Write a Nursing Reflective Essay on Healthcare.
Nursing is an important component of healthcare sector; good nursing care is essential for the speedy recovery of the patient as well that for his near and dear family. The essay will highlight upon my personal encounter with a serious health issues which made me realize that there are plethora of reforms necessary in the field of health delivery for sustainability in the delivery of the services. The reflective essay here will focus on the health care and will be deconstructed using the Gibbs 1998 reflective cycle to help the understanding of self and alternate views. Towards the end, an action plan will be suggested to push the envelope of professional health practices for self and others according to the personal health care encounter.
The incident happened in the summers of 2014, I was in in my room playing Xbox. Suddenly I heard a loud sound, it took my attention and I quickly ran out to see what has happened. To my shock, I saw one of the buildings close to my house had collapsed; it was a three story standalone building. I was absolutely shocked to see the huge pile of dirt clouding the air and huge stones lying around the road. It was a situation of mayhem, traffic jam, horns blowing at full sounds and people running here and there to figure out what exactly happened. Amidst this entire crowd, I could figure out that there were dozens of people who were buried in the debris of the fallen building, even from a distance I could easily spot out 5-6 people, I was terrified to the very core and had no idea what has to be done. I was just back from my college for my summer holidays; I rushed to the road in a bid to help the needy. As I reached on the site of the incident, I could see plenty of people have gathered around the site and were trying to remove the debris to help the people. Somebody shouted to call the ambulance and medical services, I quickly ran up the number of ambulance and also called emergency services 000 for additional help, in the meantime I was doing my bit to help the people.
To my utmost shock, the ambulance and emergency services came in about 40 mins, it was an absolute shocker, although without wasting the time they started helping out the people and taking them out from the ground underneath. I accompanied one of the ambulances and went to the one of the hospital located in the nearby area. To my surprise the hospital was not ready for such a situation; it was another situation of mayhem at the hospital. None of us knew what has to be done and who has to be approached. On approaching the reception they said wait for some time as we don’t have enough hands to support at the emergency room. I asked them If they could still start with putting the patients on the bed and start cleaning them up with some glucose and something and their reply was simply, please wait let us see what can be done in this regard. I was utterly disappointed in the way such a tragic situation was being handled; it made me not only angry but disappointed as to how the taxpayer’s money is not being utilized to service them at the time of emergency.
Gibbs reflective cycle was created in the year 1988 by Professor Graham Gibbs and has 6 stages to explore and revisit the situation in depth with better understanding and analysis of the situation(Hanson, McAllister, 2017).The 6 stages of Gibbs cycle are; Description, feelings, evaluation, analysis, conclusion and Action plan, all these stages help in careful evaluation of the situation to explore the situation in terms of it criticality and help to prevent such situation to occur in the future(Howatson-Jones, 2016).
The building collapsed as the authorities were not careful enough to see the shabby condition of the building, it was under a lot of wear and tear and I had often heard my mom and dad saying that if steps are not taken the building could fall on the ground one day. Seeing it actual happening in front of my eyes, I realized how right were they in pointing out the obvious and how imbecile were the people to not see it coming. However, reaching on the site I realized its absolute mayhem and it is our joint responsibility to help the people and need. After trying to do my bit I called 000 the emergency services and also the ambulance to come for help in the area, it took them 40 minutes to reach the site. On reaching the hospital I saw that the hospital was in equipped to handle the emergency, the staff was incompetent to first understand the situation and then to help the people in need, and lastly the people were extremely slow and were just asking us to be patient. I saw couple of nurses sitting at the nurse station just chit chatting and laughing among them, I did not find a single expression of care and empathy towards ones state of affairs. It took the staff another 30-45 minutes.
My feeling were an accumulation of remorse for the victims, helplessness for myself as I was unable to help them and anger towards the hospital, the nurses and the management of the hospital. I was filled with rage looking at their inability to understand the situation and engage us with paperwork formalities while they were sitting and evaluating for the options as to how they can help the victims. It seemed they were not given a proper training to manage the crisis and the hospital lacked the basic hospitality to be extended to the victims. The nurse seemed incompetent to handle the situation and it made me feel how they could put the lives of people in danger by recruiting such unqualified that lacked basic skills such as empathy, care, warmth, emergency medicine and treatment. I was angry and my actions were guided my anger and I was trying to reason it out with the hospital to at least help few people until and unless they get additional help. I was furiated with the nursing staff who were sitting at their station chit chatting and busy on their systems.
