Critical thinking skills have been recognized in recent years as a necessary component of nursing education. There is a clear reason for this: health care is a dynamic, high-tech field today, and bedside nurses need to make complex decisions to provide healthy, efficient patient care.
Critical thinking is a professional career. It's not true that we are simply born with the ability to think clearly and objectively, without knowing how or training.
In many different ways, the meaning "critical thinking" is defined, most of which are referred to as "the process of observing, collecting, analyzing and interpreting information from different sources. The main topics in this article that discuss how critical thinking enhances the registered nurse's professional practice are the levels of critical thinking, critical thinking in decision-making, and critical thinking in problem-solving, and attitudes that nurses need to be critical thinkers.
There are three different levels of critical thinking as a nurse–the basic level is the level where the beginner immediately assumes that the experience will provide the right answers for each question. The complex level shows that the critical thinker will be slightly more independent of their choices, showing some kind of detachment from the more experienced person as well. The level of commitment is the final level where the individual has the ability and confidence to take on tasks and make their own choices without an authority's guidance. These levels are relevant to the topic because they are important to the ability of the nurses to work, thus enhancing their professional practice. At the basic level, the nurse has "limited experience in critical thinking." A new nurse will believe that any problem will be solved by the more experienced professional with the right knowledge. This is because the individual is in the early developmental stage.
In the complex phase, the individual becomes more relaxed and starts to work and think more critically, in the final level of critical thinking the character becomes completely confident to complete tasks and make their own choices without the need for any assistance. These stages demonstrate the development and improvements of a nurse and how they become stronger and "committed critical thinkers"
Forming a workforce that requires "performance expectations" such as having values that are clearly understood by everyone in that work environment may positively influence the conduct of professional practice in that work as nurses may choose to engage or have their own opinion on the particular issue. Behavioral habits are important in the workplace as it helps the nurse to think critically about how they address problems and concerns as they work, both in practice and inpatient care.
In terms of decision-making, nurses need to be critical thinkers in order to deal with problems and sometimes difficult situations "where the course of action is decided by preference." It is said that both reasoning methods and guidelines are used by medical nurses in clinical decision making. As a nurse, they wonder why it is necessary to make a decision so that the nurse can make the right choices for the patient. A nurse's clinical practice will "make sound judgments" or make decisions based on their knowledge and experience and share their critical thinking skills in order to develop more decision-making abilities.
In nursing critical thinking was described as active problem-solving capability. Nurses will conduct a thorough assessment of the patient during the critical thinking process in order to evaluate and appreciate what the patient needs. After critical thinking, the nurse should follow up with problem-solving "that applies evidence-based and result-based direct interventions to improve the patient's health." Good problem solving from a nurse would allow him or her to think critically in the future and in similar circumstances be able to perform these tasks again.
Critical thinking attitudes are used in both decision-making and problem solving as a guideline. These attitudes are important in the sense that there are "problems." The importance of this is that the nurse is aware of workplace issues. All critical thinking attitudes can be applied to the practice of professional nursing. This is critical as the behaviors can be used as a "guideline" for nurses to show them various ways to approach the issues that might arise.
As a nurse, in professional practice, it is important to think critically about interpreting, evaluating, and judging.
The significance of this article was to discuss various ways of developing and improving the registered nurse's professional practice in critical thinking. In conclusion, critical thinking plays an essential role in nursing whether for decision-making or problem-solving, finding the right attitudes to be a critical thinker or learning, and growing as an individual on the stage of critical thinking.
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