Reflection on Clinical Decision Making and Judgment Skills in Nursing

Running head: ASSIGNMENT 3 REFLECTION
ASSIGNMENT 3 REFLECTION
Name of the student:
Name of the university:
Author note:

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ASSIGNMENT 3 REFLECTION
Introduction:
In the domain of healthcare, reflection can be described as the active procedure for
reviewing, analyzing as well as evaluating experiences which are drawn upon theoretical
concepts or previous learning so as to inform future actions. Reflection helps healthcare
professionals in managing the impact of caring for caring for patients on a regular basis
(Standing, 2017). Melin‐Johansson et al. (2017) had described this as the process of making
sense of the events, situations and even actions in the workplace. This process helps nursing
professionals to review their own knowledge and skills by reflecting their performance in the
different events and thereby recognize their strengths and weakness and thereby participate in
on-going learning (Arnold & Broggs, 2019). With the help of reflection, healthcare professionals
can develop their skills in different types of self-directed learning and thereby improve their
motivation and quality of care that would help patients to feel satisfied. This assignment would
reflect on the different knowledge that I have gathered over the semester from reading the
modules and thereby understand how well I would be able to apply such knowledge in the
treatment for people.
Reflection over the learning:
Subject development:
Making clinical judgments is one of the most important attribute that healthcare
professionals need to make when patients with complex care needs arrive in the healthcare
centers for treatment. It has been found that in the times of severe conditions when patients are
suffering from unmanaged symptoms of multiple chronic disorders, it becomes very important
for nurses to choose the nursing priorities that would be provided utmost importance in care

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ASSIGNMENT 3 REFLECTION
planning process. In the acute care cases of patients, when the patients is in the golden hours of
the treatment during stroke or during STEMI myocardial infarction, it becomes very important
for nursing professionals to make the correct decisions at the appropriate times to save the
patient from life-threatening conditions (Nielsen et al., 2016). In such situations, it becomes very
important for the healthcare professionals in taking correct decisions for which clinical judgment
skills and decision-making skills are extremely important. () had defined clinical decision-
making would require good quality judgment that would include critical thinking skills. One of
the studies have been found to comment that critical thinkers in the nursing profession practice
the cognitive skills of analyzing, application of the standards as well as discriminating,
information seeking, logical reasoning, predicting as well as transformation of knowledge
(Kaddoura et al., 2016). I have realized that healthcare professionals often draw their ideas from
sources that include their formal nursing educators as well as from their experiences that they
gain over time. As a novice nurse, I often face dilemma and confusion while taking decisions. I
often lack confidence while taking decisions as I always have the fear in the back of my mind
about negative consequences arising from the fact that my decisions might have negative impacts
on patients either worsening their situation or exposing them to life-threatening situation (Lee et
al., 2017). However, my mentor had encouraged me stating that I need to constantly reflect on
my experiences that I have everyday to gain knowledge from them. He is of the opinion that as
nurses gain experiences, clinical decision making skills gradually develops.
I have realized that clinical decision making is quite complex. Johnsen et al., (2016) is of
the opinion that a combination of scientific evidence-based knowledge in conjunction with
intuition as well as contextual factors can enable nursing professionals in utilizing excellent
clinical decision making. While I believe intuition is entirely associated with the participation of