Midwifery -An evaluation of a specific area of communication that I consider I need to develop as part of my professional role

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ASSIGNMENT - IPL

Title: An evaluation of a specific area of communication that I consider I need to develop as part of my professional role within an interprofessional team.

COURSE: BSC MIDWIFERY

SUBMISSION DATE: 25/05/12

Word count - 2006

Modern midwifery care is not merely delivering new born babies to the world or administration of medication. It is evidently more than assisting during childbirth as the care provided begin before pregnancy and carries on till after childbirth. For success in this period, communication skills need to be acquired and used effectively within the professionals providing care, the client and her family .The Nursing and Midwifery Council  (NMC)guidelines emphasize the importance of communication skills and the expected standards of healthcare providers.(NMC 2010). The intention of this written piece is to focus on an area of communication that I feel I need to develop as part of my professional role within the interprofessional team that I have become part of. I will explore this through the use of a reflective cycle and following the steps in it.

Dunne defines Communication as the process by which information, meanings and feelings are shared through verbal (speech) and nonverbal methods such as gestures or facial expressions. (Dunne 2005) Good communication skills are the basis of effective team work.

As a team of professionals we constantly need to communicate amongst ourselves so as to provide quality care to the patient. According to the author of the ‘Physician Assistant, newsletter ,the one modern technique that saves countless lives which is usually is not spoken of is interprofessional team work .Numerous problems or factors causing deaths could have been avoided if teamwork was adhered to and communication skills were applied. This is evident in the case of Baby P (Haringey 2010) and the Victoria Climbe Case (BBC London 2010)

For me to decide on choice of a communication skill that I felt needed development, I wrote down my reflections from a day on placement. The model of reflection I used was the Gibbs Cycle, (Gibbs 1988) which I found clear and understandable.  Gibbs 1998 reflective cycle is one of the frameworks that enable professionals to reflect on things that can be improved, learned more, and strengthened in the future. The cycle requires six main steps which are listed in order as follows

  • Description of events ( what exactly happened)
  • Feelings (how one may feel or think)
  • Evaluation ( what were the positive and the negative aspects of the experience)
  • Analysis (what sense can be made of the situation)
  • Conclusion (what else could have been done)
  • Action plan (what could be done next time)
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(Gibbs 1988)

Apart from being simple and easy to understand the reason of choice for the Gibbs reflection cycle is that it takes in to account the need to include feelings and emotions which were experienced in a particular event (Ghaye and Lillyman 1997) compared to other models such with the exception of Baud.

Description

During one of my early placement days, my mentor was not able to come in and so I was assigned to work with a midwife T who I had not worked with before. She asked me if I could palpate patient B and write down ...

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