Assignment Task
Reflective practice topic
Using an example from your previous clinical placement experience, reflect on your demonstrated ability to recognise and respond to a patients’ clinical deterioration.
Gibbs Model for reflective writing must be adopted to guide your reflection. Your reflection must include a minimum of three references demonstrating your application of the evidence-base to your learning experience.
Star Framework to address selection criteria:
Selection criteria represent the skills and abilities, knowledge, experience, qualifications and work-related qualities a person needs to perform a role effectively. They set out the standards by which each candidate will be assessed. Using your reflective practice example.
Opening Claim
Demonstrate that you understand the selection criteria question.
Situation
The context (e.g., your position and responsibilities).
Task
The challenge/ opportunity which prompted action. What needed to be done?
Action
Elaborate the specific actions you undertook to complete your task. How you planned the action, what steps you took, what human or other resources involved, how you co-ordinated those resources, how you monitored and evaluated the process you put in place. What systems/tools did you use?
Description
What happened? Describe the event in detail, including who was there; what were you doing; what happened; in what context did it happen; what part did everyone involved play in the event. During my last practicum, an older lady was unresponsive when I had tried to wake her after handover. I informed my buddy RN and checked her vital signs, where her oxygen saturation levels were low. She eventually awoke, mumbling a few words. We administered oxygen therapy and sat her upright.
Feelings
Describe own feelings, thoughts and perceptions. Think about how the event made you feel; how do you think the others involved felt; how were you feeling prior to the event; how do you feel about the outcome. Prior to the event, I felt calm and assumed the patient was in a deep sleep. When I came back to wake her, I felt anxious when she was unresponsive to voice and touch. I felt less anxious when she opened her eyes,however I still felt concerned.
Evaluation
Evaluate the situation. What was good or went well; what was bad or what didn’t go well. I feel that my response to the patient’s deterioration was appropriate. I followed the ‘ABCs’ assessment by checking her airways, breathing and circulation, all of which were of no concern. However, her responsiveness was of major concern as she didn’t respond to voice, touch or pain (Tollefson & Hillman, 2018). I quickly checked her vital signs, where her oxygen saturation levels were below standard despite her Modified Early Warning Score (MEWS) and checked the handover sheet t make sure she was Not for Resuscitation (NFR). Following the first and fourth ICN Code of Ethics (2012), I then explained the situation to my buddy RN, who was able to help me sit the patient up, saw that she was able to open her eyes and speak, and administer oxygen. I felt that I should have woken up the patient as handover was being given, that way we would have recognised the problem much sooner and could have responded quicker, which does not follow Standard 3.1 of the Registered Nurse Standards for Practice (Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia [NMBA], 2016).