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Image: Maria Teijeiro | Photodisc | Thinkstock
A while back I went to training for nurse leaders. I learned a lot about finance, employee management and communication. I also learned about reflective practice. When I first heard the name and throughout the lecture I thought it was ridiculous. It sounded like touchy feely nonsense to me. I am not a touchy feely kind of person, so I was automatically turned off by the entire idea.
But, since then I have used some of the principals of the practice and have found I actually can use it to make my self better as a manager, a nurse, and even in my personal life with my family. It has made really think about what I do.
Reflective practice is the idea of reflecting on what you did at the end of the day. Sounds kind of simple right? But to really sit back and evaluate what you have done, objectively can be hard. To look at what you did right and wrong.
The idea is that you can improve your performance in the future by looking at what you did this time. You can grow on the strengths of your current performance and fix the mistakes you made.
If you are a strong enough person to really look at the mistakes you made and find ways to improve, you will improve your practice with each patient interaction by using this philosophy.
It works really great in your marriage too!
