Critical thinking among nursing students - Essay Example

The clinical issue is required for change for the advanced practice of the nursing students to enable them to develop their critical thinking ability. The critical thinking ability can be evaluated by the increase in the perceived value in patient acuity. Patient acuity is the measure of the health care of the patient from the minimal care to the intensive care by the nurses depending on their thinking ability. The issue that needs a change is to decrease the length of stay (LOS) in the acute care facility and increase the LOS in the homecare and community.

Discharging the patient before they are fully stabilised is the issue which needs change. Consequently, there should be an increase in the long-term care as even once the patients are discharged they might require additional care. The issue needs change to increase the homecare and escalate the activities of the management of heath care. A concise focus on bringing in positive reinforcements can enable to develop the critical thinking ability of the entry level nurses (New Mexico Board of Nursing, 2013).

Relevance As a nurse educator, the clinical issue demarcated is of relevance for the development of the critical thinking ability to facilitate competent entry level nurses. To develop the ability to think critically and solve the issues with regard to the patients, the educator needs to make the nurses well informed about the various situations. There is also a requirement to make the nurses trustful and open-minded while dealing with the patients of the old age. The educator’s role would be to make the nurses fair minded, flexible and honest.

The nurses must be prudent while making any judgement, must be clear about the issue of the patients and have a clear understanding before seeking any decision regarding the patient. The educator must be able to make the nurses efficient in diagnosing the issues and understanding the need of the care required by the patients on the basis of their complex issues. They should enable the nurses to keep up with the pace of the changing environment and have the ability to make a sound clinical judgement (Yildirim & Ozkahraman, 2011).

Impacts/Influences on the Outcome The outcome of this education and the change in the passing standard would make the environment stringent for the nurses where they will be required to treat and judge the complexity of the patients through their clear understanding and well groomed attitude. The critical thinking of the nurses would enable them to include their reflection of thoughts and facilitate them to recognise the solutions to the issues. The outcome would be that the nurses would opt for the scientific method for solving the issues by recognising the problem, planning and then implementing the evaluative methods for the proper health care of the patient.

The critical thinking ability would make them open minded and they would take measures which will not be limited to the predefined standards. The cognitive thinking process of the nurses would increase and they would become more reflective while taking essential decisions. The “traits of the mind”, critical thinking competencies and nursing based knowledge are desired to be enhanced by the educator of the nurses. Thus, all these positive outcome of the nurses would make them skilled with a positive attitude towards judging, diagnosing and problem solving of the issues related to the patient.

This would to make the entry level nurses more effective and efficient in treating the increasing number of