Working in the community setting for placement was an eye-opener as I learned a lot through experience from my team members and patients to whom I offered my services. I will use the Gibbs reflective model to help you understand one of the significant incidences that I significantly learned from the incident, the inspiration I got from it, and how it contributed to my personal and professional development. I will explore my placement experience through the Gibbs cycle in different stages like description, feelings, evaluation, analysis, conclusion, and the action plan (Nuuyoma & Ashipala 2018). I worked in the placement where I received phone calls from patients with other staff, which tested most of my abilities, including communications skills and team working abilities. Here is my reflection when I worked in the clinical placement based on my experience:
One of the daily operations I encountered was handling a patient by phone calls, and the patient had poor communication skills. The patient I was handling had difficulty expressing themselves using words; since I could not observe their behavior, it posed a challenge that affected the quality of the services. The poor communication skills I experienced included language barrier, professional medical terms, and lack of patience while listening to the patients who seemed confused about what they were feeling. Through this incident, I was able to identify various gaps present in the clinical placement and had me thinking of possible solutions that the clinic could implement to fill in the gaps. Having witnessed the incident arouses different feelings and emotions about the need to help patients who encounter poor communication skills (Nuuyoma & Ashipala 2018). I was disappointed for failing to help the patient effectively as I did not understand what the patient was saying through the phone call. Another feeling and emotion I experienced was impatience as the patient took a long to describe what they were feeling despite being the only one who could describe the feeling. These feelings, among other indescribable feelings, really hinder my performance on the job as my emotions conflict with the values I uphold.
Evaluating my experience, I identified a common occurrence within the clinic as it catered to patients with different ethnic backgrounds and nationalities. I discussed my experience with the other nurses on the clinical placement team, where they narrated their similar experiences while attending to patients through phone calls. Evaluating my situations and feeling while serving the patient, I identified the weaknesses that I needed to rectify in the approach I used to deal with my patients. I identified that I could help my patients experience the language barrier by asking for assistance from nurses who can understand their language, thus offering us the best services to the patients (Nuuyoma & Ashipala 2018). After the evaluation, I saw this as an opportunity to learn more about communication skills and how to improve my listening and speaking skills. I saw an opportunity to learn the basic foreign terms that patients commonly use when seeking our services, thus improving the services when handling foreign services.
The Gibbs reflexive cycle helped me develop both professionally and personally as it helped me develop the communications that I utilize in my daily activities at work and off work. Serving in the clinical placement has enabled me to learn more about my job occupations and help different patients suffering from different sicknesses. The hospital should provide short-time courses to the nurses working in clinical placement, such as introduction to different foreign languages common within the state and basic communication skills each nurse should have like effective listening and patience.
References
Nuuyoma, V., & Ashipala, D. O. (2018). Second-year nursing students’ experiences of clinical placement in a rural health centre. International Journal of Studies in Nursing, 3(2), 107.
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