Clinical Practice Reflection: A Nursing Student's Learning Journey

This journal entry reflects on a nursing student's experience in a healthcare setting, focusing on medication administration. The student discusses administering oral antibiotics to adults and observes peers administering intramuscular and subcutaneous injections, noting the importance of the five rights of medication administration but also shortcomings in allergy checks. The student reflects on the broader aspects of medication administration, including dosage assessment, medication selection, timing, patient care, and understanding patient psychology. The experience underscores the need for heightened skills in injection practices and emphasizes the significance of patient medical history and potential adverse effects. The student acknowledges initial fears and the high-risk nature of medication administration, highlighting the importance of concentration and patient safety. Clinical learning is deemed essential for preparing future healthcare workers. The student expresses a desire for more experience with injections and pediatric care. The action plan includes improving disease detection skills through further study and practical engagement to overcome confusions and enhance patient care, aiming for improved patient assessment, illness detection, and accurate dosage administration within the next few months. Desklib provides access to similar solved assignments for students.

Running Head: REFLECTION OF CLINICAL PRACTICE
Reflection of Clinical Practice
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1REFLECTION OF CLINICAL PRACTICE
Description
In the course of our nursing study, all the students were taken to a healthcare center for
gaining practical knowledge on clinical practices. We were supposed to use our own knowledge
and critical thinking capabilities regarding which medication to provide to the patient. I chose to
give oral antibiotics to adults which was a great experience for me whereas one student properly
gave medicine via intramuscular injection and another student poorly applied the subcutaneous
injection .The positive part was they knew the five writes of medication and the negative part
was they did not check any allergy propensity of subcutaneous injection.
Feeling
These learning experiences have made me feel that the act of administering a medication
is just a little part of the professional job in the medication administration procedure. There are
other critical roles such as situations needing assessment of dosage, selection of medications,
timing, extensive care, understanding the psychology of the patient and many other aspects are
interrelated (Papathanasiou, Tsaras & Sarafis, 2014). Apart from the oral administration of
medications, the administration of intramuscular and subcutaneous injections requires the nurse
to be aware of the patient’s medical history, preferences, allergies, adverse effects and others
(Nasca, Weiss & Bagian, 2014). In a nutshell, if the oral process need extra care and deeper
insight, the injection practice needs higher skills of administration.
Evaluation
The best part of the experience is that, through this practical application of our
knowledge and study, we will be able to become better healthcare workers and smooth

2REFLECTION OF CLINICAL PRACTICE
administrators of medications. After this we will be able to assess the moods of the patients and
provide care according to that. The patient safety factors will be better understood and safety
measures will also be learnt to use properly. It was a bit risky and we feared of causing harm to
the patients because we were doing it for the first time practically. The administration of
medication requires excessive concentration and the risk factors are extremely high (Middleton,
Grimley & Alexandrov, 2015).
Description
Clinical learning is an essential part of nursing education. In clinical learning students are
prepared for the future clinical work. It occurs best in critical practical environment rather than in
the classroom (Häggman-Laitila, Mattila & Melender, 2016). The most important factor in
clinical learning is the superiority of clinical education. Lack of appropriate tools to measure the
environment has affected my clinical learning experience. A prolonged time with the patients
and involvement in some other clinical tasks could have enriched my clinical experiences more.
Conclusion
It would be helpful if I could have engaged into the administration of medications via
injections too. I had an interest of trying those skills too. Apart from providing oral medications
to adults, I would love to visit the child section and spend some hours of my day observing their
problems with care and provide proper medications to them.
Action Plan
In future, I am going to improve on my disease detection skills by studying more medical
books and journals suggested by my instructor. I have understood that the detection of the

3REFLECTION OF CLINICAL PRACTICE
disease is the most crucial work in the clinical practice. There is a high chance of applying wrong
medication on the patient without accurately recognizing the health condition. I will engage
myself in a practical medical learning process and expect to do away with the confusions that I
faced in the last healthcare center I visited. I hope to acquire more knowledge within the next 3 -
4 months on how to check the patient, how to detect the illness and how to give perfect dosage to
medicines to the patients

4REFLECTION OF CLINICAL PRACTICE
Reference
Häggman-Laitila, A., Mattila, L. R., & Melender, H. L. (2016). Educational interventions on
evidence-based nursing in clinical practice: a systematic review with qualitative
analysis. Nurse education today, 43, 50-59. DOI: 10.1016/j.nedt.2016.04.023
Papathanasiou, I. V., Tsaras, K., & Sarafis, P. (2014). Views and perceptions of nursing students
on their clinical learning environment: teaching and learning. Nurse education
today, 34(1), 57-60. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.nedt.2013.02.007
Nasca, T. J., Weiss, K. B., & Bagian, J. P. (2014). Improving clinical learning
environments for tomorrow's physicians. New England Journal of Medicine, 370(11),
991-993. Retrieved from -
https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/9537/c62f290000a2990030fe8d7310d41d7f0583.pdf
Middleton, S., Grimley, R., & Alexandrov, A. W. (2015). Triage, treatment, and transfer:
evidence-based clinical practice recommendations and models of nursing care for the first
72 hours of admission to hospital for acute stroke. Stroke, 46(2), e18-e25.
DOI:10.1161/STROKEAHA.114.006139