need help in developing critical thinking

twinmommy+2, ADN, BSN, MSN · Feb 26, 2009

Are you still in nursing school? If so then continue to do your care plans.

They help and are designed to teach you critical thinking.

eriksoln, BSN, RN · Feb 27, 2009

Are you still in nursing school? If so then continue to do your care plans.
They help and are designed to teach you critical thinking.

:uhoh21:What? :nono:Do you hate the OP or something? NOT.

Care plans are the most task oriented thinking there is out there. A complete waste of time. Save the paper and some trees OP, forget care plans.

If you are a student, this may help with test taking:

www.statnursing.org

As far as sharpening the critical thinking goes, it'll come to you, I dont know if you can really force it. Make sure you have to core knowlegde first, from that comes critical thinking. Cant tell when to hold a BP med if you dont learn its a BP med first.

Son Tava · Feb 27, 2009

hi. critical thinking skills can't be learned in a nursing curriculum. forget it. if you want to hone your critical thinking, embark upon a classical education: history, language, literature, anthropology, mathematics, psychology (non-nursing), political science, arts, economics, science, et al.. how about a ba in english literature? listen, nursing is antithetical to critical thinking. think about what i say before responding. and once you attain a level of critical thought, do you really think you'll be honored within the profession? you'll be chastised if not eradicated.

eriksoln, BSN, RN · Feb 27, 2009

This test may help too.

https://allnurses.com/general-nursing-discussion/critical-thinking-skills-369276.html

Multicollinearity, BSN, RN · Feb 27, 2009

n/m, thought the OP was a nursing student like me

diane227, LPN, RN · Feb 28, 2009

What area do you work in? Take ACLS if you can and buy books especially for your area. For example, if you work in ED there are a lot of good reference books that will help you. However, there is no substitution for practice and experience. It just comes with time. Take every learning opportunity that you can.

dorimar, BSN, RN · Feb 28, 2009

I don't know if you are a student or a nurse. I think what will help you is to first realize what critical thinking is. It involves analyzing situations and evaluating situations. Considering the possible reasons or causes for situations. Considering alternative solutions. Questioning assumptions...

When you have a patient you're dealing with, think about your role. I think an important part of nursing is prevention. I am here to prevent complications from the disease process and/or the treatment. Say you have a patient that had a fem/pop bypass. You know ahead of time the complications that can occur, and you are already looking out for these. Say you have post op abdominal surgery patient that is tachycardic. Well you have to consider the possible reasons: could it be pain, fever, hypovolemia, blah, blah, blah. Then you investigate, which causes you to look at other symptoms, etc. etc. etc.

Try to find the why,then when you figure out some possible solutions, think ahead about the possible things that could happen if you were to employ those solutions.

Everyone talks about how hard it is to learn critical thinking. But what I think is more difficult for new nurses and probably the largest barrier to critical thinking is the tasks that you are so unfamiliar with. You are focused on these tasks often to the point that you do not even notice that a patient is tachycardic, or tachypnic.

jam2007 · Mar 2, 2009

I am a new RN on a busy medical/tele floor where I see many different diagnosis. It is a high acuity floor and not alot of "walkie-talkies" I am trying to fit the pieces together...for example, if someone has Afib..I need to make sure they are on an anticoag, hooked up to tele, monitor VS, etc. I guess I'm having difficulty pulling the whole picture together with the disease process, meds, etc. and am attributing that to the ability to critically think. Hope that makes sense.

dorimar, BSN, RN · Mar 2, 2009

It sounds to me that you are on the right track. It will become easier, the longer you are at it. You will learn to know what you should be looking for with each diagnosis, or treatment, med, procedure, etc.-- the more you work with them. I believe that sadly, the most learned comes from preventable occurrences (either from your own mistakes or those of your peers). An explanation in a text book doesn't hold a candle to your patient or your coworker's patient ending up with a tension pneumo from ventilator barotrauma right before your eyes, or being reemed for not knowing to check a K+ level on a DKA receiving an insulin drip that had a high/ normal K+ level six hours ago, but who is now severly hypokalemic. This is why experience makes all the difference. Learn from your mistakes and the mistakes of others, and you will be a great nurse. Some people never learn.

TrailBlazerRN · Mar 2, 2009

I am in my first year of ns and my intro to nursing class focuses a lot on trying to get us to employ critical thinking. My nursing book even has a whole chapter on critical thinking. We also practice with questions that help us to critically think. Many of the NCLEX practice questions require critical thinking. Maybe even try practicing NCLEX questions and problem solving perhaps it will help improve your skills.

ma_82 · Mar 2, 2009

I've got same concern with you. The mosty terrifying part is that your nurse supervisor or the doctors that making rounds will ask question and we dont have the answer at that moment. I've observed from my co-workers that they just know how to joggle the words than providing the infos that are needed. Even if you know what to do and you dont look confident of what you are doing they will judge you as dumb. I think confidence matters most than knowledge. Its good to have both though.... :nurse: