Importance of Communication Skills as a Flight Nurse

Importance of Communication Skills as a Flight Nurse

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Introduction

Flight nurses provide a wide range of pre-hospital emergency care to a broad category of patients. Therefore, flight nurses provide critical medical care to patients of all age groups with the added challenge of ensuring patients remain stable and calm despite the challenges patients experience during flights. As such, flight nurses must have strong communication skills as they need to collaborate with other healthcare professionals and doctors in developing health care plans that guarantee the safety and health of the patients. Moreover, flight nurses need to communicate with their patients about their medical conditions. Hence, good communication skills are crucial in ensuring that patients comprehend essential information about their conditions despite the stress of their injuries or medical conditions.

Job Link: https://jobsearcher.com/j/full-time-flight-nurse-at-northeast-healthcare-recruitment-in-wichita-ks-En1b055Communication Skills That Ensure Success as A Flight Nurse

To ensure success in this career, some of the most important communication skills include nonverbal communication, verbal communication skills, written communication, active listening, compassion, and presentation skills.

Why Are These Communication Skills Important?

Flight nurses are emergency responders that provide medical care to patients in a pre-hospital setting. Flight nurses then hand over patient care to healthcare professionals in hospitals; thus, having good presentation skills enables flight nurses to give comprehensive medical case reports of the patients they are handing over. Also, the medical reports flight nurses provide are crucial in developing effective healthcare plans; thus, possession of this communication skill is integral to the patient’s health. Other than presentation skills, written communication skills are also important. During pre-hospital care, flight nurses must create and update accurate medical records for their patients, records that they then pass to the hospital healthcare professionals. Current and accurate medical records influence the decisions the doctors make and ensure patients receive the best healthcare.

Verbal and nonverbal communication skills form the basis of patient interaction, and they influence the patient’s outcome. Verbal communication involves spoken words; hence, flight nurses can provide medical information to patients and their families and effectively communicate with other healthcare professionals about their condition (Kirca, 2019). In contrast, nonverbal communication involves body language, and these skills reinforce or undermine the verbal information given to patients. Effective control of nonverbal communication skills is especially important when communicating with patients as it serves to reassure them that they will get better hence improving patient outcomes.

To understand the patient’s experience, flight nurses need to actively listen to their patient’s verbal and nonverbal cues. It enables them to keep patients calm and stable and identify any stressors that further worsen the condition of the patient. Moreover, actively listening to patients also fosters trust, a factor that further ensures the patient’s comfort (Chichirez, 2018). Lastly, flight nurses need to convey compassion to their patients. Compassion relieves the patient’s anxiety levels as it enables the flight nurse to put themselves in the patient’s condition, thus understanding the expectations and needs of the patients during a stressful period.

Besides ensuring patients are given the best care, these communication skills also aid in career success and progression. These skills ensure that a flight nurse gives consistent, individualized, and quality care to patients and promotes the development of interpersonal capabilities essential for a job promotion. In addition, patient satisfaction is a functional determinant that influences job promotion; hence having a high number of satisfied patients increases the chance of career advancement. Lastly, the success of a flight nurse is determined by the ability to remain calm and prioritize the patient even in extreme conditions; thus, having good communication skills equates to career success.

Strongest And Weakest Communication Skills

My strongest communication skill is the ability to listen to other individuals. This skill enables me to understand different people hence build positive relationships. In contrast, my weakest communication skill is nonverbal communication; thus, my body language often betrays my thoughts and reactions. Some of the measures I intend to use to develop my nonverbal communication skill include practicing language tone and sound control. I also plan to practice my nonverbal communication skills, thus better school my emotions. Lastly, I intend to consciously mirror other peoples’ cues to ensure I control my emotion. For instance, when I see or hear something horrific, I can mirror a calm person, equally displaying a sense of calm.

Conclusion

Communication skills are crucial in the healthcare industry to ensure safe and effective medical practice. Possessing good communication skills is especially important to a flight nurse as it ensures proper diagnosis information gathering and ensures accurate healthcare plans are developed for the patient. Moreover, effective communication is the foundation of trust between patients and healthcare professionals.

References

Kirca, N., & Bademli, K. (2019). Relationship between communication skills and care behaviors of nurses. Perspectives in psychiatric care, 55(4), 624-631.

Chichirez, C. M., & Purcărea, V. L. (2018). Interpersonal communication in healthcare. Journal of medicine and life, 11(2), 119.