How Is Critical Thinking Used Today - 1069 Words

How is critical thinking used today? This is a typical question that a student in a non-nursing major may ask, but here at the Christ College, we would be happy to answer that for you. As a student nurse, I use and witness critical thinking and clinical reasoning in the clinical field every day. To better understand this topic, I found two articles to read and review. The first article I found is based on education and the second shows the view of a well-practiced nurse. The first article I chose was Nursing education and the importance of critical thinking by Robyn Knapp. This article explains the roles and responsibilities of registered nurses and how they have changed over the years. As health care evolves, the duties, tasks, and†¦show more content†¦A support system is very convenient when the patient goes home to ensure they continue to follow their individual care plan to get better and stay better. Finally, documentation is a very important part in critically thinking. Many nursing students have it stamped in our heads, that â€Å"If it wasn’t documented, it wasn’t done.† The second article I chose was Critical thinking skills: Learned or nurtured? by Elizabeth Thompson. So, are these skills learned or nurtured? The article also spoke about how difficult it is to define critical thinking skills and how it is even harder to evaluate them. Since these skills are so hard to define, can they be taught or are they supported and enabled? There are new nurses that struggle in their environment the same way experienced nurses do. They say the best way to learn is to be thrown on the floor and learn from experience. This is something I definetly agree with. It also talked about how sometimes people might be afraid to deviate from the policy because they do not want to get into trouble, but the policies don’t always cover every situation. So there is a barrier between new and old learning, new and old nurses, and new and old policies. I think that the first article was more useful than the second. In the first article, I learned how critical thinking and nursing has evolved and will continue to evolve because health care is constantly