Assessment: Head-to-toe assessment, IPR communication
Patient Teaching: The professional nurse's role in educating patients on various aspects of their health and conditions was introduced and taken into consideration for further clinical settings.
Evidence-Based Practice: The term and meaning of Evidence-based practice was introduced and its importance in nursing practice was learned.
Competencies Met During Rotation: Oral medication administration, head-to-toe assessment, vital signs, interpersonal communication with patients.
Personal Reflection: This course was a very comprehensive introduction into the hospital setting. The rotation took place on an orthopedic floor and had a variety of patients to learn from. It was a good experience to set the foundation for the rest of my nursing education.
Assessment: Age-specific focused and head-to-toe assessments.
Patient Teaching: Proper use of assisstive devices (walker) when standing from chair and the importance of socialization and leisure activities in long term care facilities.
Evidence-based Practice: Allowing
the aged or debilitated client to remain as autonomous as possible and
incorporating family into patient care/rehabilitation. See Case Study
Competencies met during rotation: Effective interaction with patients/families from a different era than myself, administration of a one-step Mantoux test, assessment, cleansing, packing, and dressing of various stages of pressure ulcers, providing effective and safe care of the confused elderly client, cleansing and changing of a urostomy bag, increased confidence in medication pass, and assisted instructor by teaching fellow student how to take a blood glucose reading.
Personal Reflection: This clinical rotation gave me a lot of experience in expanding my skills. Wound assessment and treatment was commonly practiced in this rotation, and I was able to expand upon my skills in caring for the elderly that I had previously learned and applied in my work as an STNA.
Assessment: Continuation of head-to-toe assessment and focused patient-specific assessment of the adult patient.
Patient Teaching: The importance of medication compliance in disease management and the complications and outcomes of untreated/unmanaged Type II Diabetes Mellitus.
Evidence-based Practice: See care plan (part1, part 2)
Competencies met during rotation: Spiking/hanging IVPB medications, subcutaneious injections, gaining knowledge of the method and caution used when handling a Heparin drip, extension of patient-nurse communication, Accuchecks, more extensive practice of IV push medications, and increased confidence in charting.
Personal Reflection:
This rotation really let me put all of the things in previous learned
courses together. I learned a lot about the complications of Diabetes
Mellitus and its relation to cardiovascular and renal problems, and was
better able to link together patients' co-morbidities.
Assessment: BUBBLEHEB, REEDA, and newborn assessment.
Patient Teaching: Breast care, Hazards of co-sