Critical Care Nursing: A SWOT Analysis and Reflection on ICU Practice

This essay presents a reflective account of an ICU nurse's professional experiences, employing a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis to evaluate their capabilities and potential for growth. The nurse identifies their strengths as extensive knowledge of human physiology, excellent communication skills for therapeutic patient interaction and effective teamwork. Weaknesses include a fear of handling advanced technological equipment and difficulty managing emotions when dealing with end-of-life care situations. Opportunities for advancement are seen in leveraging existing knowledge and skills to mentor new nurses and developing leadership capabilities. Threats to career progression include the inability to confidently use essential ICU technologies and emotional challenges in end-of-life care scenarios, potentially impacting patient safety and career advancement. The reflection concludes with a commitment to address weaknesses and capitalize on strengths to become a more effective and compassionate critical care nurse.

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

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Introduction:
Intensive care units nurses work very closely with a number of physicians as well as
other members of the healthcare team to develop the best interventions and care plans for the
patients. They should have the ability and the skills for the effective assessment of the patient’s
problems quickly and should be capable of using high tech equipments (Flinn & O’connor,
2017). Such nurses are expected to use their advanced skills for caring of the patients who are
critically ill and even are suffering from different types of life threatening health problems. I also
got the opportunity to serve patients in the critical care patients as a ICU nurses. This assignment
will mainly be based on the different strengths, weakness, opportunities and threats that I have
indentified in my professional as an ICU nurses and thereby take actions by which I can emerge
out as a more successful healthcare professionals in the future.
Strength:
One of the strength that I possess as a critical care nurse is my knowledge and skills. I
can properly recognize every signs and symptoms of different types of complications that remain
associated with the patients at the earliest stages and this gives me an upper hand in keeping
situations under control and helps in maintaining the safety of the patients. One of my strength is
an extensive knowledge of different types of human physiology as well as the hw the physiology
changes when the condition of the patient deteriorates under different ailments and health
conditions. My responsibility mainly involves intervening in different situations for preventing
different complications in patients and thereby mange the well-being of the patient. I mainly do
so by effective adjustments of the medications, fluid as well as therapeutic devices so that I can
maintain the ability of the patient during the recovery procedures. One another strength that my

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mentor also appraises about me is that I have high quality communication skills that often help in
handling patients in an effective manner. Mostly, patients requiring critical care remain highly
conscious about their fate and suffer from anxiety throughout their stay that result in negative
outcomes on their health (Sprung et al., 2014). I have the capability to establish therapeutic
communication with the patients in such a way that they can overcome their anxiety and lead a
better quality life in the care unit. They often require emotional support when they are going
through very severe ailments and the therapeutic communication established with them calms
them down. I communicate with them in a compassionate and empathetic manner that makes
them feel that I am genuinely interested in their recovery procedures and this ensures them to
feel safe. Moreover, I can also handle the anxiety of the family members in an effective manner
and ensure proper companionship with them so that they do not feel alone or helpless in this
crisis period and feel that the professionals are with them trying their best to recover the health of
the patient. The third strength that I possess is the effective coordination among the team
members in workplace. While working in the intensive care unit, the nurses need to not only
communicate and plan their work among each other but also with other experts like physicians,
technicians and others. Therefore, it is extremely important for the professionals to maintain
team working attitudes and behavior as the conditions of the patient remain very sensitive and a
small error might result in taking away the lives of the patients. My strength is that I have good
communication skills, conflict management skills, effective listening and feedback exchange
skills by which I can work successfully in teams. I am reliable and respectful and have good
abilities to develop rapport with other members that help in developing bond and trust among the
members. Effective decision-making skills, persuasion and influencing skills, facilitation skills
make other members rely on me and therefore, I can effectively participate in effective

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teamwork. This has positive outcomes on patients help keeping them out of chances of danger
from member conflicts and miscommunication issues.
Weakness:
One of the weaknesses that I have is my fear in handling technological equipments.
Intensive care units are areas where use of technology is highly prevalent and the critical care
nurses not only need to have skills and knowledge to effectively handle them, but also have to be
confused and swift about their movements while handling the technology and caring for the
patients at the same time. I feel quite shaky when the situations to use instruments come as i
always fear that some wrong functioning by me can not only affect the instruments but also the
instruments may stop working with the requirement of repairing. Handling costly machines
makes me nervous as I feel one wrong approach may result in economical loss of the department
and I might be held responsible for poor skills in technology handling (Kelly & Morrison, 2015).
Although, I can handle the electrocardiograph, pulse oximeters, blood pressure monitors and
similar other monitors successfully, I become quite nervous in handling the life support machines
such as the ventilator for the breathing of the patient, intravenous devices like that of the
emergency crash cart and others. This weakness may prevent me from establishing myself as an
expert critical care nurse and I would not be able to participate in service for patients with such
requirements of technology. The second weakness that I possess is handling patients with end of
life care. It is true that not all the patients within the intensive care unit survive. Moreover, there
are also patients who refuse care or their families ask to remove life support from the patients
(Kon et al., 2016). Such situations become very emotional for the patients as well as the family
members as they know the immediate future of the actions. Such situations of grief, pain and
helplessness also affect me largely as I could not control my emotions and cannot act

