What kinds of review questions do you ask yourself after dealing with a difficult and challenging patient situation?
All nurses desire to have positive and impactful shifts every day, but this is not a reality. Things happen, situations go awry, and it's important to reflect as an individual or a team and extract the lesson to learn how to be better. It's human nature to rationalize or justify and not face the difficult feelings or emotions of a situation gone bad, but this reflection is extremely important so that it doesn't happen again.
"I really like to go back and review with myself and the team what happened and ways to be better. I think it's important to distance myself a little bit from the emotions and try to review it logically. I think that when emotions run high, intelligence can run low, and we need to talk about situations and responses for what they are without blaming. That isn't helpful and impedes learning."
"I was a part of an initiative at my hospital called 'Dealing With Difficult Patients.' In this initiative, we learned techniques to help us identify possible situations in which patients or visitors were becoming agitated, and how we could diffuse the situation. Then, we gave presentations to help teach this information to our colleagues. In a case where a patient's anger escalated, I would ask myself, 'What early clue did I miss?' In that way, I will be better able to catch and react to a similar early warning sign next time, and I can hopefully help my coworkers be prepared to identify such a warning sign in the future, too."
Community answers are written by other candidates practicing this set. Reading how others frame the same question is one of the fastest ways to sharpen your own.
Anonymous Answer
What went well? What could I do better next time? What did I struggle with and how can I learn from my mistakes. For Example first time doing a sterile dressing change I went in and out of the room multiple times because I forgot supplies. Next time I made sure I gathered all my necessary supplies prior to entering the room helped with time management and the patient's confidence in my skill level.
Cindy's Feedback
Good! This is a good answer format. Elaborate on why leaving the room was a problem in your example to give a fuller sense of why the change was necessary.
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