NRS-493 Professional Capstone and Practicum Reflective Journal – Topic 4

Students are required to submit weekly journal entries throughout the course. These reflective narratives help students identify important learning events that happen throughout the course and the practicum. In each week’s entry, students should reflect on the personal knowledge and skills gained.

Write a reflection journal (250-300 words) to outline what has been discovered about your professional practice, personal strengths and weaknesses, and additional resources that could be introduced in a given situation to influence optimal outcomes. Each week there will be a specific focus to use in your reflection. Integrate leadership and inquiry into the current practice. Please make sure to address all areas in your writing.

Topic Focus: Ethical Considerations in Health Care

While APA style is not required for the body of this assignment, solid academic writing is expected.

This assignment uses a rubric. Please review the rubric prior to beginning the assignment to become familiar with the expectations for successful completion.

You are required to submit this assignment to LopesWrite. A link to the LopesWrite technical support articles is located in Class Resources if you need assistance.

Reflective Journal: Ethical Considerations in Health Care

In the fourth week, the focus of the practicum practice was on ethical considerations in health care. The health care delivery system is highly characterized by widespread clinical decision-making and judgment. Nonetheless, clinical decision-making and judgment are often marred by controversies. Therefore, it is necessary to have ethical standards to guide health care delivery and clinical judgment, and decision-making. The predominant ethical principles in the health care system include autonomy, justice, beneficence, and non-maleficence. These principles are crucial in dealing with ethical dilemmas that are widespread in nursing practice and also enable nurses to provide patient-centered care (Haahr et al., 2020). This practicum exposed the reality that the current health care provision is characterized by myriad ethical challenges. One of the outstanding ethical challenges is patient privacy and confidentiality. Clinicians are obligated to ensure patent privacy and confidentiality and contravening them is associated with serious legal and ethical implications. Also, orders such as do-not-resuscitate characterize ethical implications since nurses are ordered to stop cardiopulmonary resuscitation immediately after the heart of a patient ceases beating (Curtis et al., 2020). Other ethical challenges include physician-assisted suicide, access to care, professional negligence, and malpractice incidences.

Ethical considerations are also critical considerations in health care research.  Health care researchers have a responsibility to take into consideration ethical needs when conducting research. The common ethical considerations in nursing research include ensuring the safety of patients, obtaining informed consent from the participants, ensuring voluntary participation in the study, and upholding privacy and confidentiality (Zolkefli, 2021). Taken together, clinical judgment and decision-making require ethical considerations. Therefore, nurses and other clinicians should always strive to adhere to ethical needs. Ethical practice is necessary for guiding clinical practice and in the efforts to transform the health care delivery system.

References

Curtis, J. R., Kross, E. K., & Stapleton, R. D. (2020). The importance of addressing advance care planning and decisions about do-not-resuscitate orders during novel coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19). Jama, 323(18), 1771-1772. doi:10.1001/jama.2020.4894

Haahr, A., Norlyk, A., Martinsen, B., & Dreyer, P. (2020). Nurses’ experiences of ethical dilemmas: A review. Nursing Ethics, 27(1), 258-272. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0969733019832941

Zolkefli, Y. (2021). Ethical Considerations in Nursing Research. International Journal of Care Scholars, 4(Supplementary 1), 101-102. https://doi.org/10.31436/ijcs.v4iSupplementary%201.198

As a student in Master of Science in nursing program, I have learned that there is always room for growth and development in my professional practice. Through the studies, I have gained knowledge on the new practice approaches that could positively impact patient treatment outcomes. The above approaches involves incorporating leadership and inquiry into my current practice, application of evidence-based practices, as well as seeking out further resources (Moore et al., 2020).

Regarding my personal attributes, I think that my capacity for multidisciplinary teamwork and my effective communication abilities have served me well in my work. I am aware, though, that I can still do better when it comes to problem-solving and critical thinking. I want to look for chances for continuous education and engage in reflective practices that push me to think creatively in order to overcome this deficit (Slightam et al., 2020).

Promoting the best patient outcomes requires integrating leadership and investigation into my work (Stadick, 2020). I can promote change and progress as a nurse leader by searching out evidence-based practices and actively learning new things. I can influence favorable outcomes for my patients and the healthcare system as a whole by putting these principles to use and incorporating the findings into my everyday work.

In conclusion, my journey as a Master of Science in nursing student has taught me the importance of seeking out new and innovative approaches to improve my professional practice. I recognize that there is always room for growth and improvement, and I am committed to utilizing my strengths and seeking out additional resources to drive optimal patient outcomes. Through leadership and inquiry, I am confident that I can make a positive impact in my practice and the lives of my patients.

References

Moore, S., Roche, J., Bell, L., & Neenan, E. E. (2020). Supporting facilitators of maker activities through reflective practice. Journal of Museum Education, 45(1), 99-107. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10598650.2019.1710688

Slightam, C., Gregory, A. J., Hu, J., Jacobs, J., Gurmessa, T., Kimerling, R., … & Zulman, D. M. (2020). Patient perceptions of video visits using veterans affairs telehealth tablets: survey study. Journal of medical Internet research, 22(4), e15682. https://www.jmir.org/2020/4/e15682/

Stadick, J. L. (2020). Understanding health care professionals’ attitudes towards working in teams and interprofessional collaborative competencies: A mixed methods analysis. Journal of Interprofessional Education & Practice, 21, 100370. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2405452620300501