The Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia (NMBA) Registered Nurse Standards for Practice are the core standards of competency by which your performance as a registered nurse is assessed in Australia. These standards have been developed using the best possible evidence and incorporating information and feedback provided by nurses in a variety of clinical settings. They provide a framework for assessing your competence and help nurses deliver safe and competent care.
The Registered Nurses Standards for Practice consist of the following seven standards:
- Thinks critically and analyses nursing practice.
- Engages in therapeutic and professional relationships.
- Maintains the capability for practice.
- Comprehensively conducts assessments.
- Develops a plan for nursing practice.
- Provides safe, appropriate and responsive quality nursing practice.
- Evaluates outcomes to inform nursing practice. (NMBA, 2016, p. 2)
This assessment requires you, using the Gibbs’ Reflective Cycle, to reflect on one event involving your own professional practice during a clinical engagement (acknowledgement is made that for a number of students within NURS2001 clinical placements haven’t occurred at the time of being required to submit this assessment piece and therefore the Unit Coordinator for NURS2001 will inform students during the semester of alternative arrangements). You are required to relate your chosen professional practice event to one of the Registered nurse standards for practice. In addition you are required to use headings as per the Gibbs’ Reflective Cycle with your reflection in paragraph format under each heading. Ensure correct academic format with appropriate references to support your work as per APA formatting style. Please refer to Assessment 3: Professional Practice Reflection Rubric.
The word count for this assessment is 1000 words +/- 10% (in other words the word count of the paper can be between 900 to 1100 words without attracting a penalty regarding word limit.) For additional information regarding the Registered nurse standards for practice visit the NMBA website.
Feelings
Answer any of the following questions that you think are relevant to the experience:
- How did you feel and what did you think prior to the experience?
- How did you feel and what did you think during the experience?
- How did you react during the experience?
- How did you feel and what did you think after the experience? this part is not analytical, it is descriptive, it describes personal feelings and thoughts and actions (reactions)
Evaluation
Answer any of the following questions that you think are relevant to the experience:
- What went well during the experience (what worked)?
- What went badly during the experience (what didn’t work)?
- How did the experience end? Was the experience complete (was there a resolution) or incomplete? this part is not analytical, it makes positive and/or negative judgements about an experience if a lot of different things happened during the experience, focus on one or two, try to choose the things that are most important, most relevant or most representative of the experience
Analysis
Do any of the following that you think is relevant:
Reconsider the things that went badly and write why you think they went badly (causes of action).
Reconsider the things that went badly and write what you think this lead to (consequences of action).
Think about what could have been done to have avoided these negative consequences.
Reconsider the things that went well and write why you think they went well (causes of action).
Reconsider the things that went well and write what you think this lead to (consequences of action).
Think about how this positive action could have been further improved.
Think about your contribution to the experience and say how useful it was and why it was useful (did a previous experience help you? can you compare it to a previous experience?).
If you were unable to contribute to the experience say why.
Think about other people present during the experience and try to assess whether their reactions were similar or different to yours. Try to say why they were the same or different. this part is analytical, it does not describe, it tries to explain the causes and consequences of things that happened, it asks questions like why?, so what? and what if?
Conclusion
Reconsider the experience and answer any of the following questions that you think are relevant:
- What should or could I have done differently?
- What stopped me from doing this?
- What did I learn about myself during the experience (positive and/or negative)?
- What did I learn about my current knowledge or level of practice (strengths and weaknesses)?
- Did the experience achieve any of my learning goals or meet any of my required competencies?
This part sums up what you learnt from the experience try to be specific about what you learnt or realised about yourself, give specific details (avoid making general statements like “I didn’t have the adequate knowledge”)
Action Plan
Answer any of the following questions that you think are relevant to making a plan:
- What do I need to do in order to be better prepared to face this experience in future?
- Even if the experience was positive and I did well, in which areas can I improve?
- What are the priority areas that need to be developed?
- What specific steps do I need to take in order to achieve these improvements?
