Reflection on Emergency Case: Developing Active Listening and Self-Regulation Skills

This reflection paper discusses the importance of active listening and self-regulation skills in nursing profession. It also highlights the author's experience in an emergency case and the need to develop these skills to provide safe and quality care to patients.

Running head: REFLECTION ON EMERGENCY CASE
REFLECTION ON EMERGENCY CASE
Name of the student:
Name of the university:
Author note:

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Description:
In the morning shift, I formed a team of four nurses including me as we had to attend a
patient in the emergency department. When we arrived at the department, we saw that the patient
had difficulty in breathing and we had to attend to this emergency at that moment only. I was in
the leadership role and immediately appointed the other three members to administer IV
antibiotics, salbutamol, oxygen and medication. I had taken the role of documenting the vital
signs and accordingly, I had to take actions. I saw abnormal signs of the patient but could not
understand what to do at that moment. I got nervous and tensed and could not communicate with
my team effectively. I did not listen to their observations about the patients and without listening
to them, I cut them in between. Immediately the doctor arrived and seeing the adverse situation,
scolded me stating why I did not call the MET immediately. The other members immediately
stated that they wanted to tell me about calling the Met and that I did not listen to them.
Feeling:
I was feeling very disappointed with myself as I could not provide safe and quality care
to the patient for which the patient was exposed to life threatening situation. I was feeling very
upset thinking that I could neither lead my team effectively nor I could handle the strenuous
situation with poise and steadiness. I felt guilty for the deteriorating situation of the patient. I had
lost my confidence over my skills and knowledge and thought that I could never be able to
handle such strenuous conditions effectively. However, I decided to turn around and instead of
taking it as a failure, I took it as a chance of making me understand my weakness and work on
them to become an expert nursing professional.

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Evaluation:
One of the most important attribute that I lacked was my effective communication skill
attributes. Active listening skill can be defined as the highest and most effective level of listening
which remains based on providing complete attention to what the person is saying, listening to
him or her carefully and attentively without interrupting them (Weber et al., 2016). Active
listening in healthcare is extremely important for nursing professionals not only to develop
therapeutic relationship with patients bit also for effective teamwork among the healthcare
professionals (Maenpaa et al., 2018). Often interrupting patients and other members of the team
might disrupt the flow of information which can prove to be beneficial for better safe and quality
care service delivery to patient (Trifkovic et al., 2017). I had poor communication skills and
hence the entire communication got interrupted. If I had not interrupted in between I could have
known their suggestions for calling the /met and that would have helped me in taking the correct
decisions. Another weakness that I evaluated is my self-regulation skills as well as decision
making skills. I need to develop such skills so that I can become an expert nursing professional
for the future.
Analysis:
Active listening skills are important for effective team-working and every nursing leader
need to have such skills. They need to have the ability to listen to the feedbacks and suggestions
of their team members and then take decisions accordingly (Wosinski et al., 2018). Not listening
to team members or cutting them in between not only affects the morale of subordinates making
them feel disrespected but also many important information might get disrupted (Abdrbo, 2017).
Active listening skills can help in providing important information about the patient by the

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healthcare members that may prove to be beneficial in deciding care plans. It might avoid
misunderstandings and helps in people opening up so that they can say more. It also helps in
avoiding conflicts as people do not develop the feeling that they are dismissed and that their
concerns are respected. Self-regulation can be defined as the controlling one’s behaviors,
emotions as well as thoughts that might disrupt successful completion of the work (Rezaee et al.,
2015). Emotional self-regulation refers to ability of managing disruptive emotions as well as
impulses. However, as I had poor self-regulation skills, I got stressed and anxious in the
condition and become so nervous that I could not control my impulses. This affected my decision
making ability for which I got confused and could not decide what steps I needed to take at that
moment. Improper self-regulation might not only impact patient health but also team work and
result in conflicts that may affect morale of other people disrupting teamwork.
Conclusion:
From the entire situation, I realized that I have to develop my active listening skills as
well as self-regulation skills. These are the nursing attributes which will help me to handle such
strenuous situations successfully without hampering the health of the patient and allowing me to
provide high quality care to them.
Action plan:
In order to develop my communication skills, I need to attend workshops where mentors
would help me to develop my communication skills. I would also undertake mindfulness based
therapies, yoga and meditation as they help in developing self0regulation. I would also undertake
evidence based therapies where i will find out important papers on communication skills as well
as self-regulation skills. These would help me to gain ideas about how to develop such skills in

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my nursing profession. I would also have discussion sessions and feedbacks session with my
professors to learn from their personal experiences and work according to their advices.

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References:
Abdrbo, A. (2017). Assessment of nursing students’ communication skills. Nursing Education
Perspectives, 38(3), 149-151.
Mäenpää, K., Pyhältö, K., Järvenoja, H., & Peltonen, J. (2018). Nursing students' motivation
regulation and its relationship with engagement and burnout. Nordic Journal of Nursing
Research, 38(3), 143-150.
Rezaee, R., & Mosalanejad, L. (2015). The effects of case-based team learning on students’
learning, self regulation and self direction. Global journal of health science, 7(4), 295.
Trifkovič, K. Č., Lorber, M., Denny, M., Denieffe, S., & Gönc, V. (2017). Attitudes of nursing
students towards learning communication skills. In Teaching and Learning in Nursing.
IntechOpen.
Weber, K., & Farrell, T. (2016). Developing therapeutic communication skills: Integration of
standardized client simulation in an associate degree nursing program.
Wosinski, J., Belcher, A. E., Dürrenberger, Y., Allin, A. C., Stormacq, C., & Gerson, L. (2018).
Facilitating problem-based learning among undergraduate nursing students: A qualitative
systematic review. Nurse education today, 60, 67-74.

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