Being a Professional Nursing: Importance of Medical Form Filling and Communication Skills

Running head: BEING A PROFESSIONAL NURSING 1
Being a professional nursing
Student’s Name
University

BEING A PROFESSIONAL NURSING 2
Being a professional nursing
Introduction
Being a nursing professional means having the skills and abilities to carry out nurses
roles relevant to the profession. Every qualified nursing practitioner is supposed to be licensed
which means that they hold the power to exercise their nursing skills and make decisions based
on their judgment and understanding of the nursing situation (Wilkinson, Rance, & Fitzsimmons,
2017). Student nurses require the medical form filling clinical skill and the communication non-
clinical skill to work well in their setting. Therefore, practitioners need to be guided by a code of
practice that defines their profession and the standards established by the Nursing and Midwifery
Board of Australia. This essay reflects on the importance of medical form filling skill and
communication skills during transition to practice.
Critical analysis
One clinical skill that I require as a beginner nurse is administration of patient’s medical
forms within the clinical setting. As a practitioner nurse, administration of all forms of
medication is one of the vital skills that I need to manage. This skill is based on capturing patient
data by administering different forms to patients. The forms can include capturing of basic
information like demography, medical history and the signs or symptoms that the patient feels
(Burns & Poster, 2008). The information filled in the forms is part of the overall decision making
that will be made on the patient. For example, patient allergies have to be captured well to avoid
drugs that the patient can react with. According to Boxer & Kluge (2000) one positive aspect that
this skills gives me is the ability to be keen on detail which improves the ability to capture all
patient details critical for decision making. Administration of medical forms requires every
patient detail to be captured including signs and symptoms. The practitioner is supposed to verify

BEING A PROFESSIONAL NURSING 3
patient information for accuracy before feeling in the form. However, one weakness of this skill
is there may be challenges in administering the form if the practitioner is not skilled well.
Therefore, the practitioner needs to study the forms well to be able to meet the required clinical
standards.
New nursing practitioners also require the non-clinical skill of communication within
medical settings. This entails passing, receiving and sharing information within the workplace
where documentation means gathering information and recording it according to the required.
This makes it easy for other practitioners to interpret what the nurse has written (Campbell,
Shepherd, McGrail, Kassell, Connolly, Williams & Nestel, 2015). Communication allows the
practitioner to interact with patients and at the same time share information with other
practitioners about the patient. The practitioners also use communication skills to share
information with other practitioners. In a clinical environment, practitioners have to pass
information to patients and their families and at the same time share information with fellow
practitioners. With the use of proper communication skills, practitioners are able to pass
information from one level to another. One strength that this skill offers is that it leads to
provision of reliable information within clinical settings. Clinical outcomes are dependent on
communication skills that increase clinical outcomes. However, one weakness that this skill
offers is that if the message is not framed well, it can be wrongly interpreted thus leading to poor
outcomes or distortion. This can compromise the clinical outcome thus affecting the expected
results. Further, Higgins, Spencer & Kane (2010) suggest that the non-nursing skills of
confidence is important in ensuring that the practitioner believes in knowledge acquired and the
individual ability to make decisions.
Discussion of theories