Nursing Career: A Reflection on Skills and Professional Growth

This essay reflects on the author's skills as a healthcare professional in midwifery, focusing on teamwork, communication, and decision-making. The author identifies strengths such as effective communication, problem-solving, and rapport-building, while also acknowledging areas for improvement, including evidence-based research skills and time management. The reflection explores the potential for future leadership roles and the threats posed by skill gaps, emphasizing the importance of continuous professional development to ensure quality patient care and career advancement. The essay concludes with a summary of strengths and weaknesses, highlighting the need for targeted development to become an expert midwife.

Running head: REFLECTION ASSIGNMENT
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Name of the student:
Name of the university:
Author note:

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Pregnancy and giving birth to the children are two of the major events in the life of every
woman as well as their family. The role of the midwives is to provide care for the woman
throughout their months of the pregnancy as well as during and after the birth of the child
(Boyle, Thomas & Brooks, 2016). They mainly act as the lead health professional for those
women whose pregnancies are seen to be uncomplicated. This assignment would mainly reflect
upon the skills that I have developed as the healthcare professionals in the midwifery domain. It
would also reflect the different types of skills that I need to develop so that I can provide the best
care to the patients who are under my vigilance.
One of the most important skills that every midwife needs to develop is effective
teamwork. Often midwives need to work as the part of team of the healthcare professionals like
experts including the GPs, social workers, and health visitors, technicians carrying out the
diagnostic tests of the patients, nursing professionals and many others (Madden et al., 2018).
Therefore, it becomes important for them to ensure that they have all the skills required to be an
effective team member. I have good teamwork skills. I tend to communicate with every
members of the team equally and do not have any biases towards each other in the team. I
prefer effective feedback exchange with the different team members. Researchers are of the
opinion that effective feedback sharing can help in developing a working climate among the
team that is not only transparent but also prevents development of any negative feelings against
each other (Aquino et al., 2016). I have good decision-making skills as well as problem solving
skills that help me to handle any difficult situation easily. My critical reasoning power and my
hold on the subject had helped me to solve many complex cases successfully. I have
persuasion as well as the influencing skills that often help my colleagues and me to come to a
solution that would be best for the patients. I also have the ability to build rapport with all the
members through effective communication and helping them in their crisis period or when they
are overburdened with work. Researchers are of the opinion that when the team members help
each other in crisis period or when individuals are overburdened, it would lead to development
of strong emotional bonds among the members (Feltham et al., 2016). This help to ensure best
work output by the entire team resulting in patient satisfaction. I also have proper
communication skills like effective feedback giving and taking skills, active listening skills and
many others. Not only in verbal communication, but also non-verbal communication skills like
ensuring empathy and compassion while communicating, allowing the patients to reveal their
concerns without being fidgety in my appearance, proper body language, proper eye contact
and many others. This helps in establishing a therapeutic relationship with the patient that
remains based mutual trust and respect. This helps in enhancing patient satisfaction.

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However, there are certain aspects that I believe that I need to develop to achieve
expertise in my skills. One of them is the searching of the evidence-based information from the
database of healthcare and nursing. I get very confused about searching for the databases and
therefore I fail to collect all the relevant papers that align with my query. Therefore, I fail to
provide the best care to the mothers that are based on the evidences and scientific
advancements in the healthcare fields. Researchers are of the opinion that professionals should
conduct evidence based research not only to learn about the modern advancements but also to
ensure that the care they are providing are of the best of its kind (Dowding & Barr, 2016).
Therefore, I need to develop such searching procedures and become more skilled in ensuring
that I conduct evidence-based practices. Another issue that I have is my improper time
management skills. Researchers are of the opinion that effective time management is very
important for midwives so that they can meet all the needs of the patient without making them
wait and also to cover all their commitments within time limits. Time management in an effective
manner ensures less stress, doing more work within allotted time, meeting deadlines, patient
satisfaction (Atkinson et al., 2017). This also helps in the more free time when the professionals
can relax or take time for them so that they can overcome their stress and feel rejuvenated. I
believe that effective time management helps in providing more opportunities and helps in
development of my reputation. I am not being able to manage my time effectively and therefore
there had been complaints that reported late medications, long waiting times, missed deadlines
and many others. Therefore, I need to develop my time manage skills.
I believe that I have the opportunity to be a leader in the future. I believe that my
exceptional communication skills would help me to motivate my subordinates to work beyond
their potentials and thereby not only to achieve their goals but would also help the organization
to fulfill its mission. I have active listening skills by which I would be able to listen to the
problems faced by others completely and then help them according to their needs. These active
listening skills would also enable me to understand their feedbacks and thereby implement their
suggestions. This would make the other midwives or others in the team feel that they are
respected and cared (McLauhin et al., 2016). My effective communication skills would also help
me to resolve any form of conflicts that arise among the subordinates and hence help in
maintaining smooth workflow. I can also be a trainer when I progress in my career, as I believe
that I have the skills to help the new professionals overcome their inabilities and thereby make
them skilled and knowledgeable and manage their barriers effectively.

