Category Archives: Reflections: Year 1

Reflection on Domestic Violence

Posted on by
Reply

You must use this form to record five written reflective accounts on your CPD and/or practice-related feedback and/or an event or experience in your practice and how this relates to the Code. Please fill in a page for each of your reflective accounts, making sure you do not include any information that might identify a specific patient, service user, colleague or other individuals. Please refer to our guidance on preserving anonymity in the section on non-identifiable information in How to revalidate with the NMC.

Reflective account:
What was the nature of the CPD activity and/or practice-related feedback and/or event or experience in your practice?
This reflection relates to an event that took place during the Simulated placement. On that day we had a Forum theatre where we had three actors come perform for us based on the topic Domestic Violence. One of the actors performed as the wife, the other the husband and lastly the Student Nurse we also looked at how effectively we could communicate to patients to get information from them if they are being violated. After each performance feedbacks were given to the student on how he could have performed better by reading his environment properly, communicate both verbally and non-verbally and reading a patient’s body language.

 

 

 

 

 
What did you learn from the CPD activity and/or feedback and/or event or experience in your practice?
I learnt a lot of this play activity as it made me understand what to do in situations like this and a better approach.I also learnt about the kind of questions could be asked to patients to receive information from them about their abuse, for example what’s the situation at home? I’m here to help what’s really going on? Also try as much as possible to gain the patient’s trust before questions like this are scared because they tend to get scared easily especially if the abuser is around them.

 

 

 

 

 

 
How did you change or improve your practice as a result?
As a result of this experience, in the future when I come across this in placement I’ll be be to easily respond appropriately,especially with knowing the right things to do, ask and approach the situation with a bit of confidence.It has also help me gain an understanding of what particular questions should be asked and not make promises because situations like this need to be escalated to the right people that would take the next step in ensuring that the right thing are being done.

 

 

 

 

 

 
How is this relevant to the Code?

Select one or more themes: Prioritise people – Practise effectively – Preserve safety – Promote professionalism and trust

 
Priortise People

This situation is relevant to prioritising my patients by making sure that consent is being gained before asking questions and making sure that the patient is aware that the issue would be escalated to the right people. Treating the individual with compassion and respect because this is an emotional topic and should be handled with care.

Practising effectively

Also practising effectively by making sure that  appropriate  information are  written and documented in the patient’s words and not paraphrased, communicating appropriately with the patient to avoid misunderstanding.

 

 

 

 

 

Reflection on Dance Therapy

Posted on by
Reply

You must use this form to record five written reflective accounts on your CPD and/or practice-related feedback and/or an event or experience in your practice and how this relates to the Code. Please fill in a page for each of your reflective accounts, making sure you do not include any information that might identify a specific patient, service user, colleague or other individuals. Please refer to our guidance on preserving anonymity in the section on non-identifiable information in How to revalidate with the NMC.

Reflective account: 
What was the nature of the CPD activity and/or practice-related feedback and/or event or experience in your practice?
This week for our Virtual Placement was based on Creative Arts for Health and Art Therapies however my reflection would be based on Dance therapy which was held on the first day of class.The class was facilitated by a Dance Movement Physiotherapist and Clinical Supervisor,we looked at our understanding of non-verbal communication and how we communicate non-verbally, we also looked at the brief history of dance movement, and history of dance movement therapy in psychiatry.We looked at some elements of dance such as Mirroring(whereby we imitate a person dance move, Rhythm(follows a person pace when dancing),Shared leadership(whereby leadership could be pass onto another person to create a dance move) and then we were divided into breakout rooms to do some activities.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
What did you learn from the CPD activity and/or feedback and/or event or experience in your practice?
As a result of this class,I learnt about the three elements of dancing- mirroring, rhythm and shared leadership.It also made me look at dancing in a new way, because dance therapies helps patient in relaxing, and improve in their self esteem, communication and social interaction.I also learnt that it allows patient communicate with their mind using their body movement.

 

 

 

 

 

 
How did you change or improve your practice as a result?
It made me think about when my patient get stressed, an activity like dance therapy could ease my patient and made me see dancing in a new light-not just has something fun but also being able to relieve stressed also a way to address unprocessed trauma and tension that may be lingering in a people’s body, ensuring they are relaxed and grounded.Dance therapy would also enable patient meet with other people, especially those that have been in the hospital for a long time and this activity develop their communication between other patients and their social interaction.

 

 

 

 

 

 
How is this relevant to the Code?

