Health Care
Assignment – Clinical Practice Paper
Purpose: Provide the student with the opportunity to prepare a paper based on reflection of a challenging clinical experience.
Introduction. Describe a memorable clinical practice experience (not an ethical dilemma) that challenged your professional beliefs and is related to the Nursing Code of Ethics and/or the National Patient Safety Goals (Links to an external site.)– Name the ethical provision or the national goal. For this section, you may write in the first person. 25 points
Search the literature for three professional nursing articles (not from medical journals and not a blog or letter) from refereed journals related to clinical articles or research studies dealing with your clinical issue. For each article, describe in a paragraph the ways that nurses dealt with the issue you are writing about in this paper. 30 points
Synthesize your personal experience with the new knowledge found in the literature. Compare and contrast the conclusions from the 3 studies in one paragraph with your clinical experience and include solutions to the clinical problem that could be utilized at your place of employment. The quality of the content analysis and synthesis will be reflected in points earned. 30 points
Conclusion – Discuss how the review of the problem within the context of existing literature has or will change your clinical practice. 15 points
Instructions:
Paper should be written according to the APA Style Manual (7th Edition) with attention to formatting, grammar, spelling, flow and citations/ referencing. The paper length should be five pages excluding title and reference pages. No abstract required. Use no quotes. Paraphrasing is expected. Check a sample paper in the Canvas module to see how another student completed this assignment.
ANSWER
Clinical Practice Experience
Introduction
One of the memorable experiences that I had in my workplace is a professional burnout that affected my ability to deliver effective patients services. The hospital had experienced a shortage of nurses, and the remaining workforce had to handle extra duties. I was one of the nurses who bore a significant burden since I was required to manage two units that had several patients. I had a rough time attending to all patients to ensure they had effective progress and recovery. As the days progressed, I developed high-stress levels at work. I would sit down and reflect on the tasks ahead of me and the burden associated with them. I reached a point that I hated my job, and every time I woke up in the morning, I wished I was never a nurse. However, I reminded myself that I had made an oath and commitment to protect and save lives. Back in the hospital, patients kept surging daily, and I would have physical and mental fatigue at the end of the day. At times, I made errors when filling the patient’s progress card, which made me realize that I was significantly affected. This would, at times, affect medication procedures and exposed some of the patients to safety concerns. In my nursing practice, this was one of the most challenging experiences that I have encountered. I believe that professional burnout is an issue that affects the majority of nurses. This experience correlates with the need for the improvement of medication administration. Nurses must always improve the safety of medication administration for the patients. As Bravo, Cochran and Barrett (2016) states, nurses must reduce errors associated with medications to enhance patient progress and recovery.
Articles addressing the Issue of Professional Burnout
Nurses experience burnouts that could affect their ability to deliver effective services to patients. These professionals should be exposed to different tactics that support reducing mental and physical fatigue associated with their tasks. De Oliveira et al. (2019) shows that nurses engaged in web-based stress management programs, yoga, compassionate fatigue combat programs, meditation, and cognitive coping strategies to deal with fatigue. Yoga is a form of physical activities that accelerates mental status for higher performance. Notably, cognitive coping strategies such as journaling and brainstorming solutions will fellow professionals can also assist nurses in overcoming burnouts. Other recommended ways of handling professional burnouts include meditation and reliance on programs targeting fatigue elimination and mental status improvement. These strategies are better suited to offer nurses much-needed relief that opens opportunities for boosting their productivity. They achieve an optimal physical, mental, and psychological status that permits them to handle patients appropriately. Thus, nurses can integrate any of these strategies to limit the effects associated with burnouts in the workplace. They can increasingly become prone to health care issues such as anxiety and depression, which interferes with their overall service delivery.
Burnout is a worldwide issue targeting nurses and has a wide implication on patients and other health care professionals. A study by Jones (2020) shows that nurses should be exposed to a pre-shift 15-minute program to enable them to relax their body and kind. The program is based on mindfulness which is deemed an effective way of decreasing burnout through enhanced resilience. Nurses often handle numerous tasks that could expose them to potential mental, physical, and psychological harm. To ensure that nurses manage their duties appropriately for greater patient outcome, employers can develop a fifteen-minute program meant for relaxation. The paid pre-shift fifteen-minute program is meant to offer them a sense of relief amidst their busy schedules. This calls onto employers in the health care industry to establish appropriate support systems that nurses can rely on to accelerate their resilience amidst busy and hectic schedules. Nurses are advised to invest in the offered break to ensure that they build a positive mind, especially towards their duties. The break improves mindfulness and resilience, enabling these professionals to deliver excellent results. Thus, a fifteen-minute break is a crucial recommendation for dealing with nursing burnout for advanced patient outcomes.