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One of the threats that I might face is my growth in my career. I am not quite
skilled in searching evidences and therefore I cannot provide effective evidence based care to
the patients. The bioethical frameworks state that beneficence ensures that patients should be
given the safest and the best quality care that would ensure the best health of the patient. Not
following the evidence-based care might affect my care delivery and I might not be promoted
until I develop my skills and knowledge best on the recent advancements. This may threaten my
career progression and therefore I need to be more polished in the skill so that I can develop my
expertise and proceed forward in my career and be promoted to higher levels. Moreover, I also
do not have proper time management skills and therefore I might not be able to cover up all the
important work within the assigned deadlines. Therefore, this might affect the smooth workflow
of the organization and impact the teamwork or the planned schedules of other professionals as
well. The quality of the care provided to the patient would also be affected, as they might have
to wait while I would be completing my previous commitments. Moreover, often on a busy shift, I
might have to handle more number of patients with different problems on a busy shift and in this
case, effective time management is excessively important (Edquivst et al., 2017). I might not be
able to handle so many patients within the allocated time and this might affect the quality of care
that will affect the brand reputation of the healthcare center. This would affect my career as well.
From the above discussion, it can be seen that my communication skills and the team
working skills are my strength. This might give me an opportunity to be a leader or trainer in the
future. I have problems solving skills, decision-making skill and critical thinking skills that help
me to provide the best work output while working as the team. However, I am not expertise in
searching databases for evidence-based practices and I have poor time management skills. All
these can act as barriers in progression through my carer besides affecting the safety and
quality of the patient care as well as patient satisfaction. Therefore, I would need to work on
these skills to develop myself and be an expert midwife.
References:

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Aquino, M.R.J.R.V., Olander, E.K., Needle, J.J. & Bryar, R.M., (2016). Midwives’ and health
visitors’ collaborative relationships: A systematic review of qualitative and quantitative
studies. International journal of nursing studies, 62, pp.193-206.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijnurstu.2016.08.002
Atkinson, L., French, D.P., Ménage, D. & Olander, E.K., (2017). Midwives' experiences of
referring obese women to either a community or home-based antenatal weight
management service: Implications for service providers and midwifery
practice. Midwifery, 49, pp.102-109. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.midw.2016.10.006
Boyle, S., Thomas, H. & Brooks, F., (2016). Women׳ s views on partnership working with
midwives during pregnancy and childbirth. Midwifery, 32, pp.21-29.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.midw.2015.09.001
Dowding, L. & Barr, J., (2016). Managing in health care: a guide for nurses, midwives and
health visitors. Routledge. Retrieved from:
https://content.taylorfrancis.com/books/download?dac=C2013-0-23557-
6&isbn=9781317877493&format=googlePreviewPdf
Edqvist, M., Hildingsson, I., Mollberg, M., Lundgren, I. & Lindgren, H., (2017). Midwives’
Management during the Second Stage of Labor in Relation to Second‐Degree Tears—
An Experimental Study. Birth, 44(1), pp.86-94. https://doi.org/10.1111/birt.12267
Feltham, C., Foster, J., Davidson, T. & Ralph, S., (2016). Student midwives and paramedic
students' experiences of shared learning in pre-hospital childbirth. Nurse education
today, 41, pp.73-78. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nedt.2016.03.020
Madden, D., Sliney, A., O'friel, A., McMackin, B., O'callaghan, B., Casey, K., Courtney, L.,
Fleming, V. & Brady, V., (2018). Using action research to develop midwives’ skills to
support women with perinatal mental health needs. Journal of clinical nursing, 27(3-4),
pp.561-571. https://doi.org/10.1111/jocn.13908
McLaughlin, K., Kable, A., Ebert, L. & Murphy, V., (2016). Midwives׳ perception of their role in
providing antenatal asthma management in Australia–A qualitative study. Midwifery, 35,
pp.11-16. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.midw.2016.01.016

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