Personal Reflection On Evidence Based Practice

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Descriptive Reflection Throughout my nursing career I have never truly understood or accepted nursing theory as anything of great importance. Truthfully through previous courses I found myself wondering how nursing theorists even considered themselves a part of nursing at all. Nursing theorists’ views in my eyes were so drastically removed from what was actually occurring medically within my patients that I felt that the entire subject was worthless. However, knowing that I was once again required to take a course in nursing theory, I sat out to achieve a goal; not simply to pass this course with an “A,” but to have a firm grasp and understanding of what a nursing theorists’ work was accomplishing for the field of nursing.
What I Found …show more content…

This is because nursing theory should be the grounding within each nurse’s care, giving reason and justification to each motion or interaction in the patient care arena. Evidence-based practice I believe drives the medical field into new and great places always advancing the field of medicine and the complexity of care that may be offered to the extremely ill patient population; however, that is where evidence-based practice stops. One who only embraces evidence-based practice will never truly have the greatest patient outcomes compared to one who embraces theory as well as evidence-based practices. To me this concept is like attempting to look through a window that has been fogged over on a cold winter day. You can vaguely make out large images on the other side, but it’s not until you wipe the fog away that you can truly appreciate the great details that are on the other side. Evidence-based practices afford individuals with the ability to treat the “large images” whereas theory removes the fog allowing for each nurse to see greater details. With all this being said, it is important to note that a nurse must do more than simply research different theories; each nurse must be understand their patients’ needs as well as their own goals for each patient (Kenney, 2013). It is this inward reflection that is key to proper nursing theory

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