NMIH204: Reflective Essay on Nursing and Professional Practices

This essay reflects on a personal experience witnessing a building collapse and the subsequent response of emergency services and a local hospital. The author uses Gibbs' Reflective Cycle to analyze the event, focusing on the inadequate and slow response of the hospital staff, particularly the nurses. The reflection highlights feelings of anger and disappointment regarding the lack of empathy, preparedness, and efficient crisis management. The author questions the training and policies of the healthcare services and suggests improvements such as better crisis management, improved staff training, and a more empathetic approach to patient care. The essay also delves into the concept of uncertainty in healthcare and the need for better communication and management of uncertain situations.

Running Head: Nursing
Nursing Reflective Essay

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Reflective Essay
Nursing is an important component of healthcare sector; good nursing care is essential
for the speedy recovery of the patient as well that for his near and dear family. The
essay will highlight upon my personal encounter with a serious health issues which
made me realize that there are plethora of reforms necessary in the field of health
delivery for sustainability in the delivery of the services. The reflective essay here will
focus on the health care and will be deconstructed using the Gibbs 1998 reflective cycle
to help the understanding of self and alternate views. Towards the end, an action plan
will be suggested to push the envelope of professional health practices for self and
others according to the personal health care encounter.
The incident happened in the summers of 2014, I was in in my room playing Xbox.
Suddenly I heard a loud sound, it took my attention and I quickly ran out to see what
has happened. To my shock, I saw one of the buildings close to my house had collapsed;
it was a three story standalone building. I was absolutely shocked to see the huge pile of
dirt clouding the air and huge stones lying around the road. It was a situation of
mayhem, traffic jam, horns blowing at full sounds and people running here and there to
figure out what exactly happened. Amidst this entire crowd, I could figure out that there
were dozens of people who were buried in the debris of the fallen building, even from a
distance I could easily spot out 5-6 people, I was terrified to the very core and had no
idea what has to be done. I was just back from my college for my summer holidays; I
rushed to the road in a bid to help the needy. As I reached on the site of the incident, I
could see plenty of people have gathered around the site and were trying to remove the
debris to help the people. Somebody shouted to call the ambulance and medical
services, I quickly ran up the number of ambulance and also called emergency services
000 for additional help, in the meantime I was doing my bit to help the people.
To my utmost shock, the ambulance and emergency services came in about 40 mins, it
was an absolute shocker, although without wasting the time they started helping out the
people and taking them out from the ground underneath. I accompanied one of the
ambulances and went to the one of the hospital located in the nearby area. To my
surprise the hospital was not ready for such a situation; it was another situation of

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mayhem at the hospital. None of us knew what has to be done and who has to be
approached. On approaching the reception they said wait for some time as we don’t
have enough hands to support at the emergency room. I asked them If they could still
start with putting the patients on the bed and start cleaning them up with some glucose
and something and their reply was simply, please wait let us see what can be done in
this regard. I was utterly disappointed in the way such a tragic situation was being
handled; it made me not only angry but disappointed as to how the taxpayer’s money is
not being utilized to service them at the time of emergency.
Gibbs reflective cycle was created in the year 1988 by Professor Graham Gibbs and has
6 stages to explore and revisit the situation in depth with better understanding and
analysis of the situation(Hanson, McAllister, 2017).The 6 stages of Gibbs cycle are;
Description, feelings, evaluation, analysis, conclusion and Action plan, all these stages
help in careful evaluation of the situation to explore the situation in terms of it criticality
and help to prevent such situation to occur in the future(Howatson-Jones, 2016).
The building collapsed as the authorities were not careful enough to see the shabby
condition of the building, it was under a lot of wear and tear and I had often heard my
mom and dad saying that if steps are not taken the building could fall on the ground one
day. Seeing it actual happening in front of my eyes, I realized how right were they in
pointing out the obvious and how imbecile were the people to not see it coming.
However, reaching on the site I realized its absolute mayhem and it is our joint
responsibility to help the people and need. After trying to do my bit I called 000 the
emergency services and also the ambulance to come for help in the area, it took them 40
minutes to reach the site. On reaching the hospital I saw that the hospital was in
equipped to handle the emergency, the staff was incompetent to first understand the
situation and then to help the people in need, and lastly the people were extremely slow
and were just asking us to be patient. I saw couple of nurses sitting at the nurse station
just chit chatting and laughing among them, I did not find a single expression of care and
empathy towards ones state of affairs. It took the staff another 30-45 minutes.
My feeling were an accumulation of remorse for the victims, helplessness for myself as I
was unable to help them and anger towards the hospital, the nurses and the
management of the hospital. I was filled with rage looking at their inability to

