Nursing Reflection Essay: Therapeutic and Professional Relationships

This essay provides a reflection on the second nursing standard, focusing on the importance of forming therapeutic and professional relationships with patients in clinical practice. Using Gibb's reflective framework, the essay describes how a practitioner engages with a patient, establishing boundaries and fostering a clinical relationship to achieve desired outcomes. It discusses the feelings and initial thoughts regarding the interaction, evaluating the benefits of applying the standard in healthcare. The analysis highlights the role of communication in upholding patient dignity and rights, ultimately improving the care process. The conclusion emphasizes the significance of professionalism and continuous improvement through training to enhance communication and therapeutic relationship formation, leading to increased patient satisfaction and reduced errors. Desklib provides this essay as a resource for students, offering access to similar solved assignments and past papers.

Running head: NURSING REFLECTION
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Nursing Reflection
Student’s Name
University

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Introduction
The registered nurse standards for practice defines how nursing practitioners in Australia need to
engage with patients within the field of practice to achieve the required clinical outcomes. Since
the practitioners are accountable for the license that they are given by the board, then every
practitioner responsible for the way they conduct themselves within the field of practice (Ware,
2017). The board has established a set of standards that practitioners need to engage in to ensure
that they meet the established needs of patient. Australia is a country with a mixture of different
patient profiles which means that the practitioner needs to exercise the highest level of
professionalism to achieve the desired patient outcomes. This essay reflects on the second
nursing standard using the Gibb’s reflection framework.
Description
From the video, the practitioner is seen engaging with the second standard of nursing practice
through forming therapeutic and professional relationships with the patient. These relationships
are important in clinical practice since they assist both the practitioner and the patient to develop
a clinical relationship that helps in achieving the required outcomes (Hawamdeh & Fakhry,
2014). By greeting the patient with his name and informing him of the activities that are to take
place in the room, the practitioner is establishing and sustaining relationships by defining
professional and personal boundaries. This is seen in the kind of questions that he asks the
patient and how he responds to the questions that the practitioner asks. This assists the two to
connect in professional way that defines the boundaries that exist between them. As the two
engage each other in the process, a strong bind develops between the two allowing the
practitioner to get cooperation from the patient on every process since the patient feels

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accommodated by the practitioner. (Feo, Rasmussen, Wiechula, Conroy, & Kitson, 2016)The
characteristics of therapeutic relationships are seen in empathy where the practitioner asks the
patient how he has been doing and genuineness where the patient is informed why the vital signs
are being tested. Further, care and warmth is seen in the whole process when the practitioner asks
the patient how long he has been on the clinical process and assures him that all is well and on
the healing process. By communicating effectively with the patient through a way that respects
dignity, values and rights, the practitioner ensures that the rights of the patient are protected but
at the same time seeks to achieve the clinical reason why the patient is in the room. The
formation of therapeutic and professional relationship is thus a strategy that practitioners use to
engage patients at a personal level to achieve the desired outcomes.
Feelings
For the practitioner to achieve the intended results, there was need to approach the patient
professionally by establishing a therapeutic relationship that improves the engagement that the
two have. Initially I thought the nurse will have difficulties interacting with the patient and
forming rapport which will have challenged the whole process. However, tailoring therapeutic
and professional relationship formation strategies with communication skills made it easy for the
practitioner to penetrate the world of the patient and form a strong bond that continued being
cemented as the two engaged each other throughout the whole process (Moreno-Poyato, et al.,
2017). The practitioner seemed to be prepared for the whole process and had a strategy of
engaging the patient from the beginning. By calling the patient by his name when initiating the
first contact, the practitioner ensures that he wins the personality of the patient regardless of the
background that they come from. This makes it easy for the whole process since the two engage

