Definition of Personal Knowing and how it affects Personal Development By definition

Definition of Personal Knowing and how it affects Personal Development

 By definition personal knowing is the basis for self-expression of a person’s genuine self (Chinn & Kramer, 2018). It also promotes a healing relationship and is fundamental to human nature. Personal knowing requires that you be in touch with yourself and who you are as a person affects values, beliefs, and behaviors, in either a positive or negative manner.

            My personal knowing affects my professional development in a sense of how “do I know what I know (Chinn & Kramer, 2018)?” When I start my shift at work I bring in nursing knowledge to take care of patients at work, specializing in caring for cardiac and COVID patients. Reflecting on the knowledge that I know from the experiences gained throughout my practice allows me to develop better clinical judgement to care for patients. I am able to know when to call the doctor about an abnormal finding or intervene early to prevent complications in patients. For example, when taking care of COVID patients I can use personal knowing to reflect on the knowledge that they are at risk for blood clots and if a patients complaints of signs and symptoms of deep vein thrombosis, I know right away to call the doctor. I can also advocate for them to be placed on blood thinners on admission to prevent this from occurring in the first place. Using personal knowing allows me to better care for my patients and have better patient outcomes.

Personal Strengths and Weaknesses

 My first personal strength when caring for patients is time management. I am able to care for teams of four to five patients and be able to get everything done on time. This allows me to ensure I give an adequate amount of time to each patient to meet their needs. A second personal strength is helping others. I consistently take time out of the shift, when I have nothing to do to ask others if they need assistance, this can be changing a patient or doing a med pass.

            Furthermore, I believe that I have several weaknesses. The first being my attitude towards difficult patients. There are times at work where I can become increasingly frustrated with difficult patients, but do no display signs of it and internalize the stress, which makes work more difficult at times. Another weakness is that at times I want to do everything at once for a patient, and sometimes have to realize this is not feasible. This can make a shift all the more challenging when having to room in and out of the same room.

Applying Nursing Theory to Address Strengths and Weaknesses

 Nursing theory can be applied to address weaknesses and develop my strengths in two ways. Nursing theories such as the grounded theory can be applied to my current practice to gain a better appreciation for compassion in caring for patients even when they are difficult (Straughair, 2019). It is important to remember as a nurse that patients do not want to be in the hospital as they are lonely and often isolated, especially during a pandemic. This also helps me to realize care is often continuous and to have compassion when a patient requires more care than others. Nursing theory can also further develop my strengths by using a framework for time management when caring for patients and prioritize patient needs based on acuity (Straughair, 2019).