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understand the situation and engage us with paperwork formalities while they were
sitting and evaluating for the options as to how they can help the victims. It seemed they
were not given a proper training to manage the crisis and the hospital lacked the basic
hospitality to be extended to the victims. The nurse seemed incompetent to handle the
situation and it made me feel how they could put the lives of people in danger by
recruiting such unqualified that lacked basic skills such as empathy, care, warmth,
emergency medicine and treatment. I was angry and my actions were guided my anger
and I was trying to reason it out with the hospital to at least help few people until and
unless they get additional help. I was furiated with the nursing staff who were sitting at
their station chit chatting and busy on their systems.
Everything regarding my first hospital experience was pathetic and I would practically
wish that no one envisions what I saw, so that they can sleep in peace knowing that the
hospital is the place where a good care is ensured. The nursing staffs was bad, the
inability to handle the victims was bad, the insufficiency of the beds or required number
of staff was another bad point, the worst was the rude way in which the nursing staff
was talking to me. They were asking me if I had a relative and when I said no, they asked
me to have a glass of water and sit back, and they are doing whatever they can in the
best of their abilities. It is the worst kind of assurance that one could give to someone. I
was completely disappointed and on the verge of losing my faith in the noble profession
of health care practices.
The experience stuck hard in my head, it was such an experience which made me
question the ability and the professionalism of the health care services extended by
health care services. It made me realizes the importance of crisis management in health
care services and how important it is to ensure that there are sufficient number of
people always present me the hospital to take care of any unforeseen tragic incident. It
also made me question as to what kind of training is being provided to the nursing staff,
what are the policies and practices followed at the hospital to tackle such difficult and
challenging situation. I thus realized that the current state of health services is not
something worth being proud of; it gave me chill down my spine realizing that I could
have been one of the victims.

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I learnt that there is tremendous scope of improvement the way healthcare and nursing
services are being handled and wide scope of training for the nursing staff and people
employed at the hospital. I learnt that it really does take a “human” to understand the
plight of a “human”, and not some professionals who are just working for their daily
bread and butter. I also learnt that an efficient and effective healthcare services with
competent nursing staff Is an asset to not only the hospital but also for the nearby
locality (Tanaka, Okamoto & Koide, 2018). The situation certainly made me learn that it
is extremely essential for the nurse staff to be at least warm and empathetic even if the
hospital is not equipped to help, they can extend warmth and assurance by their small
deeds which would make a person feel better by knowing that he is in safe hands.
The entire evaluation of the experience of the healthcare services and the nursing staff
made me question myself, as to what could I have done provided I would have been in
the position of nursing staff. I would have certainly did at least 200% more than what
the staff at the hospital did, I would have ensured that I do my bit and push people to go
beyond their limits and help the people in dire need of medical help. I would have taken
a bunch of nurses who were sitting at their workstation with water to quench their
thirst, sanitizer and disinfectant to clean up their wounds. Moreover, I would have
ensured that I go up to every person and would have assured them that they are in safe
hands and we would do everything to take good care of them, and there is literally
nothing to worry. I am of the opinion that people in the hospital would have come for
help seeing me do my bit, they would get the motivation and spirit to help the people,
thus changing the entire situation and turning it in favour for the victims (Johansen &
O’Brien, 2016).
Uncertainty is pervasive and motivates every aspect related to the health care, at one of
the most fundament level, it is uncertainty of one form which aids the medical research,
prompts patients to seek care and stimulates medical intervention (Shaban, 2015).
Moreover due to the recent trends and events, there has been lot of uncertainty in the
healthcare. Despite the increasing visibility and prevailing importance of uncertainty in
the healthcare, there is a lot of confusion and limited understanding no how to tackle
certain issues (Ahn, 2017). There has been empirical evidence that a little is known
about how to communicate uncertainty with the public and patients, and also to help
clinicians and patients deal with the concept of uncertainty (Alligood, 2017).

