Clinical Reasoning Cycle Essay

Running head: CLINICAL REASONING CYCLE ESSAY
Clinical reasoning cycle essay
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CLINICAL REASONING CYCLE ESSAY
Introduction:
With the advancements in the health care industry, the legal and legislative practice
essentials and standards are also continually expanding with more and more complexities
being involved (Koivisto et al., 2016). Hence, not only the nurses have to address each of the
diverse care needs of different patients, they have to adhere to all of the legislative and ethical
code of conduct and professional standards at all times. As discussed by Xiao et al. (2015),
the ever-changing provisions in the ethical and professional standards for nurses and ever
increasing patient demands often tends to confuse and overwhelm the nurses regarding the
extent of their responsibilities and scope of practice. In support, authors have also mentioned
the fact that new nurses that are transitioning into practice face the most challenges while
keeping up with the plethora of job roles and responsibilities. The practice frameworks and
models serve as a buffer to this scenario guiding the nurses through a step by step process,
and the clinical reasoning cycle by Tracy Levett Jones is one abundantly used practice model.
This essay will attempt to discuss the implementation of the clinical reasoning cycle in
assessment of a patient and planning care taking the case study of a case study.
Considering patient situation:
The first stage of step of the clinical reasoning cycle is the considering patient
situation which is associated with describing the context of the patient and the facts
associated with patent when presented in the care facility (Dalton, Gee & Levett-Jones,
2015). This stage requires the nurse to discuss the very basic information of the patient and
the major concern that the patient has presented in the facility with. The focus of this
assignment is on the patient named Melody King, a 36 year old woman who presented to the
hospital with the possibility of having peritonitis after ruptured appendix.
Collecting cues or information:

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CLINICAL REASONING CYCLE ESSAY
This is the second stage of the cycle and it refers to three aspects associated patient
assessment, reviewing current information of the client from handover reports, patient
history, patient charts, results of investigations and nursing/medical assessments previously
undertaken, gathering new information on the patient from assessment and recall previous
knowledge pertaining to physiology, pathophysiology, pharmacology, epidemiology,
therapeutics, culture, and context of care to arrive at a verdict on what are the pressing care
needs of the patient (Salminen et al., 2014). In case of Melody, she presented to the
emergency department of the facility with the complaints of severe right quadrant abdominal
pain. While in the emergency department, it was discovered that she had suffered a ruptured
appendix and required an emergency laparoscopic surgery. Her previous medical history
includes asthma and depression, and her current medication regimen included Ventolin,
Seretide, Sertraline. With respect to her vital sign assessment, her BP had been 95/94 mmHg,
Temp had been 38.3 ° Celcius, respiratory rate 22 per min and oxygen saturation 95% on
room air.
Processing information, Identifying and prioritising at least three nursing problems:
Processing the information that has been gathered till now, it can be mentioned that
she had right upper quadrant pain, which is most abundantly correlated with appendicitis.
Peritonitis is the infection of the peritoneal cavity that is caused when the appendical lumen is
ruptured and the bacterial mass is spilled in the peritoneal cavity and the surrounding places
which then gets further infected (Obinwa, Casidy & Flynn, 2014). As a result, the membrane
lining the appendix and surrounding internal organs is inflamed along with the peritoneal
cavity due to the perforations in the appendix. Discussing her vital signs, her blood pressure
had been very low which can be caused due to the acute pain and infection spreading inside
her body. The higher body temperature also indicates at the innate response of the body to the