Select one or more themes: Prioritise people – Practise effectively – Preserve safety – Promote professionalism and trust
Priotise people-Working in partnership with the dance therapy in order to deliver effective care to patients, such as having a dance class together with other patients to improve their mood and emotions, ensuring that adequate consent is gained from patient about any activity that would be ongoing.

Practise effectively Making use of understandable terms that colleagues, patients and family members would understand to avoid any issue in the future when patients might want to taken to a dance therapy session and also using different verbal and non-verbal communications skills with patients to deliver the best possible care needed to improve patients care.

 

 

 

 

Reflection on Blood Pressure

Posted on by
Reply

You must use this form to record five written reflective accounts on your CPD and/or practice-related feedback and/or an event or experience in your practice and how this relates to the Code. Please fill in a page for each of your reflective accounts, making sure you do not include any information that might identify a specific patient, service user, colleague or other individuals. Please refer to our guidance on preserving anonymity in the section on non-identifiable information in How to revalidate with the NMC.

Reflective account:19th of April 2023
What was the nature of the CPD activity and/or practice-related feedback and/or event or experience in your practice?
On that particular day,I was asked to look after a patient which was admitted due to self neglect and reduced mobility however had a pat medical history of T2DM,Diverticular disease etc,the patient was also demented and could act aggressively sometimes.At first when the patients Obs were done in the morning it was 106/75 however I didn’t escalate the situation to my nurse because sometimes I get told that that might be normal but on the lower side,but I decided to go re check his NEWS SCORE and found out that during the night shift his OBS were perfectly normal,then I decided to recheck his OBS again after an hour because I wasn’t too comfortable with the previous score, when I rechecked the blood pressure had gone down to 93/62 and I immediately decided to escalate these results to my nurse.The nurse immediately escalated the situation to the doctors and senior sister and nurse in charge ,however I was requested by my nurse to do a 15 minutes interval OBS,ensure that the patients was having water which could be of help until the medical doctor came up with what the next step was going to be.The doctors came back to us after some time to let us know that a new medication has been prescribed for the patient and we should start him on the the medication immediately. During the time for the afternoon OBS we decided to redo the OBS and we were excited to see that his OBS were back to normal.I learnt that if I am in a similar situation,I don’t hesitate to escalate this on time,and I feel like later on this experience would enable me monitor more closely to my patients health and avoid mistakes like this.

 

 

 
What did you learn from the CPD activity and/or feedback and/or event or experience in your practice?
I was so grateful that I immediately decided to escalate the situation to the nurse immediately the blood pressure went down lower

 

 

 

 
How did you change or improve your practice as a result?
Next time,i’d try to escalate any situation immediately when I see a deterioration in any patients health,so far that wasn’t what it use to look like beforehand

 

 

 

 

 

 
How is this relevant to the Code?

Select one or more themes: Prioritise people – Practise effectively – Preserve safety – Promote professionalism and trust
Priortise people

I paid attention to promoting my patients wellbeing by returning back to check on his previous observation documents.

I also escalated the situation the the nurse in charge of the ward who later escated to the Doctors and Senior nurse in charge

 

Practise effectively

I communicated clearly and effectively with my nurse,who then escalated to the Doctor

I shared useful information to reduce risk in the patients health

 

 

 

Reflection on Bed side Care

Posted on by
Reply

You must use this form to record five written reflective accounts on your CPD and/or practice-related feedback and/or an event or experience in your practice and how this relates to the Code. Please fill in a page for each of your reflective accounts, making sure you do not include any information that might identify a specific patient, service user, colleague or other individuals. Please refer to our guidance on preserving anonymity in the section on non-identifiable information in How to revalidate with the NMC.

Reflective account:19th of April
What was the nature of the CPD activity and/or practice-related feedback and/or event or experience in your practice?
After the handover from the night staff on that day, I decided to do the medication rounds with my nurse and also assist the health care assistant with some personal care of the patients. After the medication rounds were done, I picked one of my patients to wash-Firstly on getting to the patient I explained to him what I was going to be doing and asked him if he wanted to have a wash on the bed or in the shower, he chose to have a wash in the bed because he had a very bad pain in his left knee however because the hca was busy I decided to do the patient alone. I prepared the shower bowls, some shower gel, shampoo, two towels, some fresh sheets and blankets with a new gown, pad and knickers. I drawed up the curtain, then prepared a Luke warm water with the shower gel and some contiplan (dry wipes)before starting the wash and also when I had removed his old gown I used a towel to cover him from his chest to his leg,I also asked the patient if they would like to wash his face and he gladly accepted to and I allowed him to do that and then I dried him off with another towel, and then I took over his washing. However when I asked the patient to roll over to the side he wasn’t able to because of how much he was feeling on his left leg so it was little bit difficult for me to wash his back however I was able to manoveur this issue by waiting on the hca which luckily for me was already done with her patients, so she assisted the patient in rolling to the side while I cleaned the patients back, and bum.The patient had a catheter on however because he was incontinent I had to put on a new pad and knickers on him. During the course of the day I ensured I made sure to check on him and ask if he had opened his bowel and change him throughout the day.

