Critical Thinking In Nursing

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Critical thinking is a tool used every day by nurses and other healthcare professionals. It is vital to the successful care of patients in all healthcare units, and it was evident in the Complex Continuing Care Unit. The nurses use critical thinking on a daily basis to ensure the care of their patients is done correctly and to limit the number of incidents that could occur. Critical thinking is needed in every aspect of patient care, to ensure the safety of the patient and the healthcare professionals. This was seen on the Complex Continuing Care Unit, throughout all of the shifts I was there. This was seen when my nurse was explain to me the care plan for some of her patients. As she was going through them, she seemed to get lost in thought …show more content…
A nurses critical thinking skills are a vital part in their practice; “Nurses ' thinking processes extend beyond rules and procedures as participants used patient data and interdisciplinary professional knowledge to provide safe and effective care” (Eisenhauer, Hurley, & Dolan, …show more content…
When this is done incorrectly, it results in it being the most common reason for a competence notification to the Nursing Council (Cook, 2014). Some factors that can lead to administering of medication errors are loss of concentration, interruptions, not following the proper procedure, stress in the workplace, being understaffed and the nurses health status (Cook, 2014). It is why critical thinking is needed to avoid these errors in medication, but also in patient care. Her understanding of nursing practices allowed her to question the soundness of the care plan change, and realize that it made no sense in the circumstances. Having observant nurses, that take care to understand their patients care plans and treatments, protects the patients from mistakes that can occur in such a large organization. I will be able to implement what I learned on a daily basis during my clinical experience and my career as a nurse. Critical thinking is vital to the safety of patients and my nurse demonstrated this through finding the mix up in patient care plans through attempting to understand the reasoning behind the then unknown accidental

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