Reflective Practice in Nursing: A Case Study

Running head: NURSING ASSIGNMENT
NURSING ASSIGNMENT
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author Note:

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Introduction:
According to Oluwatoyin(2015), reflective practice in nursing has been identified as
the best practice method that helps in continuously introspecting upon clinical experience so
as to improve the scope of practice. As stated by Mahlanze et al. (2015) reflective cycle helps
in identifying the strengths and weaknesses within the scope of practice and accordingly
adapt measures to improve upon the identified weaknesses. In order to reflect upon clinical
experience, nurses need to make use of a suitable reflective framework and critically
introspect on areas mentioned within the framework (Paterson & Chapman, 2013; Bulaman
& Schutz, 2013). In this case, I chose to make use of the Gibbs Reflective Model in order to
reflect upon my clinical experience with the Nurse Manager during my previous placement.
According to Smith and Roberts (2015), it should be noted that the Gibbs reflective model
comprise of five important steps that include, description of the incident, associated feelings,
evaluating of the experience, framing conclusion and creating an action plan. In this paper, I
am going to make use of the Gibbs Reflective Cycle in order to introspect upon my
experience with my immediate nurse manager.
Discussion:
Description:
It was my first clinical placement and I had been really excited to work in an
esteemed healthcare organization that was known to render excellent care delivery. The
hospital had a high rate of patient satisfaction level. My immediate nursing manager was RN
A, who had been serving in the hospital for more than 5 years. Considering her experience, I
had expected that I was privileged and would get a lot to know from her. However, my
experience was completely opposite to what I had expected. I had performed a vital
assessment on a patient and had appropriately documented the observation. However, I had
not been careful enough and ended up writing an incorrect spelling of the name of the patient.

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After conducting the assessment and documenting it, I reported to my nurse manager. She
took a brief look at it and identified the spelling error and accused me of not doing the
assessment properly. She told me that if I could not write the pateint’s name correctly, then
what good would be the assessment data. I repeatedly apologized to her and told her that the
spelling might be incorrect but I had done the assessment carefully and correctly. She did not
pay attention to me and went ahead to assess the patient for a second time and correctly
document the observations. Clearly, my manager lacked effective leadership styles and had
made the workplace environment hostile for me. I could identify the leadership style of my
manager as an autocratic leadership style where she expected things to work out as expected
by her and not being able to do it accordingly would lead to criticism and accusation. In the
words of Giltinane (2013), authoritative or autocratic leadership style can be defined as the
leadership style that is focused on the command of the team leader. Also, the leader makes
decisions independently and imposes them on the followers which creates a rift between the
team leader and the team members or the workers working the leader (Cismas et al., 2016;
Barry et al., 2016). Studies identify this leadership style as the worse leadership style that
leads to oppression and tyranny (Zydziunaite & Suominen, 2014; Ahman et al., 2013; Martin
et al., 2016).
Feelings:
The day when the incident happened marked the first day of my clinical placement. I
felt extremely demotivated and distressed. I could not come to terms with the humiliation that
I experienced. I tried my best to reason out my fault and evaluate that whether or not the
mistake committed by me was that intense that it deserved such humiliation. Research studies
suggest that autocratic leadership is invariably linked with feelings of demoralization and
resentment among team members. As a result, employees are extremely depressed and the
work process is hampered. In addition to this, studies also suggest that the decision making