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each other in a way that meets professional needs. Communication is also seen as a clinical tool
that the practitioner uses to engage and interact with the patient by all means.
Evaluation
The video is a good experience for an aspiring practitioner to understand how the second
standard of practice can be applied in the care process. By learning the requirements of this
standards, the practitioner seems to enjoy his profession since it is easy for him to engage the
patient and form relationships that yield the expected results (Boctor, 2014). Since practitioners
spend years of training before being licensed to work, then they need to account for the licenses
given by the board through applying the right professional requirements in the organization
(Kelley, Kraft-Todd, Schapira, Kossowsky, & Riess, 2014). What I liked about the experience
was the fact that the standard was designed to serve its purpose in healthcare which is offering
guidelines that define the way practitioners engage patients. When the practitioner applies the
standards and its requirements, the whole care process runs smoothly since a relationship has
been formed between the two. As they continue engaging each other, the practitioner enjoys the
benefits of applying the care process by cementing the relationship and observing both
therapeutic and professional boundaries when engaging the patient which leads to the required
clinical outcomes.
Analysis
From the case, the second standard plays an important role in clinical settings since it guides the
way the practitioner engages the patient. Through formation of professional and therapeutic
relationships, the practitioner strives to achieve the best care process that accommodates the
patient but yields the desired clinical outcomes. (Lees, Procter, & Fassett, 2014)Communication

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is used as a tool for collecting information from the patient since it allows the professional to
penetrate the world of the patient through questioning and ensuring that needs of the patient are
met. Through communication the patient’s dignity, culture and rights are upheld thus making
him feel accommodated thus increasing the response to the care process which leads to meeting
the expected results.
Conclusion
Professionalism is an important tool in all clinical processes since it defines how to engage the
patients. Australia is a cosmopolitan place where patients come from different backgrounds thus
the need for the practitioners to arm themselves with the required communication tools for
approaching the diverse issues that patients present. From the case, I have discovered that
forming therapeutic and professional relationships plays a role in achieving the intended clinical
outcomes. By knowing how to approach patients and way of forming therapeutic relationships,
the practitioner communicates with the patient in a way that yields the required clinical outcomes
and improves the care process. By working on this processes and perfecting on how they can be
applied in different care settings, the nursing standards prove relevant to the professional world
of every practitioner by guiding the way they work patients (Morton, Brekhus, Reynolds, &
Dykes, 2014).
Action plan
To improve future care processes, I need to work on both communication and therapeutic
relationship formation. Communication is a clinical tool that connects the practitioner with the
patient and other professionals within the healthcare system. The outcome is improved care
process, satisfied patients and sometimes reduced errors which lead to increased patient

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satisfaction. Kornhaber, Walsh, Duff, & Walker (2016) suggest training as a way of improving
clinical abilities of the practitioner and improving the clinical outcomes of the process. This is
through improving self-awareness, self-knowledge, empathy and awareness of boundaries or
limits when engaging with the patient. These strategies form the way I will be engaging with
patients and define the level of professionalism that I will apply. Henderson (2014) suggests that
training and development equips the practitioner with the prerequisite skills and keeps them
updated with the changes in the industry. Like any other field, the nursing field is undergoing
developments that practitioners need to update themselves with through training. This is the role
of the practitioner and the institution I ensuring that the right tools of trade have been put in place
and that the nurse is equipped with the desired knowledge for clinical practice.

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References
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Feo, R., Rasmussen, P., Wiechula, R., Conroy, T., & Kitson, A. (2016). Developing effective
and caring nurse-patient relationships. Nursing Standards, 31(28), 54-63.
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perspectives: An interpretative phenomenological study. Perspective Psychiatry Care,
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Henderson, K. (2014). The importance of the therapeutic relationship in improving the patient's
experience in the in‐patient setting. International Jopurnal of Mental Health Nirsing,
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Kelley, J. M., Kraft-Todd, G., Schapira, L., Kossowsky, J., & Riess, H. (2014). The Influence of
the Patient-Clinician Relationship on Healthcare Outcomes: A Systematic Review and
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