NR501 Week 2 Reflective Assignment Carper’s Pattern of Knowing Reflective Essay
Fundamental Nursing Lessons Learnt from a Difficult Situation in Practice: Carper’s Pattern’s of Knowing in Nursing.
The Practical Situation Experienced
Nursing is about promoting health, preventing illness, and restoring hope. However, there are situations in which a nurse can find themselves almost helpless with regard to all the three above. A case in point is the prospect of having to reassure a patient with terminal illness by giving them hope yet you know very well that they may not have long to live.
Even more daunting is the task requiring you as the nurse to convince the patient and her relatives that they will benefit from hospice care. This is the situation I once found myself in. I was faced with this situation of a 37 year-old who had advanced ovarian cancer with a very poor prognosis. It was obvious that what she needed most in her…
Week 2 Assignment: Reflective Essay
Purpose
Nursing knowledge is classified in a variety of ways, one of which is Carper’s Patterns of Knowing (Carper, 1978). Carper’s framework offers a lens through which the nurse can reflect upon insights acquired through empirical, ethical, personal, and aesthetic knowledge (Carper, 1978).
Through intentional reflection using Carper’s Patterns of Knowing, nurses can process experiential learning and knowledge acquired through practice. This assignment aims to reflect upon a specific practice situation and better understand the professional knowledge and insights obtained through that experience.
Course Outcomes on NR501 Week 2 Reflective Assignment
Through this assessment, the student will meet the following Course Outcomes:
- Demonstrate logical and creative thinking in analyzing and applying theory to nursing practice. (CO #1)
- Examine broad theoretical concepts as foundational to advanced nursing practice roles. (CO #3)
Requirements
Criteria for Content
- Think of a surprising or challenging practice situation in which you felt underprepared, unprepared, or uncomfortable.
- Select an important nursing issue/topic that was inherent to the identified situation.
- As a method of refection, use Carper’s Patterns of Knowing to analyze the situation. In a two- to three-page paper address the following:
- Briefly explain the situation
- Identify the nursing issue inherent in the identified situation
- What do you think was the underlying reason for the situation? (Esthetics)
- What were your thoughts and feeling in the situation? (Personal)
- What was one personal belief that impacted your actions? (Ethics)
- What evidence in nursing literature supports the nursing importance of the identified issue? (Empirical)
- What new insights did you gain through this reflective practice opportunity?
Preparing the paper
- Application: Use Microsoft Word 2016™ to create the written component of this assessment.
- Length:
- The paper (excluding the title page and reference page) should be at least two but no more than three pages.
- A minimum of two (2) scholarly literature sources must be used.
- Submission: Submit your file to the Canvas course site by the due date/time indicated.
Best Practices in Preparing the Reflective Essay
The following are best practices in preparing this reflective essay.
- Review directions thoroughly.
- Follow assignment requirements.
- Make sure all elements on the grading rubric are included.
- Rules of grammar, spelling, word usage, and punctuation are followed and consistent with formal, scholarly writing.
- Because the paper is a reflective essay, first person is acceptable for this assignment.
- Title page, running head, body of paper, and reference page must follow APA guidelines as found in the 6th edition of the manual. This includes the use of headings for each section of the paper except for the introduction where no heading is used.
- Ideas and information that come from scholarly literature must be cited and referenced correctly.
- A minimum of two (2) scholarly literature sources must be used.
- Abide by CCN academic integrity policy.