Reflection
Reflection
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Module Code
Date of Submission
Declaration
By submitting this assignment, I am confirming the following:
This is my own original work and I have referenced all source material
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Introduction
patients in line with the NMC code. These aspects are discussed with help from Appendix 1-4
which covers learning from others (1), confidence and decision-making under pressure (2),
and providing feedback (3). A subsequent SWOT analysis and BEEF planning (Appendix 4)
section showcases my strengths and areas that require more effort to improve. In compliance
with the NMC (2015) code on patient confidentiality and privacy, all patient names and
Section 1
wellness, and organizational standards are among the major purposes of healthcare structures.
Effective leadership and management can help reach these objectives. According to Restivo
et al. (2022), healthcare workers can raise their compliance by working in an effective
frameworks. Nurse leaders go as far as serving as role models and influence healthcare at all
levels. During my practice time, I have learnt and showcased several leadership skills to help
me conduct my duties and responsibilities while positively impacting those around me.
settings involves my ability to learn from others’ experiences. Experience is perceived as the
best way to learn even if it is not one’s own experience. This makes it possible to learn as
much as possible by leveraging other people’s experience and seeking learning opportunities.
This approach helps student leaders acquire knowledge, skills, and abilities to enable them in
practice. In my journey as a nursing student, I have had many opportunities to learn from a
diverse range of individuals, including experienced nurses and other healthcare professionals.
where I shadowed physios, provided me with the opportunity to observe and listen to the
daily life of experienced nurses and healthcare professionals. Shadowing the physiotherapists
in the PICU has instilled several leadership skills, including discipline, preparedness, and
burnout and anxiety. They add that the basis of resilience is good control and effective coping
skills. I acquired these skills by observing various aspects of PICU physiotherapists’ work,
For leaders, intuition and gut feelings are important. However, they must also
showcase discipline enough to thrive among the facts, context, and actions necessary for the
provision of healthcare where precision and accuracy are major aspects. I have learnt to
opinions. In this sense, I always listen to others, which enables me to understand different
perspectives. This stance is supported by Mishra (2020) who adds that listening enables
leaders to develop better rapport with subordinates, which leads to more positive and fruitful
questions beyond their knowledge. My experience in this facility showed me to always fill
that knowledge gap to enable preparedness, an attribute that I learnt is a major aspect of
respected leaders.
Successful leaders have more than intuitive knowledge, which necessitates significant
effort to perform duties properly. Sufficient effort makes a leader knowledgeable through
position, experience, and education. The accuracy and precision I witnessed in the ward
reinstated the need to often review the material several times to create confidence in my
understanding of facts, situations, issues, or decisions. From this, I learnt to lead by example
the importance of clear communication and empathy. Communication skills are among the
leadership skill that promotes trust and collaboration towards a common goal (Kumar, Ismail,
are aware of individual and organizational goals, which enables them to deliver the desired
results. According to Kumar, Ismail, and Sheriff (2021), effective communication is key in
(2021) who positively linked the provision of patient care and recovery with effective
communication between patients and healthcare providers. The authors also establish
undermining care provision and the patient’s perception of care quality. By clearly
understanding patients’ diagnoses and care instructions, I can enhance patient outcomes as I
Papathanasiou (2014) highlight the importance of conveying clear and concise information
feedback for personal and professional growth. Burgess et al. (2020) define feedback as
specific information about the comparison between a trainee’s observed performance and a
standard, given with the intent to improve the trainee’s performance. The authors add that
feedback supports and promotes learning by communicating to the learners their progress and
learning needs for improvement while motivating them. The fact that my supervisor
employed feedback to motivate me and highlight my learning needs also informs me, as a
leader, of the need to create a supportive environment for feedback as a form of active
learning. Seeking feedback from mentors and colleagues has been crucial to my development
during this placement. By remaining open to constructive criticism, I have identified areas for
improvement and made adjustments to my practice. This proactive approach to learning has
enhanced my skills and strengthened my commitment to providing the best possible care to
my patients.
Similarly, perseverance and resilience are major skills that I learnt first-hand in my
placement. Resilience involves positively adapting to difficult and trying situations, which
enables nurses to deal with any workplace issues or trauma to ensure patients have the best
pediatric cases, which exposed me to the complexities involved in day surgery care. Each
case had unique challenges, and I had to showcase perseverance and resilience to effectively
adapt my approach based on the patient’s specific needs. This adaptability has been a critical
of young patients. In my placement, I also learned to stay composed and focused, especially
during the initial hours following surgery, when patient stability must be closely monitored.
This experience has reinforced my ability to make timely, informed decisions, critical in
learning. The dynamic nature of a pediatric day surgery ward means there is always
something new to learn, and I have embraced each challenge as an opportunity to grow. I
understand that the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) code emphasises the need for
standards in my practice.
