Reflective Paper On Clinical Governance Seminar Planning

Gibb’s Reflective Model for Learning and Planning from Experiences

This reflective paper aims to discuss the experience I have acquired through the seminar planning on clinical governance. I was a part of a four-member conference planning project on infectious disease propagation and preventive strategies management and governance. I have learned problem identification and solving methods through this group work and implemented extensive research. Along with the subject knowledge, I have improved my analytical and teamwork skills, which, as per (Cleary, Lees and Sayers 2019), will support growth in future projects or real-life problem-solving. This paper will follow Gibb’s reflective model and not Kolb’s to detail all the segments of this learning process in this project. Gibb’s reflective model has several stages, and all will be analyzed based on my experience in this particular project. Finally, this reflection will conclude with the action plan in which I will find out the methods to be applied in transforming my weaknesses into strengths and improve my career graph in the nursing job role.

Gibbs reflective model is one of the most famous cyclical models that reflects the experience of the persons through six elaborated stages like description, feelings, evaluation, analysis, and conclusion and action plan. This Gibbs reflective model was developed in 1988 for giving a structure of learning from experiences. The cyclic structure lends a reputed experiences and allows the participant to learn as well as plan from the things which were positive as well as negative. The description stage includes the experience and the feeling stage includes the thoughts of the experience. Evaluation stage evaluates the good and bad things of the experience and analyse the situation. Conclusion reflects what on has learnt and action plan details how the participant will be dealing with the similar situation in the future.

Choosing Gibbs Model of reflection is more helpful that others reflective cycles like Kolb’s reflective model. As per Tawanwongsri and Phenwan (2019) there are some very important factors associated with these two reflective cycles that makes Gibbs reflective model a better one. First of all, Gibbs reflective model has five stages whereas Kolb’s reflective cycle has four that includes concrete experience, reflective observation, abstract conceptualization, active experimentation. Refection is all about making simple analysis of the experiences but the stages of Kolb’s reflective model makes them complicated.

Secondly, the stages of Gibbs reflective model can be readjusted according to the purposes of reflection which cannot be done in Kolb’s.

Thirdly, Gibbs reflective model acknowledges the importance of detailing all the experiences and the advices provided. In Kolb’s one can find reflection of the experiences in a very precise and complex manner with no guidance from the authors.

Fourth, Kolb’s reflective cycle does not acknowledge the potential of the cultural factors or the gender differences. Gibbs reflective model acknowledges these and assure that such factors will be detailed for better understanding of the experience.

Fifth, human cognition in the reflective cycle is very much necessary which Gibbs reflective model includes but the Kolb’ reflective cycle does not. Despite the latter provides a convincing and holistic account of the experiences, feelings ad behaviors of the participants but seem to put less importance upon the emotional aspects of experiences.

Choosing Gibbs Model of Reflection over Kolb’s Reflective Model

Sixth, Kolb’s reflective cycle highlights the essentiality of reflective components in experiential learing whereas Gibbs reflective model can provide a structure to learning from the experiences.

Finally, Gibbs reflective model provides a scope for action plan so that the participants can successfully learn from this experience and apply the acquired knowledge into the next one but Kolb’s reflective cycle does not provide any.

While working on a project on Governance and Management Systems, I was appointed as one of the 4 members of the project development team. On our first day as project team members, I was introduced to my team members and a detailed induction was given on our position, role and responsibilities. The project took place in the university premise on 29^th July. We were given a topic as Governance and Management Systems in preventing innovations in the hospitals and were responsible to collect evidences in support of this topic. The project was segment into eight sessions and the four members had to analyse the factors associated. All of us had segmented the subject topic into several parts to analyse and took responsibilities to analyses different resources to understand the subject. 

During the storming phase of the team formation, frequent conflict took place within the team members due to lack of effective communication leading to misunderstanding (Maes and Weldy 2019). This in turn was hampering our ability to perform as a team and was resulting in unnecessary delay.  As a team member, I noticed that few of the members were facing difficulties in sharing information from their end clearly and transparently due to language barriers as well as lack of communication skill. This in turn resulted in misunderstanding and affected our project adversely.

