Inter Professional Relationship and my Practice

As a nurse, one is charged with a wide range of responsibilities. The responsibilities include, among others, counseling and caring for patients, as well as working in collaboration with other health practitioners. The aim is to provide the best quality of services to the consumers (Pollard, Thomas & Miers 2010, p. 21). There are a number of themes surrounding the functions and roles of a nurse. The first important theme includes that of inter-professional relationship. The nurse has to work with other experts from other professions to deliver quality healthcare services to the clients. For example, they have to work together with doctors, community health workers, and such others. For one to be an effective nurse, it is important to have with other people. The provision of the joint efforts from each and every professional working in the healthcare sector. As a result, a nurse, who is one of the professionals in the field, should aim at working closely with others. To enhance collaborative practice among professionals, it is important for them to build on their interpersonal communication skills, knowledge, values, as well as ethics (Smith 2012, p. 1512).

The other theme important in nursing involves cultural diversity. The issue of cultural diversity is one of the most important considerations when it comes to working with members of the same inter-professional team. In most cases, we tend to view cultural differences in terms of the nurse-patient relationship. Such a perspective is inadequate given that nurses themselves should be able to appreciate the differences that exist between them and their fellow co-workers (Riley, Smyer & York 2012, 382). Diversity should be embraced and not seen as a source of disunity in a given setting (Omeri 2008, p. 209). It is important to acknowledge the fact that diversity comes in many forms. For example, there is diversity based on culture, religion, disability, race, as well as beliefs. As such, it is important for nurses to appreciate the fact that there will always be diversity in our places of work. It is not possible to work in a homogenous setting.

The two themes (cultural diversity and inter-professional relationship) go hand-in-hand. One must have for them to appreciate their co-workers. The co-workers may, for example, hold belief systems that are different from those of the nurse. As such, the nurse needs to have inter-professional skills to appreciate these differences. It is, however, important to acknowledge that the aforementioned skills are not inherent to the professional nurse. In addition, the skills are not acquired automatically. The skills are cultivated by the individual and other people around them. Their acquisition is a process that starts right from the nurses life in college. The skills are enhanced throughout the individual nurses learning process (Reeves et al. 2010, p. 236). For this reason, students are encouraged to develop these aspects in their practice. Support should be offered to them during the process. To this end, they should be guided through what is expected of them in their practice.

In this paper, I am addressing the two themes mentioned above in relation to my practice as a nurse. The paper is a reflection of a scenario that shows my masterly of the nursing practice with regards to themes.

Reflection
Scenario
In my practice as a nursing student, I have experienced a number of issues that we covered in class. My field attachment provided me with an opportunity to experience, first hand, some of the issues I am to expect later in my practice as a professional nurse. During the practice, I got the opportunity to interact with individuals from diverse cultures. In addition, as part of my practice, I was required to relate appropriately with other individuals that I was to work with during the time (Bulman & Schutz 2012, p. 34). As a result, I was required to apply the knowledge I had acquired in class. My inter-professional skills were to play a significant role on my effective and efficient engagement in team activities during my practice. As I had learnt in class, the provision of healthcare services requires teamwork. As such, relating well with each and every member of the group was paramount (Gardner 2010, p. 265). I also realised that by cooperating with other members of the team, I was in a better position to be assimilated into the system. As a result of such assimilation, my work and my time during the attachment were enhanced.

I have used Gibbs model of reflection to evaluate and analyse the scenario. With the help of the model, I will analyse the scenario in six phases. The phases include description, feelings, and evaluation. The others are analysis, conclusion, and action plan.

Inter-Professional Relationship and my Practice
During my placement, I collaborated with all health care personnel in the team I was working in. I was assigned tasks that I was required to complete by the end of each day. I was new to this organisation, and as a result, I had to work a little bit harder than the other members of the team. I lacked enough knowledge on my nursing roles in the hospital. I felt that by collaborating with other individuals, making decisions concerning clients in the health facility would be easy (Kilpatrick, Lavoie-Tremblay, Ritchie, Lamothe & Doran 2012, p. 1509). I also realised that my work will be made easy and as a result, I will achieve better results. I feel that the practice was helpful as far as my future nursing profession is concerned. The efficiency with which activities were carried out in the team I was working with is indicative of the success of my practice. My team members also perceived me as hardworking. Many of them wanted to be allocated tasks together with me. My performance was also exemplary, which is reflected in my supervisors report. In a nutshell, I realised that individuals love working with other hardworking people. Collaboration among team members also improves relations between them (Hammick, Freeth, Copperman & Goodsman 2009, p. 34). As a result, the working conditions are improved to the benefit of every person. I feel that I achieved good results not only by collaborating with other individuals, but also by effectively playing the roles that were allocated to me. The success of a group is as a result of the combined efforts of each individual in the team. To this end, I was keen to conduct my individual roles and collaborate with team members (Hastie & Fahy 2011, p. 76).