Section 2
others as well as my ability to provide constructive feedback and promote reflection in others.
that must be done correctly to maximize results. According to Alsadaan et al. (2023), both
direct and indirect nursing leadership behaviours affect nurse’s performance. In this sense, it
is important for leaders to comprehend factors that motivate nurses to perform well, from
where they can facilitate them through leadership styles. Alsadaan et al. (2023) also find that
Significant attention has gone to exploring nursing leadership styles and their impact
style as the most effective approach in healthcare settings as it cultivates a supportive and
empowering environment.
In my placement at the PICU, my dealing with a junior nurse showed I have several
aspects of transformational leadership. In this scenario, one junior nurse was tasked with
managing a post-op patient. The patient had undergone cardiac surgery but now required
close monitoring of vital signs while the nurse also had to manage the patient's medication
and at the same time ensure proper documentation. As the nurse undertook this task, I noticed
several instances where she missed crucial information, including heart rate changes and
saturation levels. As a leader, I approached the nurse after the shift and applauded the steps
she took, but at the same time gently highlighted the parts she missed out. My approach was
calming the nurse, reassuring her, and then telling her the wrong aspects by emphasizing the
Leadership in such instances can foster positive growth, as seconded by Zamroni and
Rahmawati (2024) who linked exercising leadership with increased job satisfaction,
productivity, as well as organizational commitment. The authors argue that the success of
leadership is dependent on the relationship between the leader and follower. In the
transformational leadership style, leaders and followers fuse their purposes so that they work
in pursuit of jointly held goals. In this sense, transformational leadership involves mutual
stimulation and uplifting that positively affects both parties. This was the case in the scenario
with the junior nurse, as shown in Appendix 3, as both I and the nurse benefited from our
interaction. In that scenario, in the process of highlighting the parts of her task that she did
not get, I first calmed her down and reassured her. In this state of mind, she was ready to
receive feedback on what she had done wrong. Through the use of effective communication,
open-ended questions, from where the nurse opened up about her struggles with multitasking.
Together, we came up with helpful strategies and alternatives, including checklists and
reminders.
Both parties benefited from this experience. I gained a richer understanding of the
lesson was using empathy while providing feedback, which enabled me to balance
appreciating the nurse's strength while exploring areas in her practice that required
leader’s ability to feel what the second party feels, especially when they are defensive. My
leadership skills showed in my approach, which involved helping the junior nurse improve
while ensuring not to damage her confidence or hurt her feelings. I encouraged her feedback
and input, listening keenly as she explained her challenge with multitasking. In this sense,
learning.
On the other hand, the junior nurse benefitted from the interaction, as it enabled her to
incorporate options that helped improve her performance in such instances. Acquiring these
benefits from our interaction aligns with NMC (2018), which notes that the benefits of
supervision include protecting the public and contributing to the ability of the student nurse to
develop competent skills and professionalism in practice. At the same time, it also mandates
nurses to share their skills, knowledge, and experience with others seeking care and their
nurse colleagues. In a similar activity in the PICU ward, I supervised her when undertaking a
similar activity as before and it was clear she had learned and was no longer making the same
This interaction with the junior nurse also enabled me to notice my learning style,
which is a combination of theorists' and reflectors' learning styles. This was crucial for my
development as a leader. This interaction aligns with the social learning theory, which
and modelling. It also aligns with the Social Cognitive Theory (SCT) that supports inter-
learning between people, environment, and behaviour (Andre Carillo, 2010). In this sense,
the junior nurse and I were part of the learning group considering the incidence benefitted
both parties in what was a show of how group learning contributes to the multi-modal
transfer and share with others, which is a requirement of the NMC code.
However, I also noticed I had similar issues as the nurse with multitasking as I also
tend to try to do multiple tasks simultaneously. Multiple scholars, including Halim and Halim
(2023) are against multitasking as they assert can decrease productivity while increasing
stress and the chances for errors and mistakes. The collaborative healthcare environment
facilitated two-way learning that benefited both parties as we shared adaptive approaches,
such as task checklists, reminders, prioritization and the ABCDE approach, with the latter
involving ranking tasks based on urgency and patient safety. Similarly, the incorporation of
approaches, such as time management and task delegation in my approach will boost my
leadership skills. At the same time, task delegation to give out non-urgent tasks to others will
also encourage teamwork and the spirit of achieving objectives collectively. Evidently, my
interaction with the junior nurse showcased the importance of constructive feedback which
practice development.
Section 3
section covers my future development plans as a leader of health and care teams and
communication skills. For instance, my clarity during communication has been applauded for
conveying messages clearly and concisely, ensuring the receiver understands my messages
further approaches to improve. Improvement will help me effectively advocate for patients
and explore further feedback and input from external sources, including patients, lecturers,
and workmates. At the same, I will employ tools such as 360 degrees and the Hogan
Assessment System to acquire further feedback so as to avoid causing chaos and incivility,
mentors and more experienced nurses and supervisors, as facilitated by the social learning
theory, which establishes this behaviour as a particular learning opportunity. This will match
According to Bergestedt and Wei (2020), leaders should be ready to provide regular and
transparent feedback to help subordinates not only establish their competencies but also
that it can impact productivity negatively. However, multitasking is the nature of nurse’s
work, which necessitates a deeper understanding to maximize results. The authors argue that
measuring multitasking can improve efficiency, workflow, quality and safety. The authors
find that interruptions and multitasking were common occurrences for nurses during medical
administration. Similarly, over 10% of nurses’ time is spent on delegable and non-nursing
activities, which shows the need for adopting more efficient approaches as well as embracing
a teamwork approach so that only urgent tasks and patient safety determine task priority. My
plan is to use adaptive approaches, such as task checklists, reminders, prioritization, time
management, delegation, and the ABCDE approach to help reduce discomfort and ensure
Chivaka's (2024) assertion that cohesive and well-coordinated teams lead to reduced medical
errors, enhanced patient safety, and increased overall performance, which he terms a
will also pursue a trusting relationship with teammates and subordinates and base it on
mutual trust, constructive criticism, and inspiring subordinates and trainees so that they can
Conclusion
leader of health and care teams. This paper shows my ability as a leader to manage workloads
Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) where I shadowed more experienced professionals
feedback to a junior nurse. As shown in the paper, I have developed critical leadership skills,
including learning from others, teamwork, effective communication, and empathy, which will
help me in my practice. Similarly, the paper has also showcased the need to improve on these
skills especially considering that learning is a life-long process and that one can always
improve. On the other hand, a SWOT analysis pinpoints multitasking as a weakness that I
should work to improve on. This paper has listed future plans to improve my strengths while
acknowledge the need to keep learning through practice and feedback from others.
[Link]
Alsadaan, N., Salameh, B., Alruwaili, R., Alruwaili, M., and Ahmed Awad Ali, S. (2023) Impact of
Andre Carillo, K. (2010) Social Cognitive Theory in IS research-Literature review, criticism, and
[Link]
Bergstedt, K. and Wei, H. (2020) Leadership strategies to promote Frontline Nursing Staff
doi:10.1097/[Link].0000651204.39553.79.
Burgess, A., van Diggele, C., Roberts, C., and Mellis, C. (2020) Feedback in the clinical setting.
[Link]
Firmansyah, D., and Saepuloh, D. (2022) Social Learning Theory: Cognitive and Behavioral
[Link]
Guppy, J., Widlund, H., Munro, R., and price, J. (2023) Incivility in healthcare: the impact of poor
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T_ON_21_ST_CENTURY_PROFESSIONALS.
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Kumar, R., Ismail, M., and Sheriff, D. (2021) Effective communication is the key for healthcare
1-4. [Link]
%2F10.5281%2Fzenodo.5534557?
_tp=eyJjb250ZXh0Ijp7ImZpcnN0UGFnZSI6InB1YmxpY2F0aW9uIiwicGFnZSI6InB1Ymx
pY2F0aW9uIn19
Kwame, A., and Petrucka, P. (2021) A literature-based study of patient-centered care and
communication in nurse-patient interactions: barriers, facilitators, and the way forward. BMC
Manomenidis, G., Panagopoulou, E., and Montgomery, A. (2018) Resilience in nursing: the role of
internal and external factors. Journal of Nursing Management, 27(3), pp. 172-178.
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Nurse and Midwifery Council (2015) The code - the nursing and midwifery council, NMC. Available
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Nurse and Midwifery Council (2018) What do practice supervisors do?, The Nursing and Midwifery
#:~:text=A%20practice%20supervisors’%20role%20is,while%20learning%20in%20practice
Zamroni, R., and Rahmawati, R. (2024) The impact of leadership style, training and organizational
88
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 or colleague. Please refer to our guidance on
preserving anonymity in the section on non-identifiable information in How to revalidate with the NMC.
What was the nature of the CPD activity and/or practice-related feedback
and/or event or experience in your practice?
In my placement, I was working with physiotherapists on the Paediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU). I
observed various aspects of their work, including respiratory therapy,
mobility interventions, and rehabilitation techniques. Throughout the
shadowing experience, I gained valuable insights into the
physiotherapist's contributions to patient care. I observed their expertise
in respiratory management, including airway clearance techniques and
ventilator optimization strategies. Witnessing their interactions with
patients and families highlighted the importance of clear communication,
empathy, and individualised care.
