Nursing Portfolio

Nursing Portfolio

Critical Thinking

Critical Thinking Skills

Critical thinking skills refers to the capacity to: see and apply relations between ideas, understand the significance of ideas and arguments, know, expand and evaluate ideas, understand the pitfalls in the plans being proffered or implemented, and to identify and use the most appropriate design in the most systematic and consistent approach to solve a particular problem (Ward-Smith, 2020).

The value of Critical Thinking Skills to the Workplace and Student Career

As has been shown in the answer above, critical thinking skills help workers or students to understand or diagnose the magnitude of a problem and to determine the most effective and appropriate idea to use to administer the most accurate form of intervention (Eltz, 2019). A nurse attending to a deep open wound that has lasted more than 12 hours will have to determine the best response to the situation, even though the patient may be requesting for surgical stitching.

How Critical Thinking Skills are Demonstrated

Several ways of demonstrating critical thinking skills exist. Some of these ways include problem-solving, applying the most appropriate intervention for a specific complication or problem, and seeking the ultimate good for an ethical dilemma. For instance, the latter point refers to a situation whereby a patient’s family requests for euthanasia on their loved one who has become non-compos mentis and is living on life support. The same applies to what may be done to his organs immediately after the administering of euthanasia.

Consequences of Lacking Critical Thinking Skills

Overall, the lack of critical thinking skills paves the way for inchoate decisions, misapplication of the right intervention on a problem, and the application of the wrong solution to a specific problem.

Further Development of Critical Thinking Skills

Some people may think that the best way to develop critical thinking skills also is by sustained or continued study. However, the best way to further develop critical thinking skills is to complement reading with active engagement in problem situations that demand the creative application of critical thinking skills. Nursing is an apt example of this situation since every patients’ needs are unique.

References

Eltz, B. J. (2019). Using FEMA’s STAPLES process to drive OSH critical thinking. Professional Safety, 64(5), 24-25.

Ward-Smith, P. (2020). The nurse is a critical thinking expert. Urologic Nursing, 40(1), 5-49.

Team Collaboration and Diversity

The term transferable skills refer to skills that an individual possesses but are needed by other employees or stakeholders in diverse sectors, industries, or jobs. Transferable skills are valuable to the workplace, career, or in learning because they make employees or people versatile. Because of these skills, people can take different roles when needed. Transferable skills are demonstrated when an employee can teach his team new skills, and the team becomes successful in applying the newly learned skills. If transferable skill is lacking, career development becomes static, and workplace performance does not progress (Sgobbi & Suleman, 2015).

Equally, an individual’s career becomes stunted by the inability to acquire new skills. Likewise, promotion for the individual becomes futile since he is unable to transfer onto new employees. To further develop transferable skills, a student can engage in teamwork, interpersonal communication, and writing. The student can also study and apply critical and creative thinking skills in problem-solving.

Reference

Sgobbi, F. & Suleman, F. (2015). The value of transferable skills. Scottish Journal of Political Economy, 62(4), 378-99

Informatics

Informatics refers to a form of information engineering that entails processing information and engineering information systems. Information literacy is vital in a career because it facilitates the acquisition, storage, sharing, and appropriation of new ideas. This transferable skill is demonstrated through interaction, sharing, storage, and interaction with data in information systems. Information illiteracy leads to misapplication of corrective measures or the application of wrong interventions because of the inability to accurately interact with information in the information systems (Jetté et al. 2010). To further develop this skill, students can enhance their knowledge in IT and interact with IT systems as frequently as possible.

Reference

Jetté, S., Tribble, D. S. C., Gagnon, J., & Mathieu, L. (2010). Nursing students’ perceptions of their resources toward the development of competencies in nursing informatics. Nurse education today, 30(8), 742-746.

Digital Fluency

Digital fluency refers to the capacity to ethically and effectively interpret information, construct knowledge, disseminate ideas, and acquire meaning in a sphere that is digitally connected. Digital fluency is of immense value at the workplace because it allows employees to read and interpret information while knowing how to appropriate such kind of information ethically. A digitally fluent worker will not leak a patient’s healthcare information after using it, for instance. The consequences of a lack of digital fluency at the workplace may include an undue exposure of information to the third party, inchoate policies, and even legal suits (Colbert, Yee & George, 2016). Digital fluency is demonstrated through the use of digital information to tackle new challenges, the use of social skills to deal with new challenges, and the solving of complex problems. To further develop this transferable skill, a student can use different management apps, incorporate devices into pedagogical and practical learning, and learning to use digital tools in all areas of practice.

Reference

Colbert, A., Yee, N. & George, G. (2016). The digital workforce and the workplace of the future. Academy of Management Journal, 59(3), 731-739. DOI: 10.5465/amj.2016.4003.

Communication

Communication is the act or art of sharing ideas or information between two or more people. Communication is of indispensable value in the workplace because all organizational processes are expressed in the data and are executed through communication. Communication skills are demonstrated through teamwork and interpersonal communication (Brown et al., 2015). Undeveloped communication skills lead to untenable and unpopular policies, sectarianism, and division in the workplace, as well as performance gaps. To further develop communication techniques, a person can sharpen active listening skills, learn to simplify communication, prioritize communication, and proper communication habits such as maintaining eye contact.

Reference

Brown, S. et al. (2015). Employee trust and workplace performance. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 116, 361-78

Personal Mission Statement

My mission is to apply my critical thinking skills in every nursing experience to make all my interactions with patients and all the stakeholders patient-centered. This mission statement is to guide me in my nursing career by ensuring that I integrate the principles of healthcare and evidence-based practice with aspects of critical and creative thinking. The realization of the need for this integration is underpinned by the fact that nursing and caregiving are not merely about following the principles of evidence-based practice, but the creative and critical application of logical skills to improve healthcare services provision, and to improve the health and mental status of the patient (Makhene, 2019).

The same realization is to thoroughly guide and impact my nursing practice in the future by making my efforts patience-based. Patients usually come with unique situations that may touch on medical ethics, the law, and aesthetics. For instance, intervening on an underage patient who has walked into a hospital with a left testis, which has started becoming gangrenous because of testicular torsion, certainly requires the application of critical and creative thinking. The need to apply critical and creative thinking will be seen in (a) obtaining consent; (b) determining the right medical procedure to remedy the situation; (c) convince all the stakeholders of the inevitability of the process (in this case, the excision of the gangrenous testis through radical surgery); and (d) ensuring that the scrotum maintains a well-balanced shape, even after the extraction of the affected testis. All these aspects intensively borrow from critical and creative thinking. Their applications lead to patient-based practice.

Reference

Makhene, Agnes. (2019).The use of Socratic inquiry to facilitate critical thinking in nursing education. Health SA Gesondheid, 24, 1-6.