Reflection about taking handover from the ambulance crew for the first time as a student nurse - Essay Example

Reflections help nurses and other professionals meditate on their interactions with their colleagues, identifying any room for improvement hence, for better future performance while also at the same time enabling an individual assess the ways in which a situation can be handled much more effectively in the consequent days/ encounters (Koerner, 2011, 652). It is equally a chance to become more self-aware, self-directing and more in touch with their surroundings (Wilson, 2013, 997). The following is a clear and relatively easy to follow reflection about the first time I was placed in the accident and emergency unit for ambulance handovers.

The events of the handover took place on the first day on which I was posted in the accident and emergency (A & E) unit. It was around 10 am when the emergency department got a phone call informing us of a flurry of patient arrivals. There had been a building collapse at a local construction site and since we were the closest medical facility in the vicinity, all of the victims would be rushed into our accident and emergency unit. After getting a rough estimate of the number of patients that were rescued from the site and coming in, the head of department divided the workforce in his department into various sub-units that would each deal with a particular patient and provide them with personalized care.

Each unit then set up a chain of command and distinct roles assigned to each member. My primary function during the handover in my unit was to verify and complete the Patient Report Form (PRF) since we anticipated (rightly) that the patients would be rushed to the resuscitation room before the information from the ambulance team fully received. My mentor was the head of our unit. Before the arrival of the ambulance team, we were connected to video and radio feeds that gave vital updates and conditions of the patients, which I took down