NURSING ASSIGNMENT: Lifelong Learning and Coping Mechanisms

This nursing assignment is a reflective essay exploring a graduating registered nurse's personal and professional reactions to lifelong learning. The student examines the importance of continuous professional development, critical thinking, and clinical reasoning in the fast-paced healthcare environment. The assignment delves into the development of resilience and effective coping mechanisms to manage work-related stress and burnout. It analyzes the need for critical thinking skills, mindfulness, and self-reflection to improve patient care and decision-making. The essay references literature on strategies for enhancing resilience, including mentoring, positive outlook, and emotional intelligence. The author concludes that developing these skills is crucial for professional growth and effective practice in nursing.

Running head: NURSING ASSIGNMENT
NURSING ASSIGNMENT
Name of the Student
Name of the university
Author’s note

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Topic 2- Reflect on your personal and professional reactions to lifelong learning situations,
and as a graduating registered nurse ask yourself “What do I need to improve to
understand and manage my continuing professional development and coping mechanism
as a resilient health care professional?”
Introduction
In this the paper, I will reflect on my professional and the personal reactions to life-long
learning situations and will also discuss about how I can continue to improve my professional
development and enhance my coping mechanism as a health care professional. Life-long
learning can be recognised as an important aspect in the profession of nursing. It has been
recommended by the institute of medicines, that nurses should be involved with life-long
learning. It can be regarded as an active process, where the student asks for understanding and
knowledge and utilise it for meeting the professional and the life time needs of people
(Qalehsari, Khaghanizadeh, & Ebadi, 2017).
Another important aspect, which will be discussed in this paper is resilience, which can
be regarded as the ability to recover and recuperate rapidly from a difficult and challenging
situation or from work life stress. It is the inner quality of the nurses to be able to return to a state
of normalcy and to bounce back from the trauma or the adversity. Hence, it is necessary to
understand one’s own perception.
Personal self-reflection (500)
Nursing professionals have to work in a fast paced, technical environment and often have
to make quick decision about patient care and should successfully communicate with the other

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health care professionals. Professional development for the nurses is important as it emphasizes
the importance of continuing education, assessing the learning needs and upholding the
competency. I believe that, as a nurse, I should remain up-to-date on the patient care, health care
trends, treatments and the techniques. NPD specialists are available to the advice the nurses
about the certification and the licensing requirements. I feel that I have still not adapted the
process of critical thinking and problem based learning. Critical thinking and clinical reasoning
has been associated with lifelong learning. Currently the education programs for nursing believe
that they are moving towards problem based learning and critical thinking exercises, but a large
gap is still left in nursing education. I strongly feel that in order to enhance the professional
development process in nursing, it is necessary that critical thinking skill is applied by the nurses
in the process of solving problems of the patients and the decision making process with the
creative skill to enhance the effect. It an important process for safe, skilful and efficient nursing
intervention.
Another cornerstone of professional is to develop resilience and mindfulness in this
profession. I should not deny the fact, that, we the nurses have to deal with sicker people having
multiple conditions complicating both the treatment and the recovery. These pressures can cause
work over-load and burnout. I have witnessed several cases of medical errors that has only been
committed due to stress and burnout. These problems related to workplace adversities can be
negative. It is the resilience that allows the nurses to overcome these difficulties and develop
better coping mechanism for addressing stress by exposure to difficult working environment and
situations. I have personally felt stress, due to overcrowding in the acute care ward or due
excessive workload that nurses often have to face due to insufficient health care staffs. It can be
denied, that at times, it becomes really difficult to cope up with the excessive stress of the

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academics as well as the placement practice (Papathanasiou et al., 2014). Apart from this, some
of the important stressors are work over load, the role conflicts, experience of aggression,
staffing issues, lack of self-care, poor related interpersonal relationships, feeling powerless for
providing a quality care, struggling with the demands, bereavement and dying and inadequate
emotional preparation (Yılmaz, 2017). Hence, I agree, that resilience is an important element
that needs to be worked upon for a professional development.
Evaluation
I have already mentioned that development of critical thinking capacity and clinical
reasoning is an essential part of professional development among the nurses and continuation of
lifelong learning is an only way to promote reasoning skills among the nurses. It has been
stated by Carbogim, Oliveira and Püschel, (2016) that critical thinking among nurses are mental
active process and subtle perception, analysis, synthesis and evaluation of the information
collected from the experience, observation, reflection. Hence, the nurses must adopt positions
that promote critical thinking and cause refinement of the skills for clinical reasoning for a
meaningful assessment of both the traditional as well as the new information or the decisions
taken daily on the hospitalisation and the use of the limited resources (Papathanasiou et al.,
2017). Critical thinking in the learning grows as the problem solving approach grows. It assists
individuals to think, function and search for various information independently. It has been
found out by the researches that lifelong learners have critical thinking styles and generally use
various ways of searching.
It have also mentioned that development of the key coping skill is one of the important
element of personal. I have tallied my perception with few scientific evidences, claiming the

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same. Resilience can be referred to as a developmental process, just like individual
characteristics. It can also be defined as the survival of an individual from a disease or any kind
of diseases and the skills for survival (Yılmaz, 2017). It has been stated by Khamisa et al., (2016)
, that high levels of work related stress and burnout has been found in trainee helping the
professionals as well as the qualified staffs. The conflicting demands of being transitioned into
an emerging professional often becomes personally distressful. There are also evidences that
shows that many of the nurses feel ill prepared for the actual realities of practice that can
engender the psychological and physical health problems. Strong emotional reactions to the
placement experiences at that time can also lessen their self-confidence and the perceptions of
the professional effectiveness at the time of post qualification causing attrition. However, it has
been proposed by some of authors that, in order to facilitate a constant lifelong learning, it is
necessary that those who train and educate the nurses are responsible for creating a lifelong
learning environment. Thus, it can be seen that in most of the papers the authors have readily
confirmed that both critical thinking skills and resilience are required for the professional
development of nurses and both can be obtained by fostering a positive environment of learning
for the nurses, who are preparing for transition to higher designations of their profession.
Analysis
The main aim of searching literary sources in relation to this topic is to find out the
measures to find out the various coping strategies that can be adopted by the nurses as well as to
develop skills of critical thinking and clinical reasoning. It has been referred in studies that
continuing the education programs has to be flexible and structured continuing education can
inhibit the self-directed learning. Lifelong learning should emphasize on diverse skills. A
continuous learning education needs to be flexible (Davis, Taylor & Reyes, 2014). There should

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be topics related to the building of resilience among the nurses. It has been suggested by the
researches that, various types of education training can be given to the nurses to make
acquaintances and form relationships, managing of difficult situation and conflicts, accepting
changes, setting up realistic goals, looking chances for self-discovery, cultivation of a positive
self-view and keeping the things in perspective and at the same time maintaining an optimal
outlook can be a way-out for the development of resilience among the nurses. In clinical
contexts, the process of reflection has been found to be helpful to the nurses who tackle
seemingly intractable difficulties and foster resilient behaviours (Chesak et al., 2015). I have
mentioned previously, that coping skill is a skill that one should gradually master over time to
sustain in the long run in this profession. Without support and resilience, nurse would become
emotionally exhausted within the initial years of practice.
Again, most of the papers have stated that lifelong learning provides practical skills for
thinking more clearly and how the mind can be used for achieving the goals and enhance the life,
to analyse the self-thinking and thinking of the others, the ways to overcome the obstacles for
effective self-reflection, for becoming more effective in the business as well as personal
relationships (Paterson & Chapman, 2013).
Strategies for practice
McDonald et al, (2012) had developed an intervention model for facilitating positive
responses to the workplace environment of the nurses. The intervention model comprised of five
workshops je that included mentoring relationships , establishment of positive and nurturing
networks and relationships and networks, building hardiness , maintaining a positive outlook,
intellectual flexibility, emotional intelligence, enabling the spiritualty, achieving the life balance

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and help in critical reflection and critical thinking. This can only be facilitated by the mentors
who will be guiding the nurses through lifelong learning. As per the literary sources, successful
education interventions for resilience that is specific to the new nurses have found limited proof.
Many papers have often demonstrated mindfulness to be an essential element of resiliency.
Focusing on positive emotions, self-reflection on the strengths and limitations using a self-
checklist can be promoted as a strategy for helping the individuals for recognising the positive
ways for dealing with stress (DuBois & Gonzalez, 2018). Person directed interventions for the
reduction of the occupational stresses among the health care can be used significantly for
reducing stress and burnout in nurses (Zander, Hutton & King, 2013). Again mindfulness based
stress reduction programs can enhance resilience by emphasizing on practices of gratitude,
acceptance, compassion, forgiveness and higher meanings (Chesak et al., 2015). Chan, (2013)
has stated that critical thinking skills in the nurses can be enhanced by becoming a self –critic, by
active listening, by successful analysis of information, non-violent communication and by the
development of foresight.
Conclusion
In conclusion, it can be stated that critical thinking is applicable to the nurse, since they
should have to work in a diverse setting with multiple diagnosis and often have to deal with
patients suffering from multiple comorbidities. Hence, developing critical thinking and resilience
is one of the main aspect of professional development in the nurses. It can be concluded that
effective clinical reasoning can be enhanced by developing the ability to analyse, active listening
and conduction of evidence based research practice. On the other hand resilience can be
developed by self-reflection, positive learning environment, training on developing emotional
intelligence.

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References
Carbogim, F., Oliveira, L. B., & Püschel, V. A. (2016). Critical thinking: concept analysis from
the perspective of Rodger's evolutionary method of concept analysis. Revista latino-
americana de enfermagem, 24, e2785. doi:10.1590/1518-8345.1191.278
Chan, Z. C. (2013). A systematic review of critical thinking in nursing education. Nurse
Education Today, 33(3), 236-240. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nedt.2013.01.007
Chesak, S. S., Bhagra, A., Schroeder, D. R., Foy, D. A., Cutshall, S. M., & Sood, A. (2015).
Enhancing resilience among new nurses: feasibility and efficacy of a pilot intervention.
The Ochsner journal, 15(1), 38–44.
Davis, L., Taylor, H., & Reyes, H. (2014). Lifelong learning in nursing: A Delphi study. Nurse
education today, 34(3), 441-445. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nedt.2013.04.014
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be enhanced. Health and Social Care Education, 3(1), 23-34.Retrieved from:
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Khamisa, N., Peltzer, K., Ilic, D., & Oldenburg, B. (2016). Work related stress, burnout, job
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