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Uncertainty in the healthcare in terms of illness has been categorised into 4 categories-
ambiguity-patients self-evaluate the disease or illness which is highly vague and unclear
in nature, complexity arises from the perception about the treatment and the
understanding of care, deficient information is concerned with inadequate information
for the cure and unpredictability in the absence of stability of the patients (Komatsu &
Yagasaki, 2014). The ultimate challenge at the hand of development of future clinical
practices are to review and understand more precisely how to cope up with the
mechanism of uncertainty to lay down standard set of rules to deal with it. It becomes
very important to match up to the expectation of the customers in care from the nursing
staff, more so when the situation is based on contingency, the bottom line here is to be
prepared for any kind of uncertainty in the future and extend the best of the services
without wasting even a minute(Smith, Liehr, 2018).
In regards to developing policy in terms of health care, it is required to cover all the
possible grounds of uncertainty and then work backwards to create a strategy to deal
with the challenge. Another important aspect of uncertainty is to keep a crisis
management team in place, so that their expertise can be used in the time of crisis as
they are better adept to such situation. This will not only help in pushing the practice of
healthcare and nursing services but would also be of great help in mitigating
uncertainty from the most noble profession on planet earth(Cypress, 2017).
There are a plethora of actions which can certainly help to enhance the professional
health practices of self and others in the purview of the reflection described above. The
first and foremost is assessing the health needs of the individual for providing people
with knowledge and information to take care of their health. Nurses have to build
capacity in the field of health promotion through an environment of learning and
development. This will certainly help them in not only become better at their jobs, but
also to provide better care to the patients. It is required that the nursing staff
themselves should take initiative in evaluating the health promotion activities; this will
ensure the effectiveness of the program and would also help them to identify the gaps in
the current practices of the staff. This would also ensure that the practices of the
nursing staff are directed towards continuous improvement and enhanced learning
which is a win-win both for the patient and the nurses. It is the duty of the nurse staff to
advocate the spirit of good healthcare practices at the community level; they should

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take steps at the social and the political level to promote health of the population at
large (Bailey & Stewart, 2017). Towards the end, what is required is to give assurance to
the patients who are fighting for their lives, or suffering from any illness or have been in
an accident, it is the responsibility and duty of the nurses to make them understand that
the staff is efficient and is working towards their well-being. Few words of empathy and
assurance will settle down with the patient and they would instantly trust the nurse and
be more cooperative in their further treatment and diagnosis.
To conclude the essay, the experience I witnessed at the Hospital was one of its kinds
and it certainly alarmed me of the tremendous scope of improvement required in the
field of healthcare. It made me realize that there will be times when the nurses or the
staff or the hospital will not be equipped to take good care of patients, but what will
never change is the ability to help the people in need. Nurses and the healthcare staff
has to work towards doing away with the uncertainty in the healthcare services, it is
only then, the envelope of healthcare services will defined improve for the people. It
would also ensure a relationship which is based on trust and respect. It becomes very
essential to have a crisis management team at the healthcare facilities who is more
adept to better assess the situation and work towards the well-being of the people.

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References
Ahn, J.W., 2017. This study aimed to construct and test a hypothetical model including
factors related to the cultural competence of nurses caring for foreign patients. The
transcultural nursing immersion experience model and anxiety/uncertainty
management theory were used to verify the paths between the variables. The
exogenous variables were multicultural experience, ethnocentric attitude, and
organizational cultural... Asian Nursing Research, 11(1), pp.65-73.
Alligood, M.R., 2017. Nursing Theorists and Their Work-E-Book. Elsevier Health Sciences.
Bailey Jr, D.E. and Stewart, J.L., 2017. Uncertainty in illness theory. Nursing Theorists and
Their Work-E-Book, p.447.
Cypress, B.S., 2016. Understanding Uncertainty Among Critically Ill Patients in the
Intensive Care Unit Using Mishel’s Theory of Uncertainty of Illness. Dimensions of
Critical Care Nursing, 35(1), pp.42-49.
Hanson, J. and McAllister, M., 2017. 'Hearing students into speech': A critical exploration
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Howatson-Jones, L., 2016. Reflective practice in nursing. Learning Matters.
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Komatsu, H. and Yagasaki, K., 2014. The power of nursing: guiding patients through a
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Shaban, R., 2015. Theories of clinical judgment and decision-making: a review of the
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Smith, M.J. and Liehr, P.R. eds., 2018. Middle range theory for nursing. Springer
Publishing Company.
Tanaka, M., Okamoto, R. and Koide, K., 2018. Relationship between Reflective Practice
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