What did you learn from the CPD activity and/or feedback and/or event or
experience in your practice?
Shadowing the physiotherapists on PICU has given me a deeper
understanding of their role within the multidisciplinary team caring for
critically ill children. I was eager to learn and gain a deeper
understanding of their role in supporting the recovery of paediatric
patients. However, I also experienced a degree of apprehension,
recognising the challenging, and sometimes distressing nature of the
PICU environment.
I plan to apply the knowledge and insights gained from shadowing the
physiotherapist to my practice as a healthcare professional. Learning
from others is an ongoing process that will solidify my foundation. As I
continue on my journey to becoming a registered nurse, I am committed
to embracing learning opportunities, fostering collaboration, and
reflecting on my experiences to continually enhance my practice and
provide compassionate, high-quality care to those in need.
Prioritise people: My time with the PICU physios align with the prioritise people concept. This requires
treating others with kindness, respect, and compassion. By prioritising the patient, I can provide
effective care while prioritising my workmates help solve issues such as time scarcity to avoid feelings
of frustration and burnout.
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 or colleague. Please refer to our guidance on
preserving anonymity in the section on non-identifiable information in How to revalidate with the NMC.
What was the nature of the CPD activity and/or practice-related feedback
and/or event or experience in your practice?
Working in the paediatric intensive care unit (PICU) was very challenging
but also a great learning experience. I was able to help care for very sick
and complex children who needed close monitoring and advanced
treatments within an intensive care environment. At first, this felt
overwhelming, but I embraced the opportunity which helped me acquire
and build up my nursing knowledge and skills.
What did you learn from the CPD activity and/or feedback and/or event or
experience in your practice?
Practice effectively
My interaction with physios at PICU aligns with the practice effectively aspect, which requires the use
of several verbal and non-verbal communication methods as well as cultural sensitivities to better
understand and respond to people’s personal and health needs. It also requires practitioners to share
their skills, knowledge, and experience for the benefit of people receiving care and colleagues.
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 or colleague. Please refer to our guidance on
preserving anonymity in the section on non-identifiable information in How to revalidate with the NMC.
What was the nature of the CPD activity and/or practice-related feedback
and/or event or experience in your practice?
In this scenario, one junior nurse was tasked with managing a post-op
patient. The patient had undergone a cardiac surgery but now required
close monitoring of vital signs while the nurse also had to manage the
patient's medication and at the same time ensure proper documentation.
However, I noticed several instances where the nurse missed crucial
Information including heart rate changes and saturation levels. any
mishap at this stage Is unwanted due to subsequent delays and adjusting
care. The nurse missed these points despite undertaking the other tasks
diligently. As a prospective leader, I approached the nurse after the shift
and applauded the steps she took, but at the same time gently
highlighted the parts she missed out, including documentation. my
approach was calming the nurse down, reassuring her, then tell her the
wrong aspects my emphasizing the need to get It right and communicate
effectively with the team. I have spent significant time on my
communication skills, which enabled us discuss strategies to Improve. I
encouraged reflection by asking open ended questions, from where the
nurse opened up about her struggles with multitasking. together, we
came up with helpful strategies and alternatives, including checklists and
reminders.
This experience with the junior nurse aligns with the preserve safety code concept, which
requires nurses to always offer help If an emergency arises during which they are to act
without delay if they believe that there Is risk to a patient safety or public protection.
I am dealing with this by using the ABCDE method to rank tasks based
Multitasking on urgency and patient safety.
I noticed that I tend to try and do multiple tasks I am also working on my time management skills by using checklists
simultaneously, which studies have shown can decrease and reminders. I am also working on task delegation to give out
productivity and increase stress while increasing the
non-urgent tasks to subordinates or other workers.
chances for errors and mistakes.
What Opportunities are there? How can I Exploit (make good use of) the opportunities?
What are the Threats? How can I Face or reduce the threats?
Burnout and stress I plan to reduce burnout and stress by prioritizing physical health. This
The current 1:8 nurse-patient ratio is a red flag, which is achievable through regular exercise, meditation, and adequate
when coupled by long working hours can cause burnout. sleep. While the job is very demanding and can reduce time for this, I
This can reduce performance and mental health. intend to advocate for regular breaks during working hours to facilitate
recharging while maintaining long term productivity.
Technological disruptions I can reduce the aforementioned technological disruptions by staying
Recent technologies require significant and timely training, updated on software updates as well as best practises. At the same
failure to which errors, mistakes, and delays can occur. time, I can come up with contingency plans in case of common
technological failures. Similarly, I intend to form close connections
with the IT team to ensure everything is done on time and conveniently