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Clinical Reasoning

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Nurses use clinical reasoning to assess their patients, make decisions surrounding interventions, and evaluate these interventions every day in their clinical practice. Having just finished a rotation on a busy surgical unit I had the opportunity to see nurses using their clinical reasoning skills and experience in order to facilitate safe patient care: this paper will discuss clinical reasoning and the processes involved used by nurses to make critical decisions in regards to visibly distressed postoperative patients.
Defining Clinical Reasoning
Clinical reasoning is an essential part of nursing practice and has even been identified as what could be called “the ‘hallmark’ of an expert nurse” (Simmons, Lanuza, Fonteyn, Hicks, & Holm, 2003, …show more content…
17). Nurses use a systematic approach to determine what may be the source of distress for a patient based on signs and symptoms being presented. When caring for fresh postoperative patients, vital signs are taken at regular intervals beginning with every fifteen minutes immediately following surgery and then slowly less often if there are no issues (Raymond-Seniuk, 2010). In any emergent situation it is important to quickly assess Airway, Breathing, Circulation, Discomfort, and Equipment to narrow down what parts of the body are being affected, for postoperative patients evaluation of the surgical site and function of the central nervous system are also included (Bell & Donnelly, 2010; Raymond-Seniuk, 2010). Knowledge of what surgery the patient has undergone, the most likely complications to arise with that particular surgery, and any pertinent health history gives the nurse more insight as to what may be happening to the distressed individual (Raymond-Seniuk, …show more content…
It is also important to assess the surgical site for any signs of dehissence or possible bleeding. The primary cardiovascular complications a nurse may consider when assessing cardiovascular stability are hypotension and shock, hemorrhage, hypertension, and dysrhythmias (Raymond-Seniuk, 2010). Once these systems have been assessed it is also valuable to investigate the patient’s psychological well-being, it is possible that fear or anxiety is worsening their distress and physiological symptoms symptoms such as hypertension or shortness of breath (Raymond-Seniuk, 2010). This was the case with the anxiety being experienced by the patient with postoperative hypertension; the anxiety elevated her blood pressure even further and caused her to experience shortness of

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