Nursing is an ever growing career field and it will always be needed. There are more and more nursing jobs popping up every single day. Getting into the field of nursing and succeeding in the field require a lot of hard work and effort. My ultimate career goal is to be an acute pediatric nurse practitioner. There are many skills that I must have in order to succeed and be great in my future career. Some of these include being compassionate, a good listener, passionate, dedicated, a leader, knowledgeable, creative, and of course have good logical critical thinking skills. Although all of these qualities and skills are important, it is a must to have a nurse who knows how to think logically.
Besides thinking logically, compassion is the most important skill that a nurse should have. Compassion is feeling sympathy for someone with a misfortune and a want to alleviate their pain (Dictionary.com). When a patient is sick, it comforts them knowing that their nurse is sympathetic towards their needs and striving to help them feel better. This is why compassion is so important in the nursing field. If a nurse is compassionate, she will try her hardest to help the patient that is suffering and do it in a nice way. Having good listening skills is also a must for a nurse. She will have to listen to a patient’s symptoms and transcribe them. A patient will not appreciate a nurse who says, “Wait, what symptoms did you say you have, again?” Being passionate and dedicated about one’s career should be necessary in any field, especially nursing. A patient is going to admire someone who takes pride in their work and treats patients well and accurately.
The most important skill that a nurse must have is the ability to use logical and critical thinking. This is because nurses help diagnose and treat patients along with the physician. In diagnostics, logical thinking is extremely important. Often times, deductive logic can be used. Deductive logic is “the study of methods for evaluating whether the premises of an argument guarantee its conclusion (Howard-Snyder et al.). A real world example of this is: “The patient has decreased levels of dopamine, decreased levels of dopamine indicate Parkinson’s disease. Therefore, the patient has Parkinson’s Disease.” When diagnosing a patient, the logical form Modus Ponens can also be used. “If A, then B. A so B.” An example of this is, if the patient has damaged myelin sheaths in the central nervous system, then the patient has multiple sclerosis. These are both examples of deductive logic being used to diagnose.
Another reason why logical thinking is a necessity is because a nurse must be able to assess a situation that she walks into. A nurse might go in a patient’s room to check on them, and they could be seizing or unconscious. A nurse must determine the most logical thing to do in that situation. If the patient is seizing, the nurse will take the necessary measures to try and stop the seizing. If the patient is unresponsive, she will do the common protocol to get the patient back to consciousness. Also, a nurse might walk in to check on her patient and they tell her a new symptom that they have. She must take note of this symptom and figure out what could be causing the problem. If she is thinking logically, she could determine the cause and the treatment for the symptom that her patient has.
While logical thinking is important, sometimes it is not the only type of thinking that will produce a good outcome. Being creative in diagnosing and treating is also an important skill, and can be used along with logic. Sometimes, a nurse may think of a great creative idea, but it ends up being not-so-great because it is illogical. One illogical thought process in the nursing field is appeal to tradition. Appeal to tradition is “a fallacy that occurs when it is assumed that something is better or correct simply because it is older, traditional, or ‘always been done'”(Nizkor). An example of this is “Mastectomies have a good cure rate for breast cancer, so there’s no reason to switch to lumpectomies” (Lockwood). Many women would much rather have the lump removed from their breast instead of the whole entire breast tissue. An older, more traditional nurse may say it is better to be safe than sorry by removing the whole breast while a younger, more creative nurse would say that it makes more sense to just remove the lump because it is less drastic and less painful.
There are a plethora of skills that are useful in the field of nursing. Many nurses do not realize what skills they must possess until they get into the field. Although it is acceptable for a nurse to lack in certain skills, one of the necessary skills is logical and critical thinking. This is because in order to be a successful nurse, one must think on their feet and be intuitive. They must use logical thought processes when treating and diagnosing patients. They also must use logic when determining what kind of treatment will be best and what emergency procedure would be drastic in saving a life if necessary. Logical thinking saves lives and time in the nursing field.
Works Cited
- Alfaro-Lefevre, Rosalinda. “Critical Thinking: Logical, Intuitive, or Both?” Alfaro Teach Smart, www.alfaroteachsmart.com/docs/critical thinking_ logical or intuitive.pd “Compassion.” Dictionary.com, http://www.dictionary.com/browse/compassion?
- Fallacy: Appeal to Tradition. The Nizkor Project, http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/appeal-to-tradition.html
- Howard-Snyder, Frances et al. The Power of Logic. Western Washington University, 2013. Lockwood, Wanda. “Critical Thinking in Nursing: Introduction.” RN, http://www.rn.org/courses/coursematerial-250.pdf
