Clinical Reasoning and Priority Setting:
The Baccalaureate nursing program has significantly developed by reasoning and priority settings skills throughout my time on the course. Nursing education has placed immense emphasis on the importance of critical and clinical reasoning during practice. I am now able to review all my decisions based on knowledge and experience before implementing them. Before taking the Nur 472R, I regularly encountered issues with my priority setting skills. As a student, one encounters simultaneous problems that require unique approaches in order to obtain a solution. Determining which problem requires immediate attention and those that could wait was an issue that messed up most of my schedules. I would find myself unable to tackle all my assignments on time and sometimes I even forget about some of them entirely. However, with the knowledge I have acquired over time, I can now understand the importance of staying on schedule. The ABC’s of priority have enabled me to understand how to tackle different patient conditions based on urgency. ABC stands for airway, breathing, and circulation. These are the main priorities that a nurse has to follow when providing patient care. One basic example is that I should always ensure that a patient’s airway is clean, then assess whether they are breathing adequately, and finally ensure that blood is circulating efficiently throughout the body.
Communication:
My Communication skills have been largely affected over the course of my nursing program. Before enrolling into the course, I thought communication only referred to verbal interactions that took place between people. My mentality on communication has evolved to great lengths allowing me to understand that communication can vary from verbal interactions to writing skills to articulate my thoughts in term papers, tests, and online communication platforms provided by the school to discuss posts on course material.
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
Writing term papers was very difficult for me in my initial days in the program. However, I chose to focus entirely on Nur 472R to begin my understanding on APA formats and later progressed to Nur 480R to develop better skills. I now understand that I cannot simply copy and paste information from a website and pass it off as my own work. I have to read thoroughly and channel my thoughts when creating my paper. In-text citations and referencing is very crucial for any paper. Thoughts have to be backed up by proven facts. I also appreciate the Blackboard platform where I can engage in discussions with my peers on course topics. It creates a stronger bond and helps in showing that I appreciate their informative posts, which take time to develop.
Role Development:
All human beings go through the learning process in their entire lifetime. Florence Nightingale, a Nursing pioneer in the 1800s, emphasized the need for nurses to constantly engage themselves in the learning process and be the main contributors in healthcare. I have never had a taste of leadership throughout my nursing experience. The program has helped me to understand what is required of a nurse in a leadership position. Nur 480R provided us with essential information of how a leader is expected to handle decision-making situations and resolve conflicts. Intrapersonal and interpersonal conflicts were explained, where as a class we were able to understand how to handle instance of violence within a workplace setting.
Throughout my life, I have heard numerous people say that to be the best at what you do, one must consult with people who have taken a similar route and succeeded. This has been important for my role development throughout the course. I actively engage with experienced nursing professionals. I also participated in all nursing nurturing events that the school provided for us. During such occasions, I was able to interview people who had done exemplary in the nursing docket. One particular interviewee emphasized that I should strive to remain patient and maintain an open mindset when my superiors provided insight.
Diversity
The modern world has been described as a cultural meeting point where people from different cultures get to come together and share ideas on similar topics. Diversity is very important for my development as a nurse. It entails religion, race, gender, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, disability, and ethnicity among others. The course has enlightened me on diversity awareness where as a student I am expected to have appreciation for the differences that exist in attitudes, beliefs, thoughts, and priorities in different patient populations. For me to provide ultimate care to the patients, I must understand their culture, religious views, food, customs, and environment. I have tried to improve my communication skills with diverse patient demographics by understanding their culture, environment, customs, religious views, and food. By doing so, relating with a patient becomes much easier and provides a comfortable recovery environment. The Blackboard forum provides a perfect example of what diversity is expected to be. Students post their views without a gender, race, or religion tag, hence all responses are always based on intellect rather than hate towards a particular diversity group.
In fact, I learnt that, most cultural groups among them lesbians, gays, disabled people, and ethnic minorities such as Latinos, Hispanic, and African Americans find it difficult to access medical care. This is often caused by lack of inclusion and diversity by the nurses and other healthcare providers. Diversity is important, considering it provides a room for innovation and creativity, which often leads to improved patient satisfaction and care.
Ethics:
I have always configured my mind to assist people who require my help in times of need without factoring in any selfish intent that may hinder me from doing so. The Nursing Ethics course has developed a foundation for approaching ethical questions in a patient and healthcare provider situation. Ethics are a broad aspect in any discipline. In nurses they can range from concerns involving truth telling, protect the welfare of patients in decision making and providing informed consent. Nurses spend a lot of time with patients and are actively involved in situations that involve life and death decisions. As a nurse, I have learnt that I am expected to adhere to principles of beneficence, non-malfeasance, justice, accountability, fidelity, autonomy, and veracity. For instance, I was taught that I have to take responsibility for my actions. As a healthcare worker, I am supposed to be accountable for my patients, colleagues, employer, and myself. Ethics accountability demands that I take care of my health, in a bid to be an effective provider of healthcare. Deontology and utilitarianism sum up all ethical approaches into two requirements. Deontology requires that the means and result must be ethical and morally acceptable while utilitarianism states that the end goal determines the means, even if it is not moral.
Concisely, my experience throughout the course was more than I expected it would be. I have not only learnt to become a better healthcare provider, but also a better human being. I am especially grateful for all the wonderful people I have to meet throughout my time on the Baccalaureate nursing program. They provided their help at a moment’s notice and we developed a community to have each other’s backs even when in practice.
