A Brief Description of Critical Thinking and Its Role in Nursing
If you think nursing doesn’t require more than just being familiar with medical procedures and looking after patients, you are seriously and sadly mistaken. It is more than just book learning and a crisp white uniform. It is the daily use of one analytical skill, namely ‘Critical Thinking,’ that has come to define good nursing these days.
Just what exactly is ‘Critical Thinking’?
Basically, ‘critical thinking’ in nursing is defined by a collection of techniques and skills that nurses use in their daily work. This is actually a kind of collage of concepts that all work together to form the analytical process necessary to assess each patient and each patient’s specific situation. The following is an enumeration of the elements fundamental for this particular thinking process:
Analyzing
Evaluating information generated by or gathered from the patient
Experience
Observation
Application
Skillful conceptualization
Reasoning
Reflection
Effective Communication
What is the result of ‘Critical Thinking Concepts’?
When all of these elements or components are implemented into one conclusive action the result will reflect all of the following:
Accuracy
Consistency
Clarity
Good reasons
Breadth
Depth
Fairness
Precision
Sound evidence
Relevance
What are the steps it takes to reach these positive results?
First of all, you will have to examine the idea that is appropriate for the reasoning process. You must examine the situation or the problem you’re facing as a whole and refrain from analyzing each element separately.
You need to take into account any hypothesis relevant to the situation you have on your hands.
Now, it is time for you to reflect on any concepts that may be correlated with this situation.
Next, you should assess all practical solutions applicable to this situation, but do not limit yourself to these; you can also consider alternatives that are still in the investigative stage.
The final step is the reasoning process specific to determining the best action to take. Here you will have to compare all outcomes of a particular action, different perspectives, different conditions and reasoning.
Which type of thinking process will bring about a positive outcome?
Moral thinking
Economic thinking
Scientific thinking
Mathematical thinking
Philosophical thinking
Historical thinking
Anthropological thinking
Nursing is clearly not a line of work to be taken lightly. All good nursing relies greatly on ‘critical thinking.’ A good nurse who can pride herself with excellent conceptual thinking, will give you the impression that her work is like a walk in the park. It usually takes years of constant training and practice to reach such a level of critical thinking. And all the abilities and knowledge acquired over the years go to fuel the nurse’s critical thinking process. Over time the abilities of a nurse become automatic and form a routine motored by the nurse’s dedication to caring for patients. The nurse then develops a conceptual process that is a combination of skilled behavior and processing information skills.
Critical thinking is then more than just retaining learned nursing skills, skills from constant use and skills from seeing the skills gain positive results. Critical thinking can be defined rather as a superior intellectual ability which can be successfully employed by nurses to the benefit of patients and doctors alike.
What shapes critical thinking?
Greatly contributing to the success of a nurse’s thinking concepts, will be the skills and knowledge she has acquired during her training and practicing years. If the nurse is dedicated to her patients and is keen on using her knowledge and skills to the benefit of those she takes care of and works with, she will be driven to gather more experience and training. Therefore, her analytical process is likely to be more successful. However, you can’t expect a nurse to be perfect. You can’t expect her to know everything and to be able to do everything. You see, critical thinking, just like any other form of education, is a never-ending process.
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