Nursing Standards Analysis: Transition to Professional Practice Report

This report examines the transition to professional nursing, focusing on two key AHPRA Registered Nurse Standards of Practice: Standard 1 (critical thinking and analysis) and Standard 6 (safe and responsive quality nursing practice). The report emphasizes the importance of critical thinking in clinical settings, providing examples from the author's undergraduate nursing experiences. The author describes a situation involving a patient with post-amputation pain and details how critical thinking led to an effective solution. The report also discusses the significance of Standard 6, emphasizing the need for safe, appropriate, and responsive nursing practice. Another clinical experience is described where challenges in patient care and medication management are highlighted, underscoring the importance of planning and prioritization. The report concludes with action plans for future practice, emphasizing interprofessional collaboration and improved delivery of care. The author reflects on personal strengths and weaknesses, highlighting the importance of empathy, compassion, and effective time management in providing quality patient care. The report references several scholarly articles to support the analysis and recommendations.

Running head: TRANSITION TO PROFESSIONAL NURSING 1
Transition to Professional Nursing
Student’s Name
Institutional Affiliation

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Relevance and importance of the standards they choose reflecting on experiences from
your undergraduate nursing clinical practice experiences and your imminent role
registered nurse.
The two AHPRA Registered Nurse Standard of Practice selected are Standard 1 and
Standard 6 that Registered Nurses think critically and analyses nursing practice and provides
safe, appropriate and responsive quality nursing practice (Birks, Davis, Smithson & Cant, 2016).
There is more to being a nurse than just possessing good clinical skills. Being able to think
critically helps Registered Nurses reach patient’s needs within their setting of unreliability
considering options ensuing in greater health care standard, think meditatively not just receiving
pronouncements and executing errands with no remarkable discernment along with assessment.
Critical thinking insinuates that one possesses proficiency base from which to intellectualize
together with the capability to scrutinize and assess proof. Registered Nurses should evolve the
personality and comparative expertise that help them realize and comprehend the needs and
concerns of their patients (Bucknall et al., 2016). This needs an accurate interpretation of
patient’s information which is relevant to the particular patient and situation.
Registered Nurses think about the world and the content of nursing including theories,
concepts, and ideas in nursing. To think critically, Registered Nurses need to be clear, fair,
precise, accurate, logical and complete (Naber & Wyatt, 2014). For nurses to think about the care
of patients, they have to get rid of illogical and irrelevant thinking. Critical thinking process
involves spotting an issue, ascertaining the prime resolution along with selecting the best
effectual technique. For instance, when a Registered Nurse inevitably experiences a situation in

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which there are several treatments or solutions and are tasked with determining the best potential
result for the patient. In this case, they must swiftly and assuredly evaluate the situation and
generate a prime decision in every distinctive situation. Therefore, to make the best choice in
these situations, it requires critical thinking skills (Johansen & O'brien, 2016).
Importance of Standard 1.
Critical thinking in analyzing nursing practice is a vital process for the safe, efficient and
skillful nursing practice. Registered Nurses with critical thinking skills can monitor complex
patient situations, prioritize workflows or tasks as new information emerges, remain calm,
focused and functional under intense pressure and time constraints. Moreover, they can pick up
on subtle changes in patient’s vitals, quickly change trajectory to address the most crucial
requirements of a patient and evaluate lab results together with other incoming medical
information. The standard is also essential because Registered Nurses can identify, document and
accurately communicate relevant information to colleagues, physicians as well as other health
care providers to deliver continuity of care (Clynch & Kellett, 2015). Also, they can maintain
open and frequent communication with family members, patient, and coworkers.
My undergraduate nursing clinical experience.
Description:
I encountered a complicated situation in a ward where my patient was admitted and had
a right leg amputated above the knee. The patient was on a Dilaudid PCA but was still
complaining of awful pain. He maxed it out every time saying that the pain was becoming so
horrible and even when the doctor came and complaint the same he gave him oral opioids and
wrote an order that I should give him oral and PCA dosing to reduce the pain.

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Feelings:
I was moved by the patient’s struggles of pain by putting myself in his shoes when he
continually requested more medications, and I asked him to describe the pain. The description
was of a nerve pain that was burning profoundly and tingling, and I thought of the pain being
similar to that of my patients with diabetics with neuropathy and remembered that they were
taking gabapentin for pain every day. I then went to PA for the surgeon and asked them what
they thought of trying gabapentin for his pain after describing my patient's type of pain, and they
recommended my idea. They wrote an order for the medication and when the patient took it his
pain significantly reduced and I felt relieved that he was no longer in pains.
Evaluation:
This encounter was positive since the pain subsided after taking gabapentin and I would
prefer identifying the problem first in my next practice before administering any painkiller so
that the condition does not become worse than before.
Analysis:
The experience is integrated with the standard since I was able to think critically and
provide a solution that was successful which was not possible in my earlier practices. I was
confident after the experience that I could offer assistance to patients after being aware of their
problems.
Conclusion:
I learnt that not any painkiller that could abate pain but the type of pain should be
identified at first to take the correct precautions so that patients do not suffer too much. I

