Answer for NRS 465 Benchmark – Professional Capstone and Practicum Reflective Journal
Topic 3
The practicum site has offered me a chance to reflect on my personal and professional values and biases, especially unconscious biases. I uphold and value empathy, compassionate care genuine concern, respect, and integrity. I believe in diversity that requires nurses to embrace evidence-based practice and culturally competent care. My unconscious biases, especially towards patients who may want to be too expressive, hinder my objective analysis and evaluation of their concerns. To enhance my awareness of these biases, I have begun to engage in self-reflection getting feedback from my preceptor and peers, and embracing diversity and culturally competent care approaches. These values and biases can significantly affect my practice. For example, empathy allows me to demonstrate genuine concern for patients, yet unconscious biases can scuttle such efforts. Compassionate care will enable me to give patients the required care without any hindrances while respect ensures that I uphold their dignity and opinions, even when they are not relevant to care provision (Buetow, 2020). It is essential to continually improve on these aspects and address the arising biases.
Culture and environment can have significant effects on individuals’ implicit biases. For instance, cultural diversity now defines how one lives as a nurse in different settings. Today, I am exposed to cultural diversity unlike when growing up. As such, I cannot entertain conscious biases, unless they are unconscious. The culturally diverse workplace environment challenges these biases and implores one to embrace divergent views and perspectives (Mahon et al., 2020). For instance, through integrating with colleagues and patients from diverse backgrounds, I have expanded my perspectives and attempted to address these biases. Therefore, increased focus on cultural competency and diversity allows nurses to develop interactive settings for patients to attain better outcomes and enhance their relationships with colleagues.
Self-reflection is an essential tool to promote and practice ethical components and moral courage. Self-reflection enables nurses to understand their values and biases, recognize the influence of the values on decisions, and determine areas for improvement (Oliver et al., 2021). Through a reflective approach to our actions and decisions, nurses can act ethically and with courage. For instance, when one makes decisions based on biases, reflection helps to recognize the problem and strive to make an objective alternative in future interactions. In conclusion, my practicum experience is a journey of self-exploration and growth (Haen, 2022). The experience shows the importance of understanding and overcoming personal biases and focusing on values that lead to better care delivery.
References
Buetow, S. (2020). Apophenia, unconscious bias and reflexivity in nursing qualitative research.
International journal of nursing studies, 89, 8-13. DOI: 10.1016/j.ijnurstu.2018.09.013.
Haen, L. (2022). Nurse Educators and Implicit Bias: Does Critical Self-Reflection Change
