Case Study

Answer

Assessment 3: Case Study

            The purpose of this essay is to discuss issues and challenges that student nurses in clinical placement may encounter and ways to help them build resilience in their clinical placements. The framework of this assay is informed by the provided case study in which Shannon Doe, a third year undergraduate nurse, accuses Registered Nurse (RN) Tim Coloton, who is her preceptor, of bullying her. The scope of this essay includes a critical analysis of the case study and identifies recommendations to nurture Shannon’s resilience in future placements. Shannon perceives Tim as intimidating. However, Tim is just trying to be friendly and helpful to Shannon with no apparent sign of intimidation or bullying. Student nurses ought to take their clinical placement in an objective manner and embrace it as an opportunity for learning and self- improvement.

A critical analysis of the case indicates that Shannon lacked effective interpersonal and communication skills. During her first-day introduction to the ward she interrupted Tim while he was explaining on how to go about the self-directed e-modules. She was not patient to let him finished what he was saying. On the second day she never asked Tim on what he meant by the term a ‘Padawan’ but was bothered by it.  Besides, she did not asked Tim to brief her about handover procedures in the hospital as he handover on the second of her placement only to feel uncomfortable the following day when he reminded her, after she handed-over two patients that she had forgotten to mention important patient details. She could have also approached Tim to inform him that she is not comfortable with his use of terms such as a ‘walking textbook’ rather than keeping her anger to herself. On her assessment of the happenings, she concluded that Tim was bullying her. She then reported an incident report about it to complain about the alleged Tim’s bullying behaviour but these allegations were unfounded.

The following recommendations would help build Shannon’s resilience in future placements. First of all, she should be conversant with the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia (NMBA) (2016) Registered Nurses Standards of Practice. Standard 2 requires her to engage in professional and therapeutic relationships. Standard 3 requires her to maintain capability of practice which includes taking corrections objectively and commitment to a life-long professional and self-improvement. Standard 6 requires her to provide appropriate, safe, and responsive quality care, which in this case implies providing all important patient details during handover (NMBA, 2016). The second recommendation is that she should work on her interpersonal and communication skills since poor interpersonal and communication skills may hinder her learning and practice capabilities (Shafakhah et al., 2015). Effective communication can improve the patient’s perceptions of treatment outcomes and healthcare quality and can improve nurse-patient relationship (Norouzinia et al., 2016). Misconception is another issue that Shannon should work to improve interpersonal skills (Amoah et al., 2019). Her misconceived meanings or perceptions made her to judge Tim as a bully. Other barriers to communication are the all-knowing attitude, lack of knowledge, dissatisfaction and work overload (Amoah et al., 2019). Another strategy is for Shannon to set realistic expectations of her clinical placement and be highly motivated to learn since unrealistic expectations can be a source of stress in clinical placement (Ching et al., 2020). Lastly, but not the least, Shannon should be motivated in improving her interpersonal and communication skills since it will promote her wellness, reduce stress, and therefore, foster her overall quality of life (Vertino, 2014).