Everything regarding my first hospital experience was pathetic and I would practically wish that no one envisions what I saw, so that they can sleep in peace knowing that the hospital is the place where a good care is ensured. The nursing staffs was bad, the inability to handle the victims was bad, the insufficiency of the beds or required number of staff was another bad point, the worst was the rude way in which the nursing staff was talking to me. They were asking me if I had a relative and when I said no, they asked me to have a glass of water and sit back, and they are doing whatever they can in the best of their abilities. It is the worst kind of assurance that one could give to someone. I was completely disappointed and on the verge of losing my faith in the noble profession of health care practices.
The experience stuck hard in my head, it was such an experience which made me question the ability and the professionalism of the health care services extended by health care services. It made me realizes the importance of crisis management in health care services and how important it is to ensure that there are sufficient number of people always present me the hospital to take care of any unforeseen tragic incident. It also made me question as to what kind of training is being provided to the nursing staff, what are the policies and practices followed at the hospital to tackle such difficult and challenging situation. I thus realized that the current state of health services is not something worth being proud of; it gave me chill down my spine realizing that I could have been one of the victims.
I learnt that there is tremendous scope of improvement the way healthcare and nursing services are being handled and wide scope of training for the nursing staff and people employed at the hospital. I learnt that it really does take a “human” to understand the plight of a “human”, and not some professionals who are just working for their daily bread and butter. I also learnt that an efficient and effective healthcare services with competent nursing staff Is an asset to not only the hospital but also for the nearby locality (Tanaka, Okamoto & Koide, 2018). The situation certainly made me learn that it is extremely essential for the nurse staff to be at least warm and empathetic even if the hospital is not equipped to help, they can extend warmth and assurance by their small deeds which would make a person feel better by knowing that he is in safe hands.
The entire evaluation of the experience of the healthcare services and the nursing staff made me question myself, as to what could I have done provided I would have been in the position of nursing staff. I would have certainly did at least 200% more than what the staff at the hospital did, I would have ensured that I do my bit and push people to go beyond their limits and help the people in dire need of medical help. I would have taken a bunch of nurses who were sitting at their workstation with water to quench their thirst, sanitizer and disinfectant to clean up their wounds. Moreover, I would have ensured that I go up to every person and would have assured them that they are in safe hands and we would do everything to take good care of them, and there is literally nothing to worry. I am of the opinion that people in the hospital would have come for help seeing me do my bit, they would get the motivation and spirit to help the people, thus changing the entire situation and turning it in favour for the victims (Johansen & O’Brien, 2016).
Uncertainty is pervasive and motivates every aspect related to the health care, at one of the most fundament level, it is uncertainty of one form which aids the medical research, prompts patients to seek care and stimulates medical intervention (Shaban, 2015). Moreover due to the recent trends and events, there has been lot of uncertainty in the healthcare. Despite the increasing visibility and prevailing importance of uncertainty in the healthcare, there is a lot of confusion and limited understanding no how to tackle certain issues (Ahn, 2017). There has been empirical evidence that a little is known about how to communicate uncertainty with the public and patients, and also to help clinicians and patients deal with the concept of uncertainty (Alligood, 2017).
Uncertainty in the healthcare in terms of illness has been categorised into 4 categories- ambiguity-patients self-evaluate the disease or illness which is highly vague and unclear in nature, complexity arises from the perception about the treatment and the understanding of care, deficient information is concerned with inadequate information for the cure and unpredictability in the absence of stability of the patients (Komatsu & Yagasaki, 2014). The ultimate challenge at the hand of development of future clinical practices are to review and understand more precisely how to cope up with the mechanism of uncertainty to lay down standard set of rules to deal with it. It becomes very important to match up to the expectation of the customers in care from the nursing staff, more so when the situation is based on contingency, the bottom line here is to be prepared for any kind of uncertainty in the future and extend the best of the services without wasting even a minute(Smith, Liehr, 2018).
