Self-evaluation essay on nursing skills and competencies

This self-evaluation essay reflects on the nursing skills and competencies of the author in clinical governance, shared governance, and lifelong learning. It discusses the strengths and weaknesses of the author in these domains and how they can improve their skills.

Running head: SELF-EVALUATION ESSAY
Self-evaluation essay
Name of the student:
Name of the university:
Author note:

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SELF-EVALUATION ESSAY
Introduction:
Nursing is a dynamic professional field,where the professionals are required to be
competent and experts in terms of both proficiencies and skills, in order to adhere to the legal
and legislative requirements and ethical standards (Masters 2018). However, nursing care, or
health care in general, has been an ever changing domain, with rules and regulations of
designing and implementing care is changing rapidly. In this essay, I will attempt to perform
a self-evaluation of my competence, knowledge and expertise on three very important aspects
of nursing, clinical governance, shared governance, and lifelong learning.
Shared governance:
The first topic chosen for the reflective practice is shared governance, a framework
where the nursing professionals translate their ideals into practice designs, so that the nurses
can participate in the professional care scenario using empowerment, autonomy, leadership,
accountability and decision making.The criteria that has been selected for this skill is
excellent communication and interpersonal skills. I would like to reflect on the experience I
had while completing placement in the St Vincent’s Private Hospital. While in this
placement, I had the opportunity to assess the needs of the patient and engaging with the
patients and their families. In this case, effective and accurate therapeutic communication had
been my most notable strengths. In patient engagement, the importance of communication
and interpersonal interaction is optimal to ensure that the patient needs are being adequately
addressed. Another one of my strengths includes compassion and empathy while
communicating with the patients and their family members (Pool et al. 2015). My
communication techniques, both verbal and nonverbal, helped me easily establish therapeutic
connection with the patients and the family members as well, and my compassionate
technique helped the family members and patients share their issues and grievances.
Although, a notable weakness in this case had been my lack of resilience and maintain

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composure while dealing with distressed family members of a critically ill patient. I would
need training and skill enhancement to overcome the habit of being overwhelmed by the
emotional outburst of patient families.
Clinical governance:
The second topic is clinical governance and the criteria selected for me to reflect on is
“Ability to develop nursing practice in a reflective and evidence-based manner”. The PEP
experience occurred when I was at Sr. Bernice 7/8 Ortho/Medical/Surgical for 80 hours and
St Vincent’s Private Hospital, Sydney for 11 days, and they relate effectively with this
nursing skill. I had the opportunity to perform a myriad of tasks in the placement experience,
including recording vital signs, conducting patient assessments, developing relationships,
assisting the process of discharge and admission. While in the rehabilitation facility or St.
Joseph’s Hospital/Medical Rehabilitation where I have been working for the past 6 weeks, I
had the opportunity to connect with the patients suffering from different kinds of disability,
and help them understand the impact of the disability on life and how to cope with it. I
encountered the need for changing the nursing skills and strategies of care planning and
implementation for incorporating better strategies for incorporating better coping
strategiesfor adding the disability based assistance in life (Numminen et al. 2016).
I had tried to involve a variety of caring strategies to help the different patients to
come into terms with their disability and the impact of the disability on their lifestyle. The
impact of evidence based practice and reflective practice skills had proved to be excellent in
order to for helping them come into terms with their condition. In order to evaluate my skills,
I would like to state that my knowledge and expertise over evidence based practice and how
to implement them in everyday practice has helped me drastically. Similarly, I have always
prioritized compassion and ethics along with my principles and prioritized my values and

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principles while taking any major decision. This has helped me profoundlyto deal with
disabled patients with compassion and empathy. The weaknesses that I believe I have in this
respect is the time management which complicated the process of patient engagement
drastically (Foronda, MacWilliams& McArthur 2016).
Life-long learning:
The last topic to be reflected upon encompasses lifelong learning, which is a crucial
trait for the nurses, for demonstrating a commitment to ongoing professional development
(Chambers, Rogers &Boath 2016). In terms of lifelong learning, my entire placement practice
in all of the different facilities that I have completed, has helped me build the skills and
competences required in this front. Lifelong learning relates directly to the concept of
continuous professional development, which allows the nurses to develop skills and expertise
while continuing with their clinical practice. Resilience and dedication are very crucial traits
that the nurses opting to attain lifelong learning must have (Adams, Mannix& Harrington
2017). In my opinion, my resilience and dedication developed and improved drastically
during the rehabilitation facility placement drastically and it helps me to learn while working.
Similarly, I have a thirst for knowledge and expertise, especially in terms of novel care
techniques such as evidence based practice. Although, the lack of proper time management
can hinder me to balance my professional and educational development.
Conclusion:
On a concluding note, this exercise had been a wonderful opportunity to reflect on my
personal skills and competence as a nurse. I have discovered both my strengths and
weaknesses in all three domains selected which will help me improve my skills. It can be
hoped that the knowledge acquired through the reflective exercise will aid me in providing
safe and effective care in my clinical practice in the future.

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SELF-EVALUATION ESSAY
References:
Adams, A.M.N., Mannix, T. & Harrington, A., 2017. ‘Nurses' communication with families
in the intensive care unit–a literature review’. Nursing in critical care, vol.22, no.2, pp.70-80.
Chambers, R., Rogers, D. &Boath, E., 2016. ‘Clinical effectiveness and clinical governance
made easy’. CRC Press.
Foronda, C., MacWilliams, B. & McArthur, E., 2016. ‘Interprofessional communication in
healthcare: an integrative review’. Nurse education in practice, vol.19, pp.36-40.
Masters, K., 2018. ‘Role development in professional nursing practice’. Jones & Bartlett
Learning.
Numminen, O., Ruoppa, E., Leino‐Kilpi, H., Isoaho, H., Hupli, M. &Meretoja, R., 2016.
‘Practice environment and its association with professional competence and work‐related
factors: perception of newly graduated nurses’. Journal of nursing management, vol. 24, no.
1, pp.E1-E11.
Pool, I.A., Poell, R.F., Berings, M.G. & ten Cate, O., 2015. ‘Strategies for continuing
professional development among younger, middle-aged, and older nurses: A biographical
approach’. International journal of nursing studies, vol. 52, no. 5, pp.939-950.