Acute burns management: placement reflections of a children’s nursing student.

Abstract

Reflection is an important art and science to help nurses make sense of their clinical surroundings and to understand, risks, challenges and opportunities. Learning the art, in particular, required for reflective practice begins as a student, when critical reflection, particularly during practice placements, is important. To this end, Rolfe, Jasper and Freshwater (2011) provide a suitable reflective framework. Adopting this framework, this paper draws on the experiences of a second year undergraduate children’s nursing student placement in an acute care setting, caring for a toddler with 13% partial and full thickness burns. In particular, decisions made about assessing and monitoring homeostasis, overall fluid and pain management, infection prevention and potential safeguarding concerns are explored. It is concluded that reflecting on clinical experience such as this provides invaluable transferable skills to students.