Practice 50 Situational Nursing interview questions covering clinical judgment, patient safety, and critical response scenarios.
Question 38 of 50
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Dianne Barnard is a Registered Nurse and former nursing instructor. She is also board certified in Psychiatric Nursing and Holistic Nursing Critical Care.
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.

Dianne Barnard is a Registered Nurse and former nursing instructor. She is also board certified in Psychiatric Nursing and Holistic Nursing Critical Care.
"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."

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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.
Prepare for scenario-based questions that test your clinical decision-making under pressure.
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Written by Dianne Barnard
50 Questions & Answers • Situational Nursing

By Dianne

By Dianne