgery. The patient asked the nurse what the surgery was like and if it hurts? The nurse responded with, “the surgery is really easy and it does not hurt, just can’t be a baby.” The patient responded with concern on how long it will take to recover from the surgery until he was better. The nurse just responded with “you do not need to worry about that now and you will be fine!” After the nurse and myself left the patient’s room, the nurse complained about him saying he always ask so many questions and that it gets annoying. She then said that she does lot like talking to the patient’s because she does not have time for it because she has 6 other patients to check on.

The good or bad

This was bad interaction by the nurse as she was not showing any “empathy.” Empathy is “the ability to be sensitive to and communicate understanding of the client’s feelings.

It is the ability to put yourself into your client’s position” (Arnold and Boggs, pg. 205). The nurse seemed to not care about how the patient was feeling even though he had feelings of doubt and emotion. Since the nurse did not show empathy towards how the patient was feeling the therapeutic relationship was broken. The patient will most likely not express emotions to the nurse anymore and not talk about his problems, which will lead to the patient being frustrated and not having trust towards the

nurse.
What I would’ve done differently
If I were the nurse, I would have done things a lot differently. I would have first listened to the patient and asked him an open-ended question such as what is concerning you? I would have used active listening, direct eye contact, using an attending open body language, and always have a calm tone in my voice. (Arnold and Boggs, pg. 206) Once the patient expressed what was bothering him I would have told him exactly how the procedure goes and what the doctors do. I would address any other issues the patient has so I can address the issues to the proper provider. If the patient still had questions that I could not have answered, I would have told the doctor about the patients concern. This way the doctor could address any questions about the procedure to the patient and provide the patient with accurate information.
I actually did something similar to this when I was done following the nurse around I went back into the patient’s room. All I did was ask him what was bothering him? After that he opened up to me and told me that he was just nervous about this procedure because he has never gone through any health problems like this. We talked for about 10 minutes about what he was going through and how it is affecting his life. It only took this short amount of time and all he really wanted to do was talk to somebody to express how he was feeling. Before I left for the clinical day the patient actually told me how much I helped and thanked me for everything. In the end, I think showing empathy towards the patient and just listening to their concerns goes a long way in the therapeutic relationship.