The purpose of this assignment is to reflect upon my personal and professional development. It will consider the quality of the care I provided, the skills I developed in my specialist placement, plus my learning since the commencement of my nurse training. Personal learning and self-reflection will be identified. I shall be using Gibbs (1988) Reflective Cycle to consider my practice. Gibbs (1988) Reflective Cycle looks at six aspects which include the following; what happened, what were my thoughts and feelings, what was good or bad about the experience, what sense can I make out of the situation, what else could I have done and if it arose again what would I do? Findings will be supported or contrasted by relevant literature. A conclusion will be offered to evaluate findings. I shall also include an action plan, which will address future professional and personal development needs and any factors that may help or hinder this. I will also consider why I have selected these issues for my action plan, what my goals are and how I aim to achieve them.
At the beginning of my nurse training we were asked to write on a piece of piece what our definition of nursing was. I wrote ‘It’s about being human’. At the time these words were based on my gut feeling and personal belief. Now, two and a half years later, I would write the same thing, but this time my definition would be based on the skills, knowledge and experiences I feel privileged and grateful to have had during my training and not just on gut feeling and personal belief. How does this knowledge impact on me in terms of practice? I can now put my definition of nursing into a framework and relate the theory of it to practice, for example I can identify when I am actively undertaking anxiety management with a patient. This is quite an achievement for me.