Emotional and Social Intelligence in Nurses

Running Head: NURSING 0
EMOTIONAL AND SOCIAL INTELLIGENCE IN NURSES

NURSING 1
The word Nursing means to care or attending the person who needs care, it is one of the
holiest professions as it relates to providing care to the ailing person which can only be done
with Empathy ( Berman, 2013). This profession requires a high level of emotional and social
intelligence in a person, without the proper emotional intelligence, a nurse is bound to lose
patience because the nurse has to deal with patients who are physically or mentally ill
(Raghubir, 2018). A need of high level of emotional and social intelligence makes it one of the
most challenging jobs as one small instance of losing cool could be detrimental to the patient’s
mental health or could cost the career of a person, for example suppose, a nurse, working in a
psychiatrist department of a hospital is undergoing some personal trouble in her life which makes
her mentally weak, she had an encounter with a clinically depressed patient who by mistake
breaks an equipment in a ward, instead of dealing with patience, she shouts at him thus making
the patient shake with convulsion and also degrading the image of organization. In the example
the personal troubles of the nurse made her to react negatively to the patient, she was unable to
keep herself emotionally stable so, she shouted at him which cost the patient’s health. The
following essay deals through a David Kolb model of reflection, reflects upon a situation
encountered by me and the future learnings to be applied to not to repeat the mistake (McLeod,
2017).
It was 6 pm on Friday, a day before Christmas, I had to rush to home for completing the
chores and buy some items for the special day but all of a sudden the head of the department
arrived and asked me to re-plaster the fracture of a person who met with the minor fracture and
was in hospital for last five days, a felt frustrated and agitated from inside but can’t say anything
to him as he was one the most respected heads in the hospital, I showed him with a node that I
agree with the duty he summoned on me and went to the healthcare room where the patient was
lying, I did not greet him not even with a smile as a normal practice, I rushed to the cream and
the band lying at the side table of the patient and abruptly started re-plastering the fracture with
the touch of softness missing in the exercise of bandaging. During the time when I was plastering
, the patient asked me for a glass of water which I completely ignored due to the raging
frustration inside me and then, once the task was completed, I left the room by banging the door
loudly, on my way back to my house, I remembered that I forgot to put back the roll of bands
and a cream back at its place leaving it on the patient’s bed. The incident although was self-

NURSING 2
ignited but I felt big remorse on the way I treated the patient as it was totally against my duty as
a nurse (Gallo, 2016).
The next day was Christmas, the holiest festival of the Christians and after few days the
starting of a new year or the new page of everyone’s life. These days made me reflect on my
dreams and the mistakes which I had committed in the past so that they do not be repeated in
future. I reflected on my past mistakes, from them one such incident was when I treated the
patient who was with the fracture badly on which I felt a great remorse. The remorse was not the
solution for the incident, I for few days reflected on the incident, the way I felt anger inside of
me when my boss asked me to cater to the patient instead of getting frustrated, I should have
taken it positively as an obligation to fulfill the responsibility of a nursing profession. When
entering the patient’s room, my cold behavior was not justified as a nurse who is there to care for
the patients no matter what the circumstances are as a gentle smile of an attendant can take away
the clouds of stress and anxiety from a patient’s life. after that I attended the patient, plastered
her leg in a very abrupt fashion which was not a right behavior as a nurse, during the activity of
plastering, a touch of softness is required to lessen the pain of the patient but the way I bandaged
it might have hurt her which was again a very bad behavior. Such kind of activities makes a
patient uncomfortable thus aggravating the pain and it is the duty of hospital staff specially nurse
to dispatch their duty in such a way that a patient forgets the pain so any activity which is done
on the part of nurse which increases the pain of the client is very hurtful then after tending to the
patient, I left the room banging the door loudly which was very disrespectful behavior and would
be counted under the harshness as closing the door with the loud bang might have disturbed the
patients inside the health ward and then going back I realized I forgot keeping back the roll of
bands and a cream at its respective place which I left it on patient’s bed thus causing
inconvenience to the patient. Such careless and unempathetic behavior portrayed by me has
affected my self-image which was earlier of a very kind and caring one, to recover myself from
that image, As per the literature by Sciortino, It is important to replace the negative actions with
positive one. (M, 2017).
The behavior that was portrayed was an unacceptable one but there is always some
reason behind this unacceptable conduct of low level of emotional and social intelligence. There
could be plethora of factors impacting a person such as personal, psychological or contingency