Reflective Journal: Nursing Module 1 - Patient Perspective Analysis

This nursing reflective assignment analyzes a patient's experience with colon cancer, as documented on the Colon Cancer Coalition blog, using the 5 R's reflective model (Reporting, Responding, Relating, Reasoning, Reconstructing). The student reflects on the patient's journey, particularly focusing on the impact of positivity and mental strength during illness. The assignment explores how the patient's story influenced the student's perspective on patient care, emphasizing the importance of hope, influencing patients, and providing them with knowledge to empower them in their healthcare journey. The student aims to incorporate these insights into future practice to improve patient outcomes, especially in a surgical ward setting.

Running head: NURSING ASSIGNMENT
REFLECTIVE ASSIGNMENT
Name of the student
Name of the university
Author note

1NURSING ASSIGNMENT
Illness or disease is a condition in which, individuals suffer from physical, mental and
emotional crisis and their normal life activities are altered (Forouzi et al., 2017). Despite the
fact that certain illness shows typical signs and symptoms in every person affected with that
illness, they perceive illness and diseases differently and hence, the affect and severity of the
disease condition depends upon the ability of the person struggling with it (Feingold, Murray
& Keefer, 2019). While going through one such suffering and survival stories over the Colon
Cancer Coalition (2019), I came to know about the perspective of Shayee Dunn, who posted
her struggle, journey and survival stories on her blog. I will be used the 5 R’s reflective
model to mention the way this post helped me to modify my thoughts and perspectives.
Reporting
While researching about the perspective of patients while going thorugh critical health
conditions, I came across the blogging website Colon Cancer Coalition, in which several
survivors or strugglers mentioned about their journey of struggling with this health condition
(Colon Cancer Coalition, 2019). However, the story of Shayee Dunn was inspirational as her
fight with the cancer and mentioned each of her hurdles and limitations in fighting with this
disease condition. She knew the fact that she would become inspiration for others if she
continues to accept the pain and continues with her medications (Colon Cancer Coalition,
2019). Her description of pain, her inspirational communications with God and her influence
on the society with her website “proud survivor” affected my thought process and changed
my perspective as a healthcare professional that it is important for the nursing professionals
to influence patients so that they could fight with their illness effectively.
Responding
As per Coyle and Atkinson (2018), while suffering from critical healthcare
conditions, majority of the patients loses their mental strength, becomes mentally weak and

2NURSING ASSIGNMENT
hence, this weakness increases their complexity of health condition. However, the primary
strength that Shayee Dunn showed while struggling with her cancer condition was her
positive attitude and her ability to stay strong in critical chemotherapeutic conditions. Starting
from her diagnosis of colon cancer, developing artwork by Shayee Dunn during her
chemotherapeutic sessions, her adverse conditions, and struggle with interventions indicated
that she was positive about her healthcare treatment. These aspects made me think that
medication is not the only aspect which is important for health and wellbeing of patients
while undergoing critical treatments, but they also need to be positive and hopeful about their
treatment. Forouzi et al. (2017) mentioned that positivity and mental strength helps to boost
and influence the patient to follow the intervention instructions and hence, this incident
helped me to believe the importance of it. This also filled me with positivity and strength and
made me believe the importance of positivity in healthcare process.
Relating
As per Prip et al. (2018), when patients undergo critical health conditions, they tend to
be trapped with negativity and hopelessness as they are unaware of the medical conditions or
are unable to understand the healthcare interventions. My personal understanding allowed me
to develop a therapeutic relationship with my patients, however I was unaware of the fact that
positivity and hope could make patients strong enough that they can influence others to fight
with their health conditions (Feingold, Murray & Keefer, 2019). This personal struggle story
helped me to understand the importance of it.
Reasoning
Patients that are unaware of the medical terms and completely dependent on the
nursing professionals and healthcare professionals for their health literacy are always
skeptical or confused regarding their care process (Koenig Kellas et al., 2017). However, if

3NURSING ASSIGNMENT
patients are made aware of their conditions and are provided with hope and knowledge, then
they become effectively strong and hopeful for their care process. This was also observed for
the case of Shayee Dunn. Her two round of chemotherapy, her ability to influence others, her
positivity in critical conditions changed my thought about importance of hope in care process
of patients (Feingold, Murray & Keefer, 2019).
Reconstructing
This situation analysis and retrospection helped me to develop a future action plan so
that I could implement these critical aspects while caring for my patients. I would be
spreading positivity and hope to my patients by making them aware of their health and the
struggle stories of other patients so that hope and positivity could be provided to each of the
patients. Further, this would help me to develop my understanding of professional practice.

4NURSING ASSIGNMENT
References
Colon Cancer Coalition. (2019). Survivor Story: Shaye Dunn | Colon Cancer Coalition.
Retrieved 6 August 2019, from https://coloncancercoalition.org/2014/04/03/survivor-
story-shaye-dunn/
Coyle, L. A., & Atkinson, S. (2018). Imagined futures in living with multiple conditions:
Positivity, relationality and hopelessness. Social Science & Medicine, 198, 53-60.
Feingold, J., Murray, H. B., & Keefer, L. (2019). Recent Advances in Cognitive Behavioral
Therapy For Digestive Disorders and the Role of Applied Positive Psychology Across
the Spectrum of GI Care. Journal of clinical gastroenterology, 53(7), 477-485.
Forouzi, M. A., Tirgari, B., Safarizadeh, M. H., & Jahani, Y. (2017). Spiritual needs and
quality of life of patients with cancer. Indian journal of palliative care, 23(4), 437.
Koenig Kellas, J., Castle, K., Johnson, A., & Cohen, M. (2017). Communicatively
constructing the bright and dark sides of hope: family caregivers’ experiences during
end of life cancer care. Behavioral sciences, 7(2), 33.
Prip, A., Møller, K. A., Nielsen, D. L., Jarden, M., Olsen, M. H., & Danielsen, A. K. (2018).
The Patient–Healthcare Professional Relationship and Communication in the
Oncology Outpatient Setting: A Systematic Review. Cancer nursing, 41(5), E11.