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identified some strength of empathy and compassion in me that I could feel my patient’s pain
and not hesitate to relieve them.
Action plan:
My priorities for my future practice would be interprofessional collaboration which
would help doctors and nurses to work together in delivering the highest quality care and also
foster respect along with trust among them (Redmond, 2017).
Registered Nurses provide safe, appropriate and responsive quality nursing practice to
their clients (Wassenaar, van den Boogaard, van der Hooft, Pickkers & Schoonhoven, 2015). In
that case, they coordinate, distribute and utilize resources which are within their reach to
appropriately and responsibly advance their nursing practice with the help of technology. This
practice has been made possible by the advanced technology in which patients are monitored
through wireless chips and sensors integrated into the blankets, mattress pads and into the beds to
check and report back on the movement and blood pressure of the patient. Moreover, they
acknowledge, intervene and say near misses or unfortunate incidences that can put the safety of
their patient at peril (Archer et al., 2017). The role of Registered Nurses comprises of showing
conduct that professionally upholds the public trust together with practicing reasonable judgment
and seeking the correct assistance.
Importance of Standard 6.
This standard has been essential since it provides a general safe along with quality
nursing practice so that the agreed target is met together with the result that is responsive to the
nursing requirements of a person. Furthermore, it shows sensitivity, awareness, and
responsiveness to diversity comprising of environmental, cultural and impact of the family’s

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community. It also assists families to identify the needs of a client considering their growth and
development, health and wellness. In that case, they enable families to give responsive and
sensitive parenting, developing parenting capacity and developing protective factors along with
building resilience. Registered Nurses develop and deliver health care messages along with
enhancing parenting groups to advance social networks, social support, and health literacy via
the health literacy evaluations of family members (Wiener, Weaver, Bell & Sansom-Daly, 2015).
The standard has been vital in the sense that it involves multidisciplinary teams and
community associates to build the social capital of the community together with sustaining and
developing the health of the family. Registered Nurses explore and challenge the attitude and
conduct of some of the client's family members that are not conducive to the health of the patient
together with those that can be harmful. They contribute to safe and high-quality healthcare by
monitoring the patient's health status, providing education and support to both the client and the
family together with supervising other nursing teams (Carlsson, Carlsson, Prenkert &
Svantesson, 2016). The public understands the role of nurses being an emotionally and
physically demanding although they view the work as providing care as ordered and delivering
emotional and physical comfort to patients and their families. All healthcare organizations
monitor what their clients encounter so that they can be able to evaluate and improve the quality
of care they deliver (Wang, Kung & Byrd, 2018).
My undergraduate nursing clinical experience.
Description:
One day we had an extra patient because there were few nurses and I happened to have a
patient who was dying who had just come from the emergency ward and another patient had

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difficulties in breathing. I was trying to spend time with the one who was dying and also for the
one with breathing problems together with their families. Suddenly, the patient with breathing
problems started to be choky, anxious and I had to go and set the suction up and keep reassuring
her. After doing some rounds I decided to go back to the dying patient when he requested for
painkillers. I went to check with the medication nurse and in the medication room I found that
the pharmacy had not completed the unit stocking and the medication nurse had to get the most
needed medication in the pharmacy. I started preparing the pain medication and due to the many
questions by the floating registered nurses it took time to get back to the patient where I found
his family disappointed and requested to speak with the head nurse.
Feelings:
For not making my patients along with their families happy I felt that I had failed them
and they would no longer have trust in me. Personally, I thought maybe I was not competence
enough to deliver to patients the safe and quality care they deserve.
Evaluation:
I had difficulties in satisfying my patients since I did not have enough time to spend with
them and I would make sure that all medications are available anytime a patient is in need of
them to avoid the same mistake in near future.
Analysis:
My contribution to this encounter was negative and I was not confident in it because it
was not helping a lot for I had to leave a patient in need to attend to another patient. I should
have assessed my patients on arrival and identify the immediate action to be taken without delay.

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Conclusion:
I learnt that planning was vital in my practice to know what needs to be accomplished
first to avoid the complications in my next practice. I was able to identify personal weakness of
long-term planning in multitasking.
Action plan:
From my encounter, I would prioritize delivery of care in my future practice to improve
in my practice.

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References
Archer, S., Hull, L., Soukup, T., Mayer, E., Athanasiou, T., Sevdalis, N., & Darzi, A. (2017).
Development of a theoretical framework of factors affecting patient safety incident
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Birks, M., Davis, J., Smithson, J., & Cant, R. (2016). Registered nurse scope of practice in
Australia: an integrative review of the literature. Contemporary Nurse, 52(5), 522-543.
Bucknall, T. K., Forbes, H., Phillips, N. M., Hewitt, N. A., Cooper, S., Bogossian, F., &
First2Act Investigators. (2016). An analysis of nursing students’ decision‐making in
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nursing, 72(10), 2482-2494.
Carlsson, E., Carlsson, A. A., Prenkert, M., & Svantesson, M. (2016). Ways of understanding
being a healthcare professional in the role of a family member of a patient admitted to
hospital. A phenomenographic study. International journal of nursing studies, 53, 50-60.
Clynch, N., & Kellett, J. (2015). Medical documentation: Part of the solution, or part of the
problem? A narrative review of the literature on the time spent on and value of medical
documentation. International journal of medical informatics, 84(4), 221-228.
Johansen, M. L., & O'brien, J. L. (2016, January). Decision making in nursing practice: a
concept analysis. In Nursing Forum (Vol. 51, No. 1, pp. 40-48).
Naber, J., & Wyatt, T. H. (2014). The effect of reflective writing interventions on the critical
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Today, 34(1), 67-72.

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Redmond, B. (2017). Reflection in action: Developing reflective practice in health and social
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Wassenaar, A., van den Boogaard, M., van der Hooft, T., Pickkers, P., & Schoonhoven, L.
(2015). ‘Providing good and comfortable care by building a bond of trust’: nurses views
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clinical nursing, 24(21-22), 3233-3244.
Wiener, L., Weaver, M. S., Bell, C. J., & Sansom-Daly, U. M. (2015). Threading the cloak:
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