Person-Centred Care - Personal Statement Example

Person-centred care “Reflection means looking back on an experience and making sense of it to identify what to do in the future. Reflection helps you repeat what was effective, learn from mistakes, and it can build confidence” ( Bingham and Drew 1999). A methodical reflective account helps us in developing: 1)deeper knowledge of the skills required in the workplace 2)the ability to analyse strengths and weaknesses, and 3)knowledge of the effect you have on other people, and how things affect you (GoWales). This paper contains my reflective account on the experiences I underwent as member of a team, that came together for preparing a group presentation on person-centred care, as part of our collective assignment on hospitalisation study. The case study revolved around the care approach followed by a hospital team towards a 23-year old traumatised person who had repeat issues with self-harm, and thus, had to be attended by numerous wings of the hospital. We made a presentation on person-centred care, mainly focusing on the sensitivity with which the medical team in the hospital is equipped to handle such cases. To talk in brief, our presentation mainly looked into the policy matters of the hospital care unit in relation to person-centred care, and interprofessional collaboration between doctors, nurses and other medical staff. We had a successful presentation for we scored 75.5% at the end. In this account summary, I attribute this success to the collective effort made by me and my team in realising our full potential. To elaborate further, I will use the standardised procedure followed by Gibbs in developing a useful reflective account (Gibbs 1988). The methodology mentioned in Gibbs cycle goes somewhat like this: Description: Here, we need to describe the “stimulant” behind reflection; according to Gibbs it can be an incident, a theoretical event, or just a simple decision. To describe this reflective account, I must recall the decision we undertook as a team, to contribute towards the presentation by always working through “general agreement” as to what be done, and fostering an environment in which everyone is encouraged to equally participate in evolving constructive ideas for the presentation. ‘Team work” is the central theme of our reflection; we also planned our proceedings in such a manner so as to a)divide our work equally and b)communicate between sessions. My role was well-anchored to evolving team needs, wherein I always took initiative to facilitate constructive dialogue, whenever needed. Feelings: Any group interaction evokes a multitude of emotions in the team ranging from stress-induced behaviours such as tension, fatigue, etc. to problems resulting from clash of personalities, e.g. the opposing behaviour of any two members can lead to group discord, and general resentment. We knew these factors could affect the quality of our presentation output, so we stuck our guns to the previously-described group policy of constructive dialogue through team work, and incorporating viewpoints of all members in the team. The setting was very ideal for our partnership venture, there being no back-biting or hard feelings. Maybe this had something to do with the small size of our team. But, speaking overall, I was immensely satisfied with the course of development. Evaluation and Analysis: In order to evaluate and analyse this reflective account on team work, I must discuss the standard procedure from a famous text on Team Roles (Tuckman 1997); it incorporates the belief that leadership of a team must possess an ability to diagnose various stages of development, and always make appropriate interventions in order to move the team forward. It follows a four-pronged formula of progression. Here, I provide a brief description of how our definition of team work fitted into this model. 1)Forming (Stage I): This stage requires high dependence on leader for teamwork and guidance. Goals and objectives are still unclear. Members question the leadership rights of any potential leader. The leader’s main responsibility lies in providing a clear roadmap for team to follow, and assign clear-cut responsibility to one and all. In our scenario, I undertook the mantle of leadership, and succeeded in forming an amicable and trusting environment to evolve future course of developments. I made it a point to always engage my team in constructive dialogue, consult them before embarking on further agenda, and constantly evaluated my own role as a leader in my team’s basic expectations from me. 2)Storming (Stage II): It is at this phase that a team works out focused goals, and tries to steer clear of issues on emotions and misgivings. It was no mean task, even for such a tractable team as ours. There were differing opinions, and a few heated exchanges. But, since all team members clearly knew their roles and responsibility, we had regular and constant flow of ideas, and that really clarified details for future purposes. 3)Norming (Stage III): It is at this phase that the team really matures in relation to advancement of its own larger interests, and there is no more room for confusion. According to Tuckman, as long as a team does not graduate from Stage II to Stage III, at actual performance level, a feeling remains, “Wish we’d done that”. 4)Performing (Stage IV): This is the phase of actual action. Given the limited period of time we had, our team did well in gathering data required from patient-care centre of the hospital, analyse them, validate them, interview the 23-year old subject mentioned in the case study and medical staff, and finally prepare a satisfying presentation. Conclusions: “General”: I am satisfied with the objective of team work set out in the reflective account. “Specific”: I am really happy with the fact that I was able to work with such a friendly team. Personal action plans: I plan to extend my experience of team work in this presentation, to future undertakings also. References Drew, S. and R. Bingham. (1999) Key Workskills. Gower Gibbs, G. (1988) Learning by doing: a Guide to Teaching and Learning Methods: London GoWales. Date unknown. Retrieved 30 June 2006 from http://www.gowales.co.uk/e/cpd/Keepingareflectiveaccount.php Tuckman (1997). Read More