Critical Reflection - Health and Social Care

Running Head: CRITICAL REFLECTION
HEALTH AND SOCIAL CARE
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author’s Note

CRITICAL REFLECTION1
Introduction
This assignment will be a reflection on a scenario, which is a part of health and
social care in a medical setting. A reflection is a report on an incident or an event and
the personal perception about it including personal thoughts and feelings. A clinical
reflection is done in a medical setting, which helps in analysing mistakes and scopes in
future practice as it is helpful aid during academic years as well. The reflection in this
essay is about an experience I came across when I was studying nursing in my
university and was placed in a geriatric ward for my summer internship. The discussion
will be about a patient who was admitted during a medical emergency and she needed
critical medical intervention. She had some social interaction issues that obstructed her
treatment and further procedures. The reflective model used will be Gibb’s reflective
model because it is an efficient model for a workplace and it helps in understanding
what was done well and what needs to be improved. It is an accurate model for
enhancing workplace ethics and actions needed during any operation, and this is a
clinical reflection so Gibb’s reflective model is the most appropriate (Nicol and Dosser
2016).
Discussion
Mrs Bella Cullen is an 80 year old woman who was recently admitted to my
hospital for an emergency because she was found lying in front of her toilet when her
daughter named Jenny saw her in the morning. Jenny suspected that she was lying
there all night. After her admission when she was diagnosed it was revealed that she
had a right sided stroke, which was the reason for her moderate weakness in her left leg
and arms (Bentsen et al. 2014). She has a medical history of type 2 diabetes mellitus,
high cholesterol, hypertension, and osteoarthritis. Previously she was admitted in a
hospital for urinary tract infection and an episode of fainting due to low blood sugar. Few
years back she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease and later vascular dementia
was detected overlaying on her pre-existing diagnosis. She resides in a two story
terrace house with her daughter after her husband expired due to cardiac arrest. Mrs
Bella is a retired university professor and her daughters describe her as an introvert and
a private woman. Due to this reason she only allowed shopping and cleaning assistance

CRITICAL REFLECTION2
only ones a week after she was admitted, and she is not interested in further service
provision. Similar issues was experienced during her stay, which was inconvenient for
the nurses in charge including me (Ellis et al. 2017). She needed assistance for post
toilet hygiene because she was unable to walk due to her stroke and she also needed
help while getting into and out of the bed. She could only walk with a 4 wheeler frame
including the supervision of another person (Buijck et al. 2014). Sometimes she was
unable to take her food she so requires a nurse to feed and serve her. It was seen that
she used to forget her previous action and what she wanted to do next, after ringing the
assistance bell she used to forget why she called the nurse. Feeling lost and confused
were some of her daily activities. Seeing her condition it is relevant that she needs
surveillance and monitoring of her health conditions including assistance for her day to
day activities.
This experience made me feel curious and medically challenged due to the
complication of this case. The patient in question needed medical interventions but due
to her inhibitions and social obligations she was making the treatment procedure difficult
for the medical professionals. She had a stroke attack, which was a matter of concern
and she needed rest but due to her limitations in assistance we were unable to provide
her the required help. After an analysis, I realized that her medical history of Alzheimer’s
disease and newly diagnosed vascular dementia could be a reason behind her
misconduct and unresponsive behaviour. Her tendencies of forgetting and later not
letting anyone help her must be due to her ongoing health conditions such as dementia,
which might have happened because of her stroke attack. The experience was eye
opening and helped me gain more exposure and practical experience regarding medical
interventions and complicated cases. I could feel that her cognitive functioning was
impaired from the last 10 days and she needed to be in a residential care setting
(Kalaria, Akinyemi and Ihara 2016). There was a need for supervision and quality care
for her recover, which needed a medical setting but she wanted to go home. Her
medical team and her daughter opposed her discharge but she was stubborn and
wanted to leave the hospital as soon as possible. According to me, her discharge was
not an ideal thing to do but due to her mental state she needed someone to guide and
explain her about her current situation.