The team was responsible to develop a conference plan on healthcare management and governance and we specified on the causes and prevention of infection. Now in conducting this conference, we had to develop certain strategies and enhanced skills like analyzing, team working, decision making, communication and researching. We followed Tuckman team dynamics model in order to keep our activities upgraded and free from conflicts (Saban, Drach-Zahavy and Dagan 2021). We followed forming, storming, norming, performing and adjourning stages to develop the teams and manage it to gain the best result of this project. Team building and management with only four members were both beneficial as well as challenging because we felt limitation of knowledge and skills for having only four members. However, we decided the roles of the leaders and the other team members quiet effectively without wasting much time. This also helped us to develop short term goals to arrange the sessions and discussed about the research procedure.

The project was about the methods of strengthening management and governance of the hospitals as registered nurses. Therefore all of the four members had conducted extensive research and submitted their reports in the sessions (Maes and Weldy 2018). We shared personal rescues among ourselves so that we can maintain integration for this project. Our aim was to analyse the topic of preventing infection possibilities in the hospitals through strengthening governance and management. This is the reasons why we followed effective team management facilities so that we can share own skills and information with other team members and the projects gets continuity and relevance. It was our responsibility to prove ourselves as responsible registered nurses and show how we will be solving the serious healthcare issues in the hospital after being recruited.

Team Building and Management with Four Members

As a healthcare professional, one of my key roles is to work on continuous development of my knowledge and skills. Given the fact that the project on ‘Governance in Safety and Quality’, provided me with the scope of developing my knowledge and skills of providing safe and high quality care to the patients, my very first reaction after being selected as a team member of this project was excitement.

Throughout the project I developed effective knowledge about strategies to ensure safety and quality care to the patients. Development of my own knowledge and skill makes me feel confident and satisfied.

However, during the timing stage, frequent conflict and lack of communication between the team members made me feel demotivated. Also, since out team was facing unnecessary delay which was affecting our project adversely, I felt frustrated and helpless. I felt that majority of the team members, including me, felt anxious and was afraid that lack of interpersonal bonding and understanding between the team members might lead to failure of the project.  However, during the norming stage, the situation was effectively managed by the team leader and team members.

Another time, I and other members of the team felt anxious was when we were suffering from lack of time and required resources. In week 2, we were stipulated to complete a range of assigned tasks within a highly limited amount of time. At that point of time, I felt that inability to complete the task that I was assigned to, will impose negative impact on my professional life as well as that of the other team members. This act enhanced my anxiety level to a great extent. However, when the task got completed, I developed a feeling of fulfillment and satisfaction.

The aspects that were good and worked well was the fact that we were able to produce a good quality project within the stipulated deadline. Moreover, with time, each of the team members developed an interpersonal finding with each other and a trusted bond was formed. Another positive aspect I detected was my ability to identify specific issues within a team. As per Jung and Bae (2019), it is highly crucial for nurses to have effective emotional intelligence to understand complex situation within a nursing team as well as issues faced by the patients. As a team member, I had efficiently detected the issues that was leading to conflict within our team, in the storming phase.

When it comes to the negative aspects, lack of effective communication skill between the team members and lack of time management skills can be pointed out as the two major negative aspects that did not worked out for us. The fact that even after understanding the issues that were leading to conflict, I did not take an effective stand at that time but stayed the same, which indicated my lack of communication skill and confidence. As per Carmack and Harville (2020), a healthcare service provider must have effective communication skill. Effective communication skill enables a nurse to communicate information to fellow nurses as well as patients clearly and transparently (Galleta-Williams et al. 2020). Additionally effective communication skill helps nurse leaders to resolve conflict situations. As a team member, I could have resolved the situation through effective communication, which would have prevented unnecessary delay, we had one through. Additionally, lack of time management skill had resulted in the risk of failing to meet the stipulated deadline. As a team member, I feel that, if I had effective time management skill, our team could have delivered a better performance. According to Rosengarten (2021), effective time management skill is highly crucial for a nurse. Considering the fact that the flow of patients are increasing with time in Australian healthcare industry, it is highly crucial for nurses to have effective time management skill. A nurse who can efficiently manage time is more likely to have an effective work life balance and is less likely to supper from stress and burnout (Clayton et al. 2019).  Given the fact, I aspire to be a nurse leader in near future, I will be working on developing my communication skills and Time management skill.

