Reflective Essay On My Clinical Experience

This clinical experience has really helped me to sharpen my communication skills and realize just how important it is to understand mental health. We are told multiple times in class that mental health issues can be seen on any floor and that is the truth. I’ve seen patients in my older adult clinical on the pulmonary floor suffer from issues that range from anxiety to bipolar disorder and depression. Being able to understand how to approach people that suffer from these types of illnesses, allows us, the nurses, to give the patient the best care that we can. It helps to build a trusting relationship and get to know them on a personal level. Patients with mental health illnesses are many times defined because of their diagnosis and that is

Is it something that I would be able to do as a job every day? No, probably not. The nurses that worked on this floor had tough skin and were really able to diffuse situations in ways that I would have not thought to do. I know that these types of things are something that new nurses learn as time goes, however, I just don’t think that would be for me. Some of the nurse had patients who were very demanding, but also very harsh towards them, yet they did not let that affect their

I was able to create better therapeutic communication skills, pick up on the patient’s ticks, learn how to assess for triggers, etc. I will use this in the future because I will come in contact with patients who suffer from a mental illness on any floor I work on. They may not as serious as some of the patients I worked with on this clinical rotation, however, it is still important, as a nurse, to recognize and address mental health issues with patients. I also learned just how important self-care for nurses is. It doesn’t take long for nurses to begin to feel burnt out and lose passion in what they do. As a future nurse, it is important that create time for myself in my schedule and it is something that I should get into habit doing now. It will only help me grow as a