Managing Conflict In Clinical Practice.

Conflict is unavoidable in nursing environment as nurses need to work with other health workers , care of patients with different personalities, and communicate with patient’s family. Hence, conflict is a significant issue result in stress, turnover and job dissatisfaction. The essay will talk about conflicting experience in clinical practice and how to manage conflict by using suitable conflict resolution methods.

Clinical experience:

The story took place in September of 2017 in Singapore General Hospital at oncology ward. There was one staff nurse, one enrolled nurse and a year 2 student nurses in charge of six patients in one cubical. One of the bedbound patient Mrs. L in the cubical was 82 years old who diagnosed stage 3 breast cancer, The daughter Ms. A is her care provider, who would come to the ward every day to take care of her mother. One day, staff nurse and enrolled nurse was taking care other patients while Mrs. L want to change diaper, so Ms. A decided to change diaper for patient alone as she didn’t want her mother to wait so long. Ms. A called the student nurse help her to take the non-sterile cotton roll and wet it, which use for cleaning patient’s buttock area. To follow five moments of hand hygiene principle, student nurse perform hand hygiene before helped Ms. A to take and wet cotton roll. Afterwards, Ms. A was angry that student nurse not practiced professionally as she wet cotton roll without wearing gloves, she even didn’t allow student nurse to help her anymore. However, student nurse believed that it was not her false as she perform hand hygiene prior touching the non-sterile cotton roll and other nurses also agree with her practice. The following days, Ms. A refused student nurse to provide care for patient as she didn’t trust student nurse’s ability.

Theoretical Analysis

In the situation, the conflict is between patient’s caregiver Ms. A and student nurse, which is the most common type of conflict – interpersonal conflict (Doyle, 2018). However, the main issue is not conflict itself, the most important is that how we manage it. By using Thomas-Killman Instrument tool, there are three main conflict resolutions related will be used , which is avoiding, accommodating and collaborating(Kelly, 2013). At first, student nurse should stop talking and helping Ms. A for a while, and calm down herself as well, which using avoiding resolution to prevent minor conflict become larger conflict (Kelly, 2013). Afterwards, it’s easier to solve the problem as both parties may be willing to communicate furthermore after they calm down. However, the conflict still remain, it’s necessary to evaluate how does conflict happen. From Ms. A’s point of view, firstly, she might not trust others easily especially when things related to her mother, which reflected in she would change diaper alone for patient rather than waiting for nurses come, as she did not believe nurses can come early to help her mother. Secondly, she might experience delay in providing care for her mother before so that she don’t trust nurses anymore. Thirdly, she was very serious about her mother’s health and well-being so that she didn’t allow any mistake happen, as she think infection would occur if don’t wear gloves in the above situation. From student nurse’s point view, she believed that she did follow right practice, but she will feel not respected by patient’s family and they don’t trust her ability. However, comparing both parties, the issue is not as important to student nurse as it is to Ms. A. Hence, to gain trust with patient and patient’s family, the student nurse should accommodate the concerns of Ms. A first rather than her own concerns, by then, Ms. A may be willing to cooperate with student nurse next time. Besides, student nurse should learn how to communicate with patient’s family and have sense of empathy. Being a good listener could understand Ms. A’s feelings and gain trust from her. At the same time, student nurse need to be confident with her knowledge and skills and be professionally so that patients and patient’s family may not deny her ability. After build rapport with Ms. A, student nurse can try to collaborate with Ms. A when next time same thing happen. For example, student nurse can make a deal with Ms. A , student nurse ensure wear gloves next time while Ms. A respect student nurse and acknowledge her ability, both of them think about each other’s concerns and communicate with each other if conflict happen again. However, collaborating only use when they have a high level of trust.

Implication

From this experience, I have learned a lot which is quite useful in my future career. Firstly, I didn’t respect and meet Ms. A’s need , the need for her mother’s health . Hence, according to principle 1, I need to respect people’s value, do not judge people based on own values otherwise conflict will happen. As a nurse, I will work with different type of people every day, so it’s essential for me to respect others so that enhance a harmony work environment. Secondly, I didn’t practice in a very professional way so that Ms. A doesn’t trust me. Whereby wear glove is double prevention of infection and wont wet my hand in the above situation. According to principle 8, I need to be act professionally and confident in my career life, I should be responsible and accountable at all times to uphold public trust. Thirdly, according to principle 9, I need to continue practice to maintain competency in skills and maintain my own physical, psychological and emotional health and well-being, which prepares myself turnover when the same situation happens to me again. Lastly, according to principle 10, I should work collaboratively with other nurses to solve the problem, whereby I should share my experience with others so that they all know what’s Ms. A’s needs and we work professionally as a team to build trust with patients and patient’s family, which could prepare us for further communication and practice.

Conclusion

In conclusion, conflict is natural, as different people have different values and beliefs, whereby conflict occurs when there’s disagreement in change of values between people. However, conflict is not only considered as bad things as we can improve from it. Hence, it’s essential to learn how to manage conflict especially for nurses, when they facing varies conflict between different persons or groups, with good conflict management skills, they can solve or decrease conflict easily to maintain a peaceful work environment and reduce job dissatisfaction.