Author: esimpson3 (Page 5 of 8)

When assigned the goal sheet at the beginning of the semester, I made sure to choose goals that would benefit me overall as a person. One wellness goal that I set is taking a couple of hours out of my week for myself to do yoga and meditate. The second goal that I set is learning to handle controversy and stick up for myself. I chose these goals because I am working to focus on myself more.

Throughout the summer, I was able to set aside time every day to workout. Some of these days I did cardio, some strength, and some yoga or stretching. The yoga and stretching days helped me both physically and mentally. It allowed me to release any stress that I had weighing on me while allowing my body to heal and recover from the previous workouts. Eventually, it became a routine. Knowing that my junior year of nursing school would be stressful and time consuming, I wanted to make yoga or meditation a part of my busy schedule to help to maintain a healthy mental status. The exercise that I could gain from it was just a bonus to positive effect it had on my mind set. Although, mental illness prevention measures can be different for everyone, yoga and meditation seem to work best for me.

Dealing with controversy is something that I have struggled with my whole life. I am not one to call people out if they have done something wrong or stick up for myself if I disagree with something. I always think of the worst possible case scenario that could come out of conversations. I never want to lose any friends or put stress on my relationships with others. This is something about myself that I want to change because I deserve to be heard. I am getting to an age in my life where I am going to be more independent. With independence comes difficult and uncomfortable situations that I may encounter. It is essential that I share my opinions on certain matters and not just go with the flow all the time. In just about a year and a half, I will be graduating college. I need to start focusing on myself and set these goals so that I come out of school as a stronger, more independent woman. With that said, taking on uncomfortable situations and being able to handle them accordingly is a life skill that I must work on.

Since creating these goals for myself at the beginning of the semester, I have been decently successful in meeting them. I have had a bit of difficulty incorporating the yoga and meditation into my schedule. There are weeks where I surpass the guidelines of this goal; but there are also weeks that I am not able to practice yoga due to a heavy workload. My second goal, regarding the appropriate actions during controversial situations, is a work in progress. This new skill is something that could take years for me to meet. I continue to keep this goal in mind and work on it when necessary.

The strategies that I had created when formulating these goals have helped me to get to the point I am at now. At the beginning of each week, I plan out which days I will do my school assignments. This allows me to create “to-do lists” for each day. I tried to incorporate the yoga and meditation into days where I had the least amount of work. This helped me not let my workload interfere with my yoga practice as much. A strategy that I had in my second goal about handling controversy was to think in the bigger picture. This mindset becomes the basis of achieving that goal. I have been working at this throughout the semester which has helped me to gain more confidence in sticking up for myself.

While I do have many strategies that I am working on to help me to see my goals, there are also things that get in the way of reaching them. Time management was the biggest barrier to reach my yoga and meditation goal. Multiple times I would plan to practice yoga but then get too wrapped up in an assignment or studying and feel that I did not have enough time. Barriers in reaching my goal involving controversy is the fear of the potential harm that could occur in my relationships. Additionally, I could potentially be changing myself. When working to achieve this goal, I need to be sure that I find a happy medium; by sticking up for myself and speaking my mind while also being sure to respect the thoughts and opinions of others. I feel that I am finally ready for this change in my lifestyle. Identifying the readiness in change is just the first step in reaching my goals.

According to the Prochaska’s Transtheoretical Model, there are six stages of change: precontemplation, contemplation, preparation, action, maintenance, and termination. When filling out the goal sheet, I feel that I was in the action phase for the goal about committing to a couple of hours a week to yoga or meditation. I was achieving this goal throughout the whole summer, hoping to continue that goal once I started school. With my goal of learning to stick up for myself, I believe I started in the contemplation phase. I have always known that I was not good at handling any sort of controversy and that I needed to change. It was not until I had filled out this goal sheet that I decided I was going to be committed to making the change. I feel that throughout the semester, I have changed from being in the contemplation phase to the action phase in the change to being able to handle controversy. I am more committed and am thinking of realistic ways to help me reach my goal. Both goals that I had picked are still a work in progress. I will continue to be in the action phase and work towards fulfilling both of my goals. It is essential that I hold myself accountable when there are times that I do not practice my yoga or when I do not stick up for myself when necessary. Self-accountability is a necessary change that I need to work on for next semester if I want to meet my goals.

These goals both indirectly are associated with patient care. Connecting with myself and the world around me spiritually with yoga or meditation will help to maintain my mental health and decrease stress. This will help to decrease risk for burnout. Nursing burnout is characterized as severe mental, physical, and emotional exhaustion caused by prolonged stress. Burnout will affect both a nurse’s and a patient’s life. Incorporating yoga into my life will help to prevent burnout by allowing myself to disconnect from my work and just relax. This will allow me to be able to provide adequate care for my patients. Throughout my career as a nurse, I will most likely encounter some individuals that will not necessarily like me or the decisions that I make. Whether it be a patient or a coworker, it is important that I learn to stay true to myself and be able to handle situations with these individuals. The goals that I have chosen will help me in many aspects of my life and will help me to be the best version of me that I can be.    

