Critical Thinking Skills In Nursing

Nursing practice requires both critical thinking and clinical reasoning. Critical thinking is the process of deliberate higher level thinking to define a patient’s problem, examine the evidence-based practice in caring for the patient’s, and make options in the delivery of optimal care. Critical thinking involves the demarcation of statements of fact, judgment, and opinion. The progression of critical thinking requires the nurse to think imaginatively, use reflection, and engage in logical thinking (Alfaro-LeFevre, 2013). Critical thinking is a vital skill needed for the recognition of patient’s problems and the execution of interventions to endorse effectual care outcomes (Bittencourt & Crossetti, 2012).

Critical Thinking in the Nursing Profession "Critical Thinking at Triage: Ask the Question," is the title of the first article I reviewed regarding using critical thinking in the nursing profession. Currently, I work at a local hospital in the Emergency Department. So, triaging patients is something I do on a regular basis. The author, Diane Gurney, writes about how the triage nurse must use critical thinking skills when triaging patients. From my personal experience, it is not uncommon for the beds in the Emergency Department to be completely full.

Autonomous played important role where these abilities of making decisions and taking action in their personal and professionals’ (Rodwell, 1996). Critical thinking can be defined as a capability to manipulate thinking skills when it involves in critical thinking activities and it includes ‘defining the problem’, ‘judging the credibility of information’, ‘making accurate suggestions’, and ‘making rational value judgments’. Critical thinking also does not mean the whole activity is just carried out by thinking, however, it is the process that leads to the outcome of a compressive decision. By thinking critically, the nurses will be able to meet the requirement of the patient within their responsibility and

Integrating humanities and sciences in nursing is important and allow individuals to enhance their knowledge and critical thinking skills in their nursing practice. The information I learn in this course has taught me that evidence-based research findings can be used to shape future practice settings going forward. As a change agent, I will change and implement new evidence-based care to my practice to deliver high-quality

2.2.1. A brief description of critical thinking The intellectual roots of critical thinking can be traced back to 2500 years ago to the teaching practice and vision of Socrates who introduced a method of probing questioning that people could not rationally justify their confident claims to knowledge (Paul, Elder and Bartell, 1997). According to Ennis (1987), critical thinkers are open minded and mindful of alternatives and try to be well-informed and also able to judge well the credibility of sources. Further, they are able to judge well the quality of an argument, including its reasons, assumptions, and evidence.

Critical thinking is summerized as one person collects factual information to come up with a concept without applying their personal perspective to form a judgement. Not only does this involve daily life situations and academics, but health proffesions as well. In order to critical think, you must think rationally. Health professions want the best choice and the highest quality for the care of their patients and to pursue this goal one must simply find the best explination to the situation. A great way to apply this is to be open-minded and open to new ideas or oppurtunites.

The role of the nurse has always been that of the first point of contact for the patient to the clinical care team. As outlined by the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia (2016) the role of the nurse is to advocate, educate, liaise with, and provide adequate and appropriate clinical care to the patient. Additionally, the nurse represents the statistical majority of the Australian clinical team, outnumbering medical doctors at a ratio of almost 4:1 (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2013) which is consistent throughout all sectors of healthcare. Therefore, the nurse has a powerful and tangible effect on policy and the outcomes for patients in the clinical setting.

The current living pattern of human being requires the health care officers and individual to develop certain skills in regards of their working pattern to increase their service efficiency and help the patient to develop a communication link among them that would further help them to understand each other appropriately. Therefore, it can be said that a critical thinker is the one that are easy to conduct communication with patients and their family. Critical thinking process helps the healthcare individuals to focus on different issues from different perspectives and ways to understand the complete situation critically and highlight the techniques that would help the patient to cooperate with them in terms of receiving treatment. In other

The critical thinking processes I used was inquisitiveness (Information seeking) the best source of information is the member and by asking open ended questions, she will express her feelings, fears, emotions, attitude towards care all of which will assist me to better care for her. I will also use flexibility to create a plan of care that is base on her priority and her preferences which will ensure better adherence to the plan of care which will ultimately result in better patient outcome. 2 We used creativity because I had to “think outside the box,” to come up with possible information that can be tight or wrong. Information that with more information seeking can be clarified.

Expert nurses are vital in each specialty of nursing. Dr. Benner makes it clear that, expert nurses are infinitely adaptable with their responses in an unfolding situation, because they are able to engage situated, context driven reasoning that shifts between the general and the particular, and draws on similar past experiences. The expert nurse has the ability to teach and mentor the preceding phases of learning for the learning nurse. If the profession of nursing does not support expert practice or foster the development of expertise, it risks losing what is fundamental to nursing

(2011, p. 92). If this is so, then teachers are in a position to deliver an education that goes beyond the formal curriculum. The research process was challenging. There was a vast amount of information on critical thinking available.

What comes to mind when someone says you need to use “critical thinking”? Do you focus on the word “critical”? Do you assume that thinking critically must be requiring you to criticize or be critical of something you've read, heard, or watched? This class helped me understand what critical thinking is and how I can do it. I learned that thinking critically should not be assumed to be synonymous with criticizing once you learn to think critically, you might criticize an argument or claim, but your thinking will be thoughtfully reasoned consideration not reflexive, quick, and unthinking judgment.

Thus, critical thinking is something that is self-regulatory and purposeful judgment, a reflective, reasoning an interactive method for making judgment regarding what to do or believe in. from nursing perspective, critical thinking is the cognitive engine which drives the critical judgment and knowledge development in nursing (Meunier, 2003). The experimental model for reflective decision making is mainly grounded and matched from holistic clinical contexts and holistic patient centered care where it is delivered. This needs nurses to apply wide range of practical, observational, emotional and interpersonal skills, that is not restricted to scientific research and theory whereas applicable to patient care. Such holistic observation of reflective decision making is often supported from multiple intelligence theory (Gardner, 1987), that mainly identified spatial-visual, linguistic, logical-mathematical, intrapersonal and interpersonal forms, bodily-kinesthetic and musical-auditory intelligence forms completing wide range of skills.

By the 1980’s, critical thinking was a popular term among professionals in education, and thus, made its way into curriculums throughout the world.

The rise of these following factors: critical social theory, feminism and postmodernism have a significance impact on the world. To understand their impact, it is essential to appreciate that critical social theory differs from critical thinking. This term paper aims at discussing how these three factors critical social theory, feminism and postmodernism make an impact on the modern world. It also analyses how critical social theory, feminism and postmodernism can be potential applicants to Professional nursing practice. A society that is embedded in critical social theory is one that doesn’t view any given society as a well-functioning organism.