REFLECTIVE CYCLE

Reflective cycle

Reflective cycle

Introduction

The purpose of this study is to expand the boundaries of the author's knowledge by exploring some relevant facts related to an episode of care. In this paper, I will select an episode of care - a situation or event - for an individual in which I have been involved in during practice placement and use a recognized model of reflection as a structure to describe that episode of care. Furthermore, within the reflection, I will include an examination of my own values and beliefs relating to the individual receiving care, and/or their families/carers. Finally, within the reflection, I will use theory related to values and beliefs to explore how these values and beliefs underpin my practice. In this assignment, I will reflect an incident happened during my clinical placement to develop my communication skills not just theoretically but in practical facing real life environment. There are a lot of factors that may influence nursing practice. In this essay, I will discuss the importance of communication in developing nurse-patient relationship.

Discussion & Analysis

Communication in nursing can be defined as a sharing of health-related information between a patient and a nurse, with both participants as sources and receivers. The aim of this essay is to reflect what had happen during my placement and this gives me opportunity to improve my nursing care plan, which is based on the patient's initial valuation. David Kolb, 1984 said in his book called " Experiental Learning: Experience as a Source of Learning and Development, (Kolb, 1984)'' that reflection is a way in which we examine our experiences and draw lessons from them. QIA Key Skills Support Programme(2007) added that reflection can help to bridge the gap between theory and practice and enable us to look critically at our own behaviour, the behaviour of other people and at the organizational and social context within which we operate (Richard, 2003). In my context with my event, it is important for me to improve my nurse-patient relationship in terms of communication.

In this reflection essay, I am going to use Gibbs (1988) model of reflection. This model is a recognized framework that will help me to reflect what was going on during my 16 days of clinical placement in one of major government hospital. Gibbs model of reflection consist of six stages where the stages link with each other making a continuous cycle to facilitate critical thought, relating theory to practice where this model allow me to see my weaknesses and improvements during my clinical placement (Peplau, 1998).

Gibbs' model of reflection encourages you to think systematically about the phases of an experience or activity, and you should use all the headings to structure your reflection. This model of reflection also a good brainstorming of experiences that will end up with solutions to be made and things to be fix and for us to be aware in the future. Jasper (2003) explains in her book called “Beginning Reflective Practice - Foundations in Nursing and Health Care" that ...