In regards to developing policy in terms of health care, it is required to cover all the possible grounds of uncertainty and then work backwards to create a strategy to deal with the challenge. Another important aspect of uncertainty is to keep a crisis management team in place, so that their expertise can be used in the time of crisis as they are better adept to such situation. This will not only help in pushing the practice of healthcare and nursing services but would also be of great help in mitigating uncertainty from the most noble profession on planet earth(Cypress, 2017).
There are a plethora of actions which can certainly help to enhance the professional health practices of self and others in the purview of the reflection described above. The first and foremost is assessing the health needs of the individual for providing people with knowledge and information to take care of their health. Nurses have to build capacity in the field of health promotion through an environment of learning and development. This will certainly help them in not only become better at their jobs, but also to provide better care to the patients. It is required that the nursing staff themselves should take initiative in evaluating the health promotion activities; this will ensure the effectiveness of the program and would also help them to identify the gaps in the current practices of the staff. This would also ensure that the practices of the nursing staff are directed towards continuous improvement and enhanced learning which is a win-win both for the patient and the nurses. It is the duty of the nurse staff to advocate the spirit of good healthcare practices at the community level; they should take steps at the social and the political level to promote health of the population at large (Bailey & Stewart, 2017). Towards the end, what is required is to give assurance to the patients who are fighting for their lives, or suffering from any illness or have been in an accident, it is the responsibility and duty of the nurses to make them understand that the staff is efficient and is working towards their well-being. Few words of empathy and assurance will settle down with the patient and they would instantly trust the nurse and be more cooperative in their further treatment and diagnosis.
To conclude the essay, the experience I witnessed at the Hospital was one of its kinds and it certainly alarmed me of the tremendous scope of improvement required in the field of healthcare. It made me realize that there will be times when the nurses or the staff or the hospital will not be equipped to take good care of patients, but what will never change is the ability to help the people in need. Nurses and the healthcare staff has to work towards doing away with the uncertainty in the healthcare services, it is only then, the envelope of healthcare services will defined improve for the people. It would also ensure a relationship which is based on trust and respect. It becomes very essential to have a crisis management team at the healthcare facilities who is more adept to better assess the situation and work towards the well-being of the people.
References
Ahn, J.W., 2017. This study aimed to construct and test a hypothetical model including factors related to the cultural competence of nurses caring for foreign patients. The transcultural nursing immersion experience model and anxiety/uncertainty management theory were used to verify the paths between the variables. The exogenous variables were multicultural experience, ethnocentric attitude, and organizational cultural… Asian Nursing Research, 11(1), pp.65-73.
Alligood, M.R., 2017. Nursing Theorists and Their Work-E-Book. Elsevier Health Sciences.
Bailey Jr, D.E. and Stewart, J.L., 2017. Uncertainty in illness theory. Nursing Theorists and Their Work-E-Book, p.447.
Cypress, B.S., 2016. Understanding Uncertainty Among Critically Ill Patients in the Intensive Care Unit Using Mishel’s Theory of Uncertainty of Illness. Dimensions of Critical Care Nursing, 35(1), pp.42-49.
Hanson, J. and McAllister, M., 2017. ‘Hearing students into speech’: A critical exploration of nursing students’ experiences of adversity. Focus on Health Professional Education: A Multi-disciplinary Journal, 18(1), p.42.
Howatson-Jones, L., 2016. Reflective practice in nursing. Learning Matters.
Johansen, M.L. and O’brien, J.L., 2016, January. Decision making in nursing practice: a concept analysis. In Nursing forum (Vol. 51, No. 1, pp. 40-48).
Komatsu, H. and Yagasaki, K., 2014. The power of nursing: guiding patients through a journey of uncertainty. European Journal of Oncology Nursing, 18(4), pp.419-424.
Shaban, R., 2015. Theories of clinical judgment and decision-making: a review of the theoretical literature. Australasian Journal of Paramedicine, 3(1).
Smith, M.J. and Liehr, P.R. eds., 2018. Middle range theory for nursing. Springer Publishing Company.
Tanaka, M., Okamoto, R. and Koide, K., 2018. Relationship between Reflective Practice Skills and Volume of Writing in a Reflective Journal. Health, 10(03), p.283
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