Nursing Reflection: Assessment and Handover Process

Running head: NURSING REFLECTION 1
Reflection
Name
Institution

NURSING REFLECTION 2
Reflection
Q1
Bright is a patient who is receiving post-angioplasty care. During his post operative care,
the patient should be adequately monitored and provided with all the necessary support that he
deserves. When attending to him, I had to do my best to ensure that he manages his condition
well. In this section, I would like to reflect on the strengths and weaknesses of the assessment
that was done on the patient.
The patient was provided with appropriate post angioplasty care that would enable him to
manage his conditions. Just like any other patient, Bright was observed to be experiencing post
angioplasty complications including bleeding and haematoma formation-related chest pain.
According to the research conducted by Arokiaraj, Guerrero, Levine & Palacios (2013), the
patient was to be given a good care commensurate with the condition. During the assessment
exercises, I managed to successfully monitor the patient’s vital signs. I had to apply all the
principles, policies, and guidelines governing postoperative care to help me in the monitoring of
the patient’s vital signs. This was a commendable thing to do because all post angioplasty
patients have certain signs that should be taken so seriously. It is at this stage that the patient can
experience challenges like bleeding. Therefore, all the vital signs must be rigorously monitored,
observed and recorded throughout. I successfully did this because I knew the reason why it had
to be done. At the same time, I managed to successfully check the patient’s sight and managed
his IVT and infusion because it was one of the activities that I was supposed to carry out. If I had
failed to do so, I would not have managed to display my competence as a postoperative nurse.

NURSING REFLECTION 3
The other thing that was rightfully done during the assessment process is a strict
compliance with the PQRST process of patient assessment. Here, I had to assess the patient’s
pain by considering the Provokes (causes of the pain); Quality (the sharpness, burning, dullness
or crushing of the pain); Radiates (localization and radiation of the pain); Severity (the 1-10 scale
for the severity of the pain); and Time (the beginning, and duration of the pain). The application
of the PQRST method was good because it enabled me to assess and be acquainted with finer
details of the pain. In fact, I had to dig deeper into the historical background to determine exactly
when the pain began, its severity, and the entire duration it has taken.
Last, but not least, I did an excellent job by adopting a multidisciplinary approach during
my assessment. As a professional, I believe in the power of teamwork. I am a team player who
always works alongside other experts. Therefore, when attending to the patient, I had no choice
rather than cooperating with all my colleagues because they would help me in many ways. I
fostered a good working relationship with the RN, surgeon, pharmacist, and the physician
because I knew that they would enable me to carry out a successful assessment on the patient
(Fairman, Rowe, Hassmiller & Shalala, 2011). The perfect way in which I did I collaborated
with my colleagues enabled me to achieve my goals.
However, during the assessment, there are certain things that were not properly done. In
the first place, I failed to provide the patient with a pain relief. This was a big mistake because it
prevented me from discharging my roles as expected. As the responsible nurse, I was supposed
to closely monitor the patient and give him the necessary pain reliefs before the arrival of the
physician. It was a necessary thing to do because it would enable me to slow down or reduce the
severity of the pain experienced by the patient. This shows that I was almost behaving like an