Couser, Chesak and Cutshall (2020) studied burnouts in the nursing profession and found out that eating healthy, engaging in physical activities, sleeping well, and stress reduction tactics are vital approaches that these professionals integrate to reduce burnouts. These strategies allow nurses to boost their physical and psychological status when handling patients. They adopt suitable meal planning habits to ensure that they eat well and healthy. Notably, they also ensure that they have enough sleep to give their body and mind ample time to rest. They create a soothing sleep environment, rely on sleep apps for sleep data collection purposes, and setting aside specific hours for sleep. After leaving work tired, they ensure that they sleep early in a quiet and conducive environment. Also, nurses set time for physical activities such as exercising and walking. These are appropriate ways of boosting their mental status. Lastly, they incorporate stress reduction strategies such as minimal interruptions, taking breaks, asking for help when necessary, and maintaining a positive attitude. These are essential recommendations that nursing professionals can incorporate at work and home to limit exposure to outcomes associated with high-levels of burnouts.
Synthesis of Personal Experience with the Knowledge Found in the Literature
Nurses experience high levels of burnout in the workplace. This exist as an integral issue due to its potential to interfere with successful service delivery. If nurses are increasingly prone to burnouts, they are less likely to achieve optimal outcomes. The three readings agree that this is a key challenge that affects nurses globally and calls for strategic actions to protect them, patients, and fellow professionals. They support the development and implementation of suitable methods that allow nurses to achieve positive physical and psychological status. This enables them to handle patients effectively irrespective of the massive tasks that they are expected to run in the busy hospital setting. However, they disagree in line with the strategies nurses and employers should provide to create a conducive working environment. de Oliveira et al. (2019) believe that nurses have a pivotal role in handling their burnouts and that they should engage in yoga, meditation, stress, and fatigue combat programs. Thus, they should incorporate these tactics to reduce burnouts. This reading recommends that nurses take the initiative to boost their well-being when operating in a hectic environment. Jones (2020) believes that employees should develop programs that help in reducing burnouts. For instance, paid pre-shift fifteen-minute programs can assist nurses in developing resilience in the workplace. This show a high level of commitment to accelerating health care results by creating a conducive working environment for these professionals. Lastly, Couser, Chesak and Cutshall (2020) argue that nurses should take the initiative to reduce burnouts where they can incorporate physical activities, sleep well, eat healthily, and incorporate stress-reduction mechanisms to improve their resilience. The literature supports some of the tactics that I included in my nursing practice. I was handling a large number of patients due to a shortage of professionals in the hospital. This exposed me to burnout which primarily affected the way I handled my patients. However, I always ensure that I exercised by walking and visiting the gym at times. I also changed my diet and incorporated a meal plan that helped me to eat healthily. I ventured into online programs targeting stress reduction. These programs exposed me to essential insights that permit individuals to lower their exposure to stress. If exposed to workplace burnout, I will consider all these possibilities to limit further damage attributed to physical and mental breakdown emerging from excessive tasks and responsibilities.
Conclusion
Professional burnout remains a crucial issue for nurses. The literature assessment has revealed that nursing professionals are increasingly prone to burnouts in the workplace. The insights learned from the literature will open opportunities that nurses can invest in to develop higher resilience. Personally, this literature has provided me with the opportunity to invest in more strategies that can enable me to develop my clinical practice further. For example, I will focus on compassionate fatigue combat programs, meditation, and taking breaks to relax and strategize on the next move. I have always imagined that a nurse should never take breaks during working time, which affects their service delivery. However, through the literature, I have learned that breaks are appropriate as they provide a viable chance of relaxing to avoid breaking down due to workloads. Overall, nursing professionals and employers should develop suitable strategies for handling burnouts to accelerate health care outcomes.
References
Bravo, K., Cochran, G., & Barrett, R. (2016). Nursing strategies to increase medication safety in inpatient settings. Journal of nursing care quality, 31(4), 335-341.
Couser, G., Chesak, S., & Cutshall, S. (2020). Developing a Course to Promote Self-Care for Nurses to Address Burnout. OJIN: The Online Journal of Issues in Nursing, 25(3).
de Oliveira, S. M., de Alcantara Sousa, L. V., Gadelha, M. D. S. V., & do Nascimento, V. B. (2019). Prevention actions of burnout syndrome in nurses: An integrating literature review. Clinical practice and epidemiology in mental health: CP & EMH, 15, 64.
Jones, B. (2020). Fifteen minutes may decrease nursing burnout: A discussion paper. International journal of nursing sciences, 7(1), 121-123. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijnss.2019.11.004
