College Student Essay

As a student nurse, I was working in a student assignment group, where we were to make a project for a presentation on â€Å"Breast Cancer†. We had four persons in our group. On our meeting day, one of our group members did not come to our group meeting and she also did phone none of us. We were not able to finish our group work because we were missing her part of the project. We did not even know whether she had started her part of the work or not. Our meeting without her part of the work was not productive and we decided to set up another meeting on another day. On next day I met her and asked if everything is fine with her and her family. She confirmed that everything was fine. My expectation was that she would give some explanations or would try to talk about what had happened. She did not show any interest in a further communication. Her behavior was surprising and the same time frustrating for me. I perceived that she was not a responsible person, because before our meeting she did not call us. I also perceived that she did not value and respect other people time. I felt that she even ignored the importance of the group project and the work that she was spouse to complete. The conflict arose in our work group about her part of the work, and we were undecided whether we were to keep on being silent or to start an open discussion about our concerns. Eventually, we did not do very well on our group project and then our group was disbanded when for the next project we had to choose new partners for the group. 2. Communication Despite my perceptions about her, I decided to ask her if everything was fine with her family. She confirmed that her family was fine and then I kept a distance from her because I decided that she did not have a legitimate reason not come to the meeting and in fact this validated my perception that she was not responsible person and she did not value other people time. Because of her behavior the conflict arose in our work group about her part of the work, and we were undecided whether we were to keep on being silent or to start an open discussion about our concerns. Eventually, we did not do very well on our group project and then our group was disbanded when for the next project we had to choose new partners for the group. Even when our group project was completed, I kept thinking about her behavior and I came to the conclusion that there could have been other reasons for her behavior that she never shared with any of us. I feel that the reason for the further events was the lack of communication between her and the group members. Now I regret that I failed the opportunity to fix the situation by an open communication, and create strong group solidarity. But I value this experience for the idea of importance of a communication to build strong group solidarity. 3. Possibilities I formed my perceptions about her having only limited information about her; I did not know the real reason she had that day not to come to the meeting. As I knew that she had a large family with four children, and maybe one of her children was sick, so she had to stay at home with the sick child. As a mother, her baby’s health could be the priority for her. The other reason for her not to come to the meeting could have been an accident and maybe she did not have an opportunity to call us or to let us know about it. Finally, maybe one her close relatives had breast cancer and she was very sensitive to the work project, so she was not able to come and discus the topic with the group members. We never had an opportunity to know what exactly had happened to her since she never talked to us about the reasons for her behavior. 4. Influences Analyzing the event I can identify many assumptions on my part that influences my thoughts. There is another important factor about myself, which formed my perceptions. I have an experience in working with sick children and their parents and in this case I thought that the reason could be that her baby was sick, and as a mother for her the baby’s health is the most important thing for her. I am a very responsible person, and I respect people and their time. I am always early for any meeting or group projects. I am also very careful with my study process, so this made me feel that she did not respect our group member’s time. In my cultural background it is very important if I promise or decide to do something in a group, and I am not able to go on with that, I must let my partners know. Another thing that made an influence on my perception was that I value other people time and I always let them know if I am late. The other reason could be that as an ESL student she had a hard time to complete the work. As an ESL student with some language barriers, I thought that she had a hard time to complete any work. 5. Application of Learning to Nursing Practice I think that perception checking can play a significant role in my critical thinking and decision making process. Only open communication and accurate perception checking can help us to understand other people behavior. It is now my understanding is that I would have done better to discuss the issue with my group partner, and to address the conflict in an open way. Open communication would give me an opportunity to perform and improve my direct perception checking skills. Even somehow I had tried to discover the real reasons for my group partner behavior, my actions and skills were not enough to understand her behavior, to have a whole picture of what happen, rather that make my assumptions. On my meeting with her on the next day somehow I tried to understand the possible reasons for her behavior. That was an example of indirect perception checking process, but not performed completely. I feel that I formed most part of my perceptions on my own assumptions. For my further successful practice I have to learn more about perception checking process and also improve my perception checking skills toward my successful nursing career. Nursing work is always a team work and in my further practice I also will use this experience to build team solidarity.