Extensive Research and Reports on Strengthening Management and Governance in Hospitals

There are several reasons why this project went so well despite the conflicts regarding communication and time constraints. First of all the four team members had primary understanding of the subject regarding the governance and Management in the Healthcare sector.  All of us were bright students as per the educational background concerned.  This is the reason why we had conducted such dynamic research on the topic of infection prevention in the hospitals.  Secondly we already poses knowledge about teamwork and how collaboratively we can solve problem. The basic idea of team building and Management had help us to understand importance of team culture and communication.  We did not failed conflicted during the delegation of roles and responsibilities within the team. We were following every word of our professors so that achieving short term goals like choosing team leader, distributing task and raising query became no barrier.  It was true that initially we felt shy or inferior in racing concerns regarding topic and subject analysis but gradually developed relationship among ourselves (Cauwelier, P 2019).  I believe the team members must know since and weaknesses of one another so that sharing skills and knowledge can manage the gap.  This is what we felt while producing our research papers in the sessions. Another important success factor is our team culture where we promoted all kinds of positive communication system within the team meetings.  We handled the problem quite professionally so that the gravity of subject is respected.

Now the project would have been better if we had more time for research on the topic.  Despite the fact we had segregated articles as per subject continuity, constantly ticking time had pressed us. We also fail to communicate with each other initially but after few team hurdles meeting we solved these problems.

According to Tuckman's team dynamics theory, there are five stages which every team passes through which include forming, storming, and norming, performing and adjourning stages (McCloughen, O’Brien and Jackson, 2014). The formation of team and conflict initiation where the first two stages.  Gradually we had adopted with the team culture and performed well in the project. We adjourned the team after submitting the conference plan and get appreciated. Another theory that I feel had helped us the CORE value which is an abbreviation of collaboration, openness, respect and empowerment (Cleary, Lees and Sayers 2019). This reflect that all the team members had worked willingly an actively and promoted openness for sharing ideas. We respected each other and found the sense of purpose in our work. Thus we had created a positive environment for every people for growing and succeeding in the project.

However I could have responded in a different way during the conflict session.  I am naturally introvert and cannot react in the situation promptly.  I used to feel that conflict within the team on the first stage, will never success the team project.  This is the reason why I tried to avoid this conflict but would not realize that it is a part of team dynamics. I could have taken my stand during that stage and shared my ideas to solve the problems.  Instead I avoided any communication with other three team members which delayed the entire process. We could have undergone Big 5 personality test to understand how our personality and behaviour will be affecting our team dynamics and decision making.  This test find out leadership capacity also which would have helped us to choose team leader more easily.  By understanding our own personality we could have managed our emotions and contributed more knowledge and skills in completing the project.

Conclusion –

As a registered nurse it is my responsibility to follow the National Safety and Quality Health Service so that the management and governance act its best to protect the interest of the patients coming to hospitals and prevent any kind of infections to spread (Willetts and Garvey 2020). After the covid 19 pandemic, most of the hospitals have brought changes in their management system and increased monitoring of the infectious patients. This is the reason why we had chosen this topic and conducted an in-depth research about this topic. From this project we learnt effective communicatsion both verbal as well as written skill, analytical skill, team working, conflict resolution, in-depth research and problem solving capacity among the registered nurses. We also identified barriers to infection prevention and control drive within the hospitals as the subject of this conference hence needed to collect data from the real world scenario.

In order to develop my communication skill a nurse, I will consider both self-development strategies as well as attending other seminars aimed at development of this particular skill. First of all, I will be going through online videos on communication development in order to enhance my knowledge and skills. Additionally, I will be reading books by eminent nursing leaders on communication development. Khademian et al. (2018) have highlighted that higher exposure to communication with fellow nurses, patients and family members helps in development of communication skills of nurses. This strategy will also be followed by me.

In order to develop my time management skill, I will schedule my work on a daily basis. Additionally, I will gather knowledge about the same through learning videos available in the internet. Lastly I will consult with my colleagues to understand their time management strategies and will implement the same, as per my convenience and understanding.

Conclusion of the assignment-

Therefore it can be concluded that understanding capacity of working collaboratively is not easy.  It was my first project under team structure therefore I had made several wrong decisions and created barrier for successful completion of the project.  I could not realize my responsibility in the team in the first hand therefore the project has suffered initially.  However all of us had possessed in-depth knowledge about the subject which ultimately help us to end in a happy note.  From the conference planning we had learnt several aspects of decision making, teamwork, problem identification and solving, analytical and research skills, communication competency and time management from this real world scenario. I hope to utilize this experience in my future assignments and overcome barriers of wrong decisions so that I do not come across such problems in building and managing teams. The strengths I have identified will be magnified and weaknesses transformed.

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