During my clinical experience, my classmates and I were a bit restricted on what we were able to do with our patients on our own. We were able to do vital signs, perform some assessments, and makes lots of beds. This allowed us time to really get to know the patients we were working with. I will never forget one woman, who was not even one of my patients, but a roommate of one. I was making the bed for her neighbor and began talking with her. She talked to me all about her family and how it was killing her to not be able to see them due to COVID-19 and her hospitalization. I could see the pain in her eyes when she talked about how much she missed them. I empathized with that and it made me realize how hard it must be for the patients right now. They are unable to have any visitors, so the health care professionals are their only source of socialization and support. We continued speaking and bonded over our love for our dogs and how we could not imagine our lives without them. We ended up talking for almost a half hour. Towards the end of the conversation, she thanked me. She thanked me for just talking to her about something other than her illness, something she states that she has not had in a while. Now that I think of it, I don’t even know what her illness was. She explained that it was people like me who are keeping her going and pushing her to get better. That day felt rewarding; it was the first time that I had been acknowledged for making a difference. It made me realize that these conversations are what could change the whole dynamic of patient care. I am glad that this woman said this to me because it really made me realize how just taking a little time out of our day to talk with the patients can make their whole entire day.

The Medication Reconciliation was interesting to me. I enjoyed being able to apply the knowledge that I have learned throughout the semester to someone’s actual medications. Before beginning pharmacology, I would have never known how these medications worked or even what they were. Most of the medications that my client takes are drugs that we have previously been tested on, so I was able to apply that knowledge while adding some more information from research to the Medication Reconciliation. I also felt more invested in the research because it was specific to my client, who is a loved one of mine, so I was committed to providing the most accurate and effective information possible.

I did notice safety concerns about the medications that my client was on. Majority of the concerns had to do with her age. She is in her 70s which put her at risk for more adverse effects. The client did know why she was on each of her medications. This is important because she takes several different medications and knowing why drug is essential would increase likelihood of patient following prescription plan. The patient did that two medications that had a similar effect. She is suffering from a herniated disc, so she is on tramadol and meloxicam to treat pain. These drugs both reduce pain but do them in different ways. Meloxicam is an NSAID and tramadol is a narcotic painkiller. They can be used together to have adequate control over the severe pain caused by the herniated disc. The client did know why she was on both. She was in unbearable pain before prescribed both pain relievers, so understanding what each drug did to decrease this pain was important to her. There were no major medication interactions between the drugs that the patient was taking.

Art is a visual way of transmitting a message of meaning and emotion to another. Throughout the pandemic, art has been used to acknowledge and appreciate the work of the nurses working on the front lines. This graffiti mural is a piece of art the really spoke to me. It encompasses the reason why I have chosen to pursue a career in nursing. Nurses always have been, but are just finally being recognized, as the “superheroes” of our health care system. They are the ones who work tirelessly in protecting the well-being and health of the patients by putting themselves and those around them at risk to help those suffering. That is what a superhero does; they put others before themselves. The selflessness and determination of nurses, especially during COVID-19 times, is something that is truly amazing. Something that really stuck out to me in this mural is the eyes of the nurse. There is a combination of emotions that I can read from these eyes. I see sadness, will power, pride, exhaustion and so much more. During the pandemic, the role of nurses has been greatly impacted. They are giving the patients the adequate care that they need while also implementing the infectious disease prevention needed to control spread of COVID-19. An important part of the nursing role during this time is spending time with patients, listening to them, and getting to know them. This has been a terrifying time for both patients and their families due the restrictions in visitors entering the hospital. Nurses were put into the family role for the patients by advocating for each individual and providing the support that they need. With this role being emphasized during the pandemic, it put a lot more emotional stress and exhaustion on these nurses. Despite the sadness and exhaustion associated with being a nurse during this life-changing time in health care, nurses are more determined than ever to provide the best care possible for their patients. This mural has so much underlying meaning emphasizing that times during coronavirus is an unknown for everyone and nurses are the front-line workers that are there to provide support and strength for everyone. It is something that I truly admire and I hope that one day I can have even half courage of the health care superheroes.

