Writing about one’s personal experience encourages self-reflection and improves self-awareness

Writing about one’s personal experience encourages self-reflection and improves self-awareness. In this activity students are invited to reflect, in writing, on their experiences related to managing clinical risks for patients. Students to write about an event they observed or were involved in during their nursing profession that they feel might have placed a patient at risk. Alternatively, students may want to write about an event that occurred to them as recipients of healthcare, or as an observer to their friends’ or family members’ experiences. The event may be one that they feel related to any of anticipation, recognition, or management of a patient safety risk. Safe patient care and reducing medical-legal risk requires nurse practitioners to be aware of potential risks and how to avoid them.

The narrative should include:

a description of the event

an explanation of how this event placed a patient at risk

the student’s reflections on the event including:

if and how the event was recognized

why and how the event occurred, for example, was the event due to

action or inaction by an individual healthcare provider

system failure(s)

a combination of systems failure(s) and individual provider performance issues

what changes or improvements they would make, if any

how they felt at the time

how they currently feel about the even

Were you personally involved in the event? Discuss.

What, if any, workplace factors contributed to the event? (e.g., Was it during a handover? Did it involve a medication?)

How aware was the healthcare provider(s) of what was going on around them? (situational awareness)

How did the health care provider(s) recognize the safety problem, and how did they respond?

How did this event affect you?

What did you take away that you will use in the future?

I would do something differently next time because