Chose an aspect of your clinical practice and reflect and critically analyse your professional development by drawing on supportive evidence from your portfolio

Chose an aspect of your clinical practice and reflect and critically analyse your professional development by drawing on supportive evidence from your portfolio

The purpose of this essay is to critically analyse an aspect of professional development and by using relevant reflection techniques to evaluate the development of this skill. The area of clinical practice which will be examined is wound management and the role in which reflection can be used to emphasize the progression of the skills required, improving knowledge base and fundamentally the techniques used to promote safe and evidence based practice.

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Wound management is an essential part of nursing practice (Gray & Cooper 2001). Additionally, Cutting (2010) states that nurse should have a sound knowledge base when assessing and carrying out the management techniques required. Reflection is a crucial skill and a development technique nurses should utilize to enable them to learn from their past experiences and put what’s been learned into practice to strengthen their clinical approach in future (Jasper 2006).

Moreover, by using reflection this essay will deliver further evidence for the need to reflect and enhance skills in this area of practice. By using the chosen reflection tool the essay will provide a logical breakdown of how the skill has been developed and the personal progress within wound management. I will discuss how over my time in university and by combining theories and practical skills has allowed me to build on an essential skill.

In conclusion it will be evident the way in which by reflecting on events can enable improved and increase of evidence based knowledge base.

Reflection is a human quality we actively integrate into everyday living and as Johns (2009) explains it allows us to appreciate experiences and how we apply any desired changes. With consideration to implementing this into education and learning, a significant figure was an American philosopher John Dewey (Bulman & Schutz 2004, Brown & Libberton 2007).

He provided regulations to enable the understanding of the significance of reflection within study and personal development. Many healthcare policies and frameworks have promoted the development of this work with the focus on delivering safe practice for service users and reflection therefore, plays a fundamental part of nursing education (Timmins 2006).

The Department of Health (DOH 1999) developed integrated frameworks for the enhancement of knowledge and development for their staff with a section dedicated to nurses. The framework expects nurses to build on previous understanding, skills and experience within their nursing performance. This framework is further developed within the Nursing and Midwifery Code of Professional Conduct (NMC 2008) who provide guidelines for nursing practice.

They state that nurses have a responsibility to take part in suitable learning events which enable them to advance and sustain safe practice. Rycroft-Malone et al (2002) and Priest (2007) support the effectiveness for a nurse in actively applying techniques such a reflection to identify gaps in their knowledge to ensure evidence based practice is put into practice. In contrast Pearsons (2004) earlier work argues that the approaches being used to progress and implement evidence based practice were not successful.

In agreement Tagney & Haines (2009) state that nurses are not fully prepared to successfully integrate theory into their clinical practice. Developed therefore over a period of time, were reflective models which Jasper (2003) states allowed nurses to easily clarify their experiences and subsequently understand and explore their actions.

For the objective of this essay the model that will be used is the Gibbs Model of Reflection (1988) (Appendix 1). This model was chosen due to its ability to simply identify a chosen skill and methodically distinguish the learning opportunities and offers a link between the transferring of theory into practice (Hull et al 2005). McCabe & Timmins (2006) argue that the Gibbs cycle of reflection induces the user to concentrate on negative aspects of their practice rather than understanding the positive support of all development.

In contrast Bulman & Schutz (2004) and Wilding (2008) describe that the model has the capability to adapt simply to any circumstances and al