title: Reflecting on clinical practice: hectoring talk or reality?
abstract: Reflection can be seen as a useful tool to enable the practitioner to explore the everyday world of clinical practice. This paper reviews the background to reflection and its relevance to nursing in reducing the theory--practice gap and its role in generating theory from practice. Exemplars from clinical practice are reflected upon and Carper's (1978) 'Patterns of Knowing' are used as a framework to identify nursing knowledge embedded in practice. The process of reflection is critically discussed in the light of the author's experience.
authors.forename: E C
authors.initials: EC
authors.lastname: Carr
mesh_terms: D006801:Humans; D019359:Knowledge; D009732:Nursing Care; D009736:Nursing Process; D009742:Nursing Theory; D013850:Thinking