Reflection on Modules 3 and 4

Priority Setting Frameworks:

The “Priority Setting Frameworks” module taught me about aspects that help in prioritizing certain actions and focusing on the patient’s needs. There are 7 frameworks that set priorities for nurses. They include Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, the nursing process, ABC’s, safety and risk reductions, least restrictive-least invasive, survival potential, and acute versus chronic, urgent versus non-urgent, and unstable versus stable findings. A certain framework will be used for each clinical client situation. The nurse will choose the framework that is most applicable to the situation at hand.

This module taught me some pertinent information that I will need to incorporate into my future nursing culture. It will help me to characterize information that I have about each client into certain categories. These categories will help me determine what should be assessed first for each client. Doing this will provide the most adequate care for my patients by assessing the most important aspects. For me, the Hierarchy of Needs is extremely important. Of course, as nurses we must help to maintain our client’s health, however, in order to restore health, an individual must obtain all the five human needs. This goes beyond just providing care to patients which I think is extremely important.

Knowledge and Clinical Judgement:

This module talks about different learning styles that individuals could have. There are three types of learners that are discussed: visual, auditory, and tactile. Visual learners learn best from strategies that involve sight. These types of patients would prefer pictures, diagrams, graphs, Powerpoints, and charts as part of their patient education. Auditory learners learn best by hearing. Patient education would include reciting notes, engaging in group discussions, listening to recorded information or instructions out loud. Tactile learners learn through physically touching and doing. This would be done with the patient physically doing it. Understanding what type learner your patient is is extremely important.

Learning that there are different learning styles that are unique to each patient was very helpful. Understanding which learning style your patient learns best with is essential as a nurse. Nurses are the ones of the health care team that does majority of the patient education. Patient education is one of the priorities in patient care. Incorporating the patient into their own care will improve likelihood for the involvement of patient in interventions that may increase their chances for positive outcomes. Deciding how to teach your patient based on their learning style will help in increasing effectiveness of patient education. Nurses are extremely busy so incorporating different types of learning into my nursing culture will help in saving time while still being efficient.

Nursing Module 1: Testing and Remediation

This module helped me learn how be successful in preparing and taking tests and the NCLEX. Taking apart the questions helps to apply critical reading skills. The first part is considered the “stem” which consists of the scenario, the question, the person of focus, and any key words. It is important to identify these objectives after reading each question. The other part of the tests consists of the options which is the answers that are chosen from to determine the correct choice. The two types of options include the distractors and the keys. Distractors are basically fillers while the keys are choices that could potentially be correct. The dissection of the “stem” and elimination of certain options can be applied to any type of question that the test has to offer. Learning the different ways to narrow down answers by eliminating distractors after dissecting the “stem” of the problem, will help in passing the NCLEX. The NCLEX will help to determine if I have the knowledge and skills to become an entry-level nurse once I earn a bachelor’s in the science of nursing.

There are NCLEX tips also offered in this module. One that really stuck out to me is to remediate. Remediating is a main concept that is acknowledged throughout this module. Remediation for a test includes identifying strengths and weaknesses. This is an important part of test taking because it can help narrow down what needs to be focused on while studying. However, remediation can also be incorporated into a nursing culture. Nurses make mistakes sometimes and that is how we learn from it. Society can sometimes put an extremely high standard on nurses and expect perfection. To avoid burnout, nurses must understand that it is near impossible to reach this standard and that having weaknesses are okay. Remediation will identify these weaknesses and allow improvement throughout a career.

Nursing Module 2: Nursing Concept:

  The “Nursing Concepts” module identifies the “ATI Helix of Success”. It consists of ten horizontal bars that represent concepts that supports the vertical strands of knowledge and clinical judgement. The ten concepts are client-centered care, interdisciplinary collaboration, evidence-based practice, quality improvement, informatics, safety, client education, professionalism, leadership, and priority setting. There are multiple stages of nursing: beginning as a novice nurse, and hopefully reaching the professional nurse stage. Each stage will add on more clinical experience and knowledge to broaden the concepts of my “helix”. This helix does a great job in portraying how well-rounded nurses think. There are some parts of nursing that simply cannot be taught, including empathy in client-centered care or integrity in leadership. These concepts can be built on through clinical experiences that affect you as a person. It is important, as a nurse, to understand that there needs to be a balance in all these concepts in order to fulfill the ideal knowledge and clinical judgement necessary.

  As I go through nursing school, there will be information added to each of these concepts. New information added to each concept will allow me to be able to think more like a nurse. The idea of the helix allowed me to understand that nursing is all about learning. Even nurses in their professional stage will have information that can be added to their helix. The combination of all the helix concepts will help me excel as a nurse. With that being said, it is essential that, no matter which stage of nursing I am at, that I am always open to learning. Open mindedness is key in a nursing culture as it allows more knowledge, feelings, and experiences to be added into your own “helix”, creating a versatile nurse.