Reflective Practice free essay sample

Reflective Practice Professional Reflective Practice is part of the Continuing Professional Development for teachers; these regulations are what the government introduced in 2007, for teachers and people teaching In the FE and In the skills sector. (2007 Regulations p. l IFL), it sets out to move forward the standards and requirement qualifications for teachers working within the FE sector and skills sector in education. Reflective practice plays a big part of Continuing Professional Development (CPD), although it as been around for quite some time, it was only up until 2007, that teachers have had their own choice, whether to Implement It or not wlthln their teaching. Since the new regulations of 2007, it is now mandatory that every teacher / part-time teacher working within FE and the skills sector uses this practice (CPD) and produces a minimum set of hours every year proving this practice. The essential point-the inner intent-that seems so seldom grasped even by teachers eager to embrace the current reforms is that in order to learn the sorts of things nvisioned by reformers, students must think. We will write a custom essay sample on Reflective Practice or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page In fact, such learning Is almost exclusively a product or by-product of thinking. (Thomson Zeull, 1999) Reflection there are many ways in our everyday lives on how we reflect. whether that be a, conversation we had with someone close to us, or just sorting out a problem at work. Within the Continuing Professional Development for teachers there are many different, authors, deflnltlons and theorist who have looked at the deflnltlon and the term Reflection and Its association within the professional learning evelopment of education and its practice within (HE) and (FE) education. Reflection is a form of mental processing like a form of thinking that we use to fulfil a purpose or to achieve some anticipated outcome. It is applied to relatively complicated or unstructured Ideas for which there is not an obvious solution and Is largely based on the further processing of knowledge and understanding and possibly emotions that we already possess (based on Moon 1999): Common sense reflecting. Moon explains that It Is an everyday occurrence. s we go through life in general, day-to-day we generally reflect on our feelings and our emotions. Working as a teacher gives us many ways to reflect, the way we structure our lessons for students, the resources that we use, the tasks what we set out for the students, whether they have been effective or not. Dealing with a disruptive lesson or student, on reflection we can look back and see were did things go wrong, we could question whether we could have done things differently. Common sense reflecting is uite vague in its sense, it lacks a deeper understanding of reflection, and how we can change things for the future. Reflective Practice free essay sample Reflective practice in nursing is considered an important aspect to nursing. Durgahee ( 1997) defines reflective practice as a process of learning and teaching professional maturity through the critical analysis of experience, whilst John ( 2009) up to date explanation of reflection is learning through our everyday experience towards realising one vision of desirable practice as a lived reality. Portfolio entry one Practice placement reflection Whilst there are many notion for reflection the main goal is for health professionals to learn, grow and develop through practice.There are a number of models of reflection to help engage in the process of reflection. In this entry I would be using the Driscoll framework of reflection (1984) to reflect on an experience I had on placement. The patient that I am basing my reflective experience is a woman in her 40s who is suffering from personality disorder. The Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (DSM-IV ) 1994 defines a personality disorder as an enduring pattern of inner experience and behaviour th at deviates markedly from the expectations of the individual’s culture, is pervasive and inflexible. We will write a custom essay sample on Reflective Practice or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page People with personality disorders usually make it difficult to form friends and may feel alienated and alone (Gormon 2007). What Upon entering the patients house she maintained eye contact, her speech was coherent she maintained rapport although tearful at times. There was no evidence of threatening behaviour towards the team On the 14/1/10 I attended the patient home address with the doctor and a community practice nurse (CPN), the patient was distressed as she was upset with the number of people who was entering her house and the fact that we turned up late.Upon entering the CPN spoke to the patient about her low mood . She complained about the team not informing her that a doctor and student nurse would be attending the visit. As she said she could have made her home more presentable . Ignoring what the patient said the CPN asked the patient about her medication and what she does in her spare time. The patient wanted to talk to the CPN a bit more about her mood and the medication that she was taking however within 10mins of sitting down with the patient the CPN decided that we should go even though th e patient wanted to talk more. I felt that we should have listened more to what the patient has to say and I felt that the visit was rushed because it was around lunch time , however I did not say anything to the CPN I attended the visit with. I waited until I got to the office until I mentioned anything to the CPN. Back at the office the CPN and I were informed that the patient had called to complain about us arriving late and leaving very quickly. When we were informed that the patient called the doctor and CPN that I attended the patient with just brushed it of.I probed the team about this patient and I was told by another team member that that her home is always untidy and that she constantly calls the office just to talk to somebody. I was also told by the rest of the team in handover that this patient is very dependent on the team and anytime they try to refer her to the community mental health team she would drink alcohol to stop being discharged. So What At the time that this experience occurred I felt he lpless as I was inexperienced and did not know the patient as long as the other CPNs and support workers. I felt that the staffs were unprofessional by not making the patients needs their first concern. I felt frustrated and upset but did not show this to the team. I began to feel sorry for the patient not realising I was becoming emotionally involved. I was angry that we did not spend more time listening to the client needs as our aim is to help people recover from a mental illness, live a daily life by supporting them before they are referred to the community mental health team (CMHT). The feelings of anger, frustration and sympathy for the patient was not felt by the other team members .Upon reflection it appears that I got emotionally involved with the patient. Having sympathy for the patient can interfere with the care givers ability to accurately perceive the patients experience or offer assistance (Forsyth 1980). In reflection on this experience me becoming involved with the patient did interfere with my ability to offer assistance to the patient and work as a team member. I realised that support can be given to patients without me becoming involved and not feeling negative about my team members that I am working with.Morse et al (1991) states that the process of detachment may be a crucial process that allows nurses to overcome the stress caused by a patients suffering. My feelings of these events are completely different at this moment in time. I have visited more patients and have experienced the different approaches that CPNs use with patients I have insight on how not to get involved with a particular patient as it can hinder recovery by not allowing them to have some insight into their mental illness and it can cloud my judgment.However now that my feelings have changed I do think if what the CPNs have said to me about the patients have influenced the way I feel as well as having more experience with different patients. I have noticed that I am not to quick to be critical about my colleagues behaviour, especially if I have not read the notes about a patient before I visit them. The CPN I attended the patients house with felt that I was polite but with more experience I would learn how to approach a situation. Now WhatIf I chose not to question what I thought was bad nursing practice I would not have learnt that I was becoming emotionally involved with the care of the patient. I would not have realised that I making judgements about my colleagues that are more experienced than me. If I was put in this position again I would reflect on my past actions and experience, I would read the patients notes before attending appointments made with them the visit speaking to mentor to see where I can improve and writing down my actions after visiting patients and observing my behaviour and attitude over a period of time.Writing is a means where one can facilitate reflective practice (Heath,1998). Entry three This entry of the portfolio is going to reflect on another field of nursing and how the skills of the health professionals in that field of nursing are used for caring for patients. Paediatric nursing involves working with sick and vulnerable patients from birth through to adolescent they are specialised in caring for children. Paediatric nursing entails skills that are similar to that of other branches of nursing such as communication skills and listening skills however some of the skills that paediatric nursing entails are also complex.Caring for young patients may seem simple; however paediatric nurses have to learn and understand about major developmental milestones, from infants to adolescents, Changes with each age group will vary Some children may not be able to articulate what pain they feel, or how they feel about being sick or away from the peers and siblings or what they want. It is important that paediatric nurses are able to reassure their patient and be sensitive to the needs of the patient and their family.Whether a child is in hospital or at home a nurse needs to be able to interpret behaviour and a child’s reaction sensibly especially if a child health deteriorates rapidly. Patience is an essential skill as children and adolescence just like adults can become aggressive and start sh outing verbal abuse towards a nurse or other health professionals involved in their care. Pejic (2005) study found that nurses were frequent victims of verbal abuse from patients and their parents. Parents can become demanding and communication can become fractured. When working with patients one has to be confident in the way they handle patients.Children can become distressed about their illness or about being in a new environment however when caring for children it is not just the child that a nurse has to be confident with, the anxieties and worries of the child illness will affect the parents and a nurse has to be able to reassure them. Good communication skills is essential in all branches of nursing however a nurse has to liaison between the parents, doctors , and other health professionals as well as informing the child in a sensitive manner about their illness or what is going to be done.Espezel and Canam (2003) study on nurse parent interaction showed that communication is an essential for a successful nurse parent interaction. Clear and consistent information is crucial and is what parents wants in regards to diagnosis, treatments and their questions being answered as found in Clarke and Fletcher ( 2003) study . Nurses have to i ntuitive in recognising any signs of abuse whether the abuse is physical, emotional, sexual or neglect, paediatric nurses also have to be up to date in areas of protecting children who come in their contact is .As educating themselves on child protection , nurse may have to educate parents on the treatment that a child may need to continue at home this can range from giving the change medication to giving a type 1 diabetes child insulin injections, regular blood glucose monitoring, a sugar restricted healthy diet and exercise. The death of a patient is an emotional event for most people ,especially when a child is terminally ill, paediatric nurses play an important role by providing emotional support to the family id a patient had died or in the process of preparing for the eventual death.Whilst the family are in the process of grieving nurses to can become affected by the death of a patient Costello and Trinder-Brook ( 2000) put forward that death can have a major emotional impact on a nurse indicating that support should be in place when a nurse goes through stressful event that is part of their practice. The British National Formulary for children provides information for health professionals on how to calculate drugs based on a child’s weight paediatric nurses need to understand how children can respond to drugs that they are given as they respond differently to drugs that are given to adults.