Critical incident analysis of a significant event in practice

The aim of this case study is to present a reflective analysis of a critical incident in the operating department, from the perspective of a practising operating department practitioner (ODP). This analysis will be based on the Gibbs reflective model (1988) ( Figure 1 ), which is commonly applied in health-care settings. It has been shown to facilitate valid reflection and practice change, and is therefore considered suitable for enhancing reflective practice. This model, in turn, is based on the work of Kolb (1984) , who devised an experiential learning cycle to aid reflection in practice. In addition, due to the nature of a critical incident, the reflective process will be supplemented with a complementary root cause analysis (RCA) tool, in order to establish the stages and events that contributed to the clinical error ( Cresswell et al, 2007 ). The Swiss Cheese Model is useful in this regard, as it provides a solid basis for exploring a step-wise process of error introduction in the clinical setting and allows for reflective evaluation of each step ( Cresswell et al, 2007 ). These processes will therefore be combined in this paper.