GUIDE FOR REFLECTION USING TANNER’S (2006) CLINICAL JUDGMENT MODEL
Guide for Clinical Judgment Model Reflection
This Guide for Reflection is intended to help you think about a given clinical situation you
have encountered during your clinical intensive and your nursing response to that situation.
The situation can be a specific physiological patient problem, such as an elevation in
temperature, respiratory difficulty, or electrolyte imbalance. You may choose to describe a
situation involving a patient’s family. The situation can be a description of your role in
interdisciplinary problem solving. The reflection situation may describe an ethical issue you
encountered in practice. Use the guide for reflection as a way to help you tell the story of
the situation you encountered.
The guide provides you with a way of thinking about care that supports the development of
your clinical judgment. Although there are many ways of organizing your thinking about
patient care and professional nursing practice, Tanner’s (2006) Clinical Judgment Model
provides the framework for the questions in this study guide. Your professional development is
further supported with feedback from faculty. Feedback about your reflections will be
provided using the Lasater (2007) Clinical Judgment Rubric.
You will need to type up your answers to the reflection questions below and submit to your
Clinical Instructor via email prior to your post-conference meeting.
Introduction Describe the nursing situation you encountered during this clinical rotation.
Background Describe your relationship with the patient at the time you noticed the
situation (e.g., previous contact with the patient and/or family, the quality of
the relationship).
Consider experiences you have had that helped you provide nursing care in this
situation. Describe your previous nursing experience with a similar problem,
and/or personal experiences that helped guide you as you worked with the
patient.
Describe your beliefs about your role as a nursing working on the situation.
Describe any emotions you had about the situation.
Noticing
What did you notice about the situation initially?
Describe what you noticed as you spent more time with the patient and/or
family.
Interpreting Describe what you thought about the situation (e.g. its causes, potential
resolutions, patterns you noticed).
Describe any similar situations you have encountered in practice before.
Describe any similarities and differences you observed when compared with the
current situation.
GUIDE FOR REFLECTION USING TANNER’S (2006) CLINICAL JUDGMENT MODEL
What other information (e.g. assessment data, evidence) did you decide you
needed as you considered the situation? How did you obtain this information?
What help with problem solving did you get from your preceptor?
What did your observations and data interpretation lead you to believe? How
did they support your response to the situation?
Responding After considering the situation, what was your goal for the patient, family
and/or staff?
What was your nursing response, or what interventions did you do?
Describe stresses you experienced as you responded to the patient or others
involved in the situation.
Reflection-in-
Action
What happened? How did the patient, family, and/or staff respond? What did
you do next?
Refection-on-
Action and Clinical
Learning
Describe three ways your nurse care skills expanded during this experience.
Name three things you might do differently if you encounter this kind of
situation again.
What additional knowledge, information, and skills do you need
when encountering this kind of situation or a similar situation in the
future?
Describe any changes in your values or feelings as a result of this experience.
