A new slant on reflection

What was it like?

This is a new version of the reflective practice, as nurses we are all familiar with, but this has been revised and contains a great deal more which is apt for personal lives too.

There are five sections to enable the reader to work through this topic

1.    Reflective practice in three chapters

3.    Practice learning

4.    To enable the reader to lay deeper foundations of professionalism

5.    To explore future perspectives on reflective practice and challenges educators and learners to further expand their capacity for deep learning through incorporation of other theories.

This is much wider than my experience of reflective practice and experience recently whilst revalidating my Nursing Registration with the NMC.

This enables the nurse to look at their practice as a whole and working practices on a daily basis rather than one off reflections.

What were the highlights? 

The chapters are well set out and easy for the reader to read and understand. The references are up to date and also contain reference to authors  such as Shon and Benner that shaped my nursing career.

The authors have acknowledged the importance of quality and safety which I was impressed with- Staff struggle with governance and patient safety and find it difficult to incorporate into their daily clinical tasks seeing this often as and add on, and not being able to understand it is all part of caring for the patient. In an age of litigation and duty of candour staff are all too often frightened they wll harm a patient. The book gives advice to to the reader in what they should achive and what circumstances they are faced with and to develop skills that will enable them to practice as they should following guidelines and policies.

Strengths & weaknesses:

There were no weaknesses this book is written for practitioners in the States but is equally apt for the UK healthcare setting.

Who should read it?

This is a text book for all levels of nursing staff junior and senior. This will pave the way for new nurses and enable more snior nurses to revalidate their registrations and continually reflect and learn in practice. A book for all clinical areas book shelves.