 

 

 
What did you learn from the CPD activity and/or feedback and/or event or experience in your practice?
I was able to keep the patient dignity by drawing up the curtains, and also gaining consent and explaining things to the patients and also ensuring not to take away patients independency away from them by asking him if he wanted to wash his face or comfortable doing that.

 

 

 

 

 

 
How did you change or improve your practice as a result?
I would have tried to wait for the other health care assistant so she could assist in rolling the patients to the side due to the pain he had on one of the legs.

 

 

 

 

 

 
How is this relevant to the Code?

Select one or more themes: Prioritise people – Practise effectively – Preserve safety – Promote professionalism and trust
Preserve safety.

I was able to respect the patients dignity, treated him with compassion and kindness.

I was able to avoid assumptions and carried along the patients, and respected individual choices.

I also worked together with the health care assistant to deliver an effective care to the patient

 

 

Reflection on Autism

Posted on by
Reply

You must use this form to record five written reflective accounts on your CPD and/or practice-related feedback and/or an event or experience in your practice and how this relates to the Code. Please fill in a page for each of your reflective accounts, making sure you do not include any information that might identify a specific patient, service user, colleague or other individuals. Please refer to our guidance on preserving anonymity in the section on non-identifiable information in How to revalidate with the NMC.

Reflective account:
What was the nature of the CPD activity and/or practice-related feedback and/or event or experience in your practice?
On the first day we were being introduced to what autism is and the symptoms and best way to handle Autistic patient.We had a few of other speakers who came to share their experience about their knowledge of Autism ,some had worked with autistic patients, two had children diagnosed with Autism and lastly an Autistic man.It was a really nice experience to hear from everyone.

The next day, we had a role-play where we had a real autistic teenager come act and another lady who acted as her mum, then students from the group went ahead to access the different scenarios and at the end of each scenarios we had a debrief whereby feedbacks were shared on what was done well and could be improved in the future.

 

 

 

 

 
What did you learn from the CPD activity and/or feedback and/or event or experience in your practice?
From my experience with the Simulated practice,alot of questions were asked which also made me learn different new things.For example we looked at the difference between learning disability and Autism,someone diagnosed with LD has an IQ of 70 or below, they have significant challenges to learn new or complex words and they must be diagnosed before the age of 18,while for Autistic patients they have difficulty in social cues,high level of IQ however they have challenges socially interacting with others.One of the speakers also talked about some behaviours her son exhibit whenever he his unhappy such as pushing, hitting his face,pulling or thrown himself on the floor.She also spoke about the various styles of calming her son down when agitated-In the room, give him space to calm down,In the kitchen move him to a safe place and also activities like food, music,a car drive makes her son happy.There was also a finding about the pre valence of Autism in males and females, and it was said that Autism is more diagnosed In males compared to females because females learn to camouflage or mask their traits.

During the role play session I learnt about how communicating in simplified words could be helpful to Autistic patient in ensuring that they understand the information being dispersed to them, and also avoid over crowding them.We also talked about some words that shouldn’t be used when conversing with a patient words like I understand your pain,Calm down,I promise you or saying that a procedure would be painlesss.We also talked about how people with Autism or Learning disability likes things to be in a sequence and not scattered and also involving them with the present ongoing situation.We also spoke about getting information from carers or family members about them so that the adequate care could be delivered to patients.

 

 

 

 

 

 
How did you change or improve your practice as a result?
Ensuring that everything learnt from the Simulated Practice would be taken into Practice when dealing with autistic patients, such as, communicating appropriately with simplified words, being non-judgemental and also removing them from environments that could trigger them such as lightning, or a noisy environment.

 

 

 

 

 

 
How is this relevant to the Code?

Select one or more themes: Prioritise people – Practise effectively – Preserve safety – Promote professionalism and trust
Preserve Safety

Ensuring that I’m being open to my patients in all aspect of their care and treatment, ensuring that I’m not being judgemental to my patients and respecting their opinion, also in any case of risk action should be taken instantly without any delay and also escalating to the head nurse.Also ensuring that I work within my competence.

Promote professionalism and trust

Ensuring that I keep a good raport with my patients, making sure they are comfortable around me and trust me.Treating my patients fairly just like I would take care of the other service user.