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professionally in the situations. I often breakdown or request my seniors to change my duty with
other patient only to avoid such situations that affect me largely. This should not be the behavior
and attitude of a healthcare professional who can never be an escapist. My inability to self-
regulate myself is one of the weaknesses that no critical nurses should ever have.
Opportunities:
I have high amount of knowledge about the anatomy, psychology, pharmacology as well
as the different types of miscellaneous knowledge required to understand the diagnostic tests that
I need to perform and thereby develop ideas from the tests about the disorders that have affected
the patients. Moreover, By closely observing the senior nurses and also from the experiences that
I have gathered during working in the intensive care unit for large period of time, I have gained
proper idea about the different types if interventions that are required for different types of
disorders of the patients and therefore now I am quite confident in my approach. The evidence
based procedure of intervention application that I follow and the knowledge gained by me not
only from theories and from experiences has made me skillful. Therefore, I believe that I have
the opportunity to become a successful senior nurse where I can guide new nurses in various
ways and make them successful professionals. Such skills and experience would ensure me to
take new responsibilities that are required for effective management of the patient and his family
and even to perform the actions that the senior nurses can ensure (Arnold et al., 2015). Besides, I
can effectively work with teams and possess all the capabilities that are required for team
working. I possess effective organizing as well as planning skills, decision-making skills,
problem solving skill and many others. Previous reflection on my skills have helped me to
realize that I also have persuasion and influencing skills, feedback skills, skills in chairing
meetings as well as conflict resolution skills. Therefore, I believe that I can lead effective teams

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and have the opportunity to become an efficient leader in the future. I can not only lead them to
meet the organizational goals but also set examples for them and motivate them in ways by
which they can dedicate themselves to the critically ill patients beyond their potentials.
Threats:
It is important for every leader in the healthcare industry to lead by example where they
should be setting examples to their subordinates for achieving goals qualitatively and
quantitatively. However, I am still not confident enough in handling technology and equipments
in the intensive care unit that is one of the biggest aspects of critical care nursing. Use of
technology to keep the patient alive is one of the very common scenario that every intensive care
units are practiced to visualize (Adam, 2017). In such a scenario, my inability to handle
technology might create a barrier in my aspirations to become a leader as would not be able to
help my subordinates when they would require guidance and assistance from me regarding
technology. This might act as a threat as it would affect my career and I might not get promoted
to roes of senior nurses or nurse leaders due to my inability. Moreover, my lack of self-regulating
myself in cases of patients requiring need in end of life care may also prevent the authority from
positioning me as one of the important member of the healthcare teams attending the patients. I
would not be able to learn the effective ways of handling such patients and the interventions that
I would need o take to ensure safety and comforts to the patient and manage the emotions of the
family members. Moreover, even if I ma placed as an important member caring for the patient,
my emotion may act as a threat where I will not be able to think critically and apply proper
evidence based intervention or may make errors in my interventions due to restlessness and
emotional inability. This might be threatening to the life of the patient.

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Conclusions:
The SWOT analysis helped me realize that my strengths are high amount of theoretical
knowledge and skills and different learning from my experiences that help me in identifying the
disorders and the interventions that are important and would beneficial for the patient. Another is
the effective team working skills. All these would lead to opportunities where I can become a
leader of senior nurse and help my subordinates to ensure effective care. However, my weakness
is that I am quite shaky about using technology and become nervous. Moreover, I also cannot
control my emotions for end of life patients and these might create barriers in my professional
becoming a treat to career growth. It might also lead to unsafe or poor quality care of patients
and nay errors that might threaten the existence of the patients.

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References:
Adam, S. (2017). Critical care nursing: science and practice. Oxford University Press.
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%20care%20units&f=false
Arnold, R. M., Back, A. L., Barnato, A. E., Prendergast, T. J., Emlet, L. L., Karpov, I., ... &
Nelson, J. E. (2015). The critical care communication project: improving fellows'
communication skills. Journal of critical care, 30(2), 250-254.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcrc.2014.11.016
Flin, R., & O'Connor, P. (2017). Safety at the sharp end: a guide to non-technical skills. CRC
Press. Retrieved from: https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9781317059950
Kelley, A. S., & Morrison, R. S. (2015). Palliative care for the seriously ill. New England
Journal of Medicine, 373(8), 747-755.retreived from:
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMra1404684
Kon, A. A., Davidson, J. E., Morrison, W., Danis, M., & White, D. B. (2016). Shared decision
making in intensive care units: an American College of Critical Care Medicine and
American Thoracic Society policy statement. Critical care medicine, 44(1), 188.
doi: 10.1097/CCM.0000000000001396

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Sprung, C. L., Truog, R. D., Curtis, J. R., Joynt, G. M., Baras, M., Michalsen, A., ... & Bulpa, P.
(2014). Seeking worldwide professional consensus on the principles of end-of-life care
for the critically ill. The Consensus for Worldwide End-of-Life Practice for Patients in
Intensive Care Units (WELPICUS) study. American journal of respiratory and critical
care medicine, 190(8), 855-866. https://doi.org/10.1164/rccm.201403-0593CC
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