Reflective Journal

Today I will be talking about the Importance of Reflective practice in Nursing Scholarship. Reflective practice is an essential skill in health professionalism. Reflective practice refers to the process of thoughtfully considering your experiences. Reflective practise allows you to consider what your strengths and weaknesses are, to identify what you need to work on, in order to perform to the best of your capability. In order to find better ways to function in the workplace properly I need to ‘refresh and update my knowledge and skills’ and come up with ways to solve the problems that I am facing. Body Paragraph 1- Scholarship of Nursing

I asked myself “what is scholarship?” I came up with the answer of scholarship is a form of gaining knowledge and doing study in order to become a qualified person within a field of learning. I wasn’t sure on my answer so I used a few dictionaries. (Collins Cobuild 2000; Grove 1961, Look smart 2000; WordNet 1999; Wordsmyth 1999; wwwebster 1996) and concluded that scholarship referred to profound knowledge acquired through long and rigorous academic research and study within a field; it means enlightenment (education resulting from analysis, understanding, and shared knowledge), eruditeness, and learnedness. Thus, scholarship is the character, qualities, achievements, and activities of scholars and is synonymous with learning, knowledge, and study. Scholars learn to be thinkers within a field of learning.

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I have analysed the concept of nursing scholarship by breaking it down into different skills that I need to develop during my studies. A nurse scholar, (1) experiences long academic study resulting in the mastery of nursing knowledge, (2) possesses discovering skills by investigating, resulting in original research, (3) has the ability to creatively think through and analyse connections (scholarship of integration and originality), (4) is dedicated toward the dissemination of nursing knowledge through teaching and publishing activities inside and outside the discipline of nursing, and (5) demonstrates commitment toward the application of nursing knowledge within an international context of human needs. These categories are not unlike others proposed in nursing literature. Body Paragraph 2- Reflective practice

In nursing scholarship we tend to use and develop what is called ‘reflective practice’ it will help me to grow and develop my clinical reason. I am training my brain to find new ways of thinking. Donald Schon (1983) introduced the concept of reflective practice. He Summarised reflection into two types of reflection: Reflection- in-action and Reflection-on-action. Reflection-in-action is in the process (while doing something) where you recognise a new problem and think about it while still acting. Reflection-on-action is (after you have done it) noting of how you handled the issue, what you could of done better. Reflective practice occurs when you explore an experience you have had to identify what happened, and what your role in the experience was – including your behaviour and thinking, and related emotions. This, allows you to look at changes to your approach for similar future events. If reflective practice is performed comprehensively and honestly, it will inevitably lead to improved performances.

Body Paragraph 3-Critical Thinking
Today’s nursing graduates must not only be clinically competent practitioners, but also need to be adept at critical thinking in order to understand the complexities of the world and the rapidly changing practice arena even though this can itself be challenging. Scheffer & Rebenfeld (2000) conducted an international study that Critical thinking in nursing is an essential component of professional accountability and quality nursing care. Critical thinkers in nursing exhibit these habits of the mind: confidence, contextual perspective, creativity, flexibility, inquisitiveness, intellectual integrity, intuition, open-mind, perseverance, and reflection. Critical thinkers in nursing practice the cognitive skills of analysing, applying standards, discrimination, information seeking, logical reasoning, predicting and transferring.

All thinking, if it is purposeful, includes the following elements of thought (Paul, 1990): (1) the problem, question, concern or issue being discussed or thought about by the thinker. What the thinker is attempting to figure out. (2) The purpose or goal of the thinking. Why we are attempting to figure something out and to what end. What do we hope to accomplish. (3) The frame of reference, points of view or even world view that we hold about the issue or problem. (4) The assumptions that we hold to be true about the issue upon which we base our claims or beliefs. (5) The central concepts, ideas, principles and theories that we use in reasoning about the problem. (6)The evidence, data or information provided to support the claims we make about the issue or problem. (7) The interpretations, inferences, reasoning, and lines of formulated thought that lead to our conclusions. (8)The implications and consequences that follow from the positions we hold on the issue or problem.

Body Paragraph 4- How I have personally used Reflective practice to assist in my nursing scholarship. I can say that I have personally used reflective practice in my nursing scholarship. How I incorporate reflective practice in my personal work is at the end of a week usually a Saturday or Sunday I sit down and check over my work, I read through my notes, check that I have completed all the activities for that week. I read what I have summarised, I then think to myself what I could of done to make the structure of my work easier to summarise making sure I take note so that the next week I use those new ideas to improve my style of summarising. Conclusion

Reflective practice, Critical thinking is used as elements in scholarship of nursing. It helps me study the basics of nursing, as nursing there are a lot of things that we need to learn about before we can go into the workforce and deliver what we have learnt instead of just going into the workforce and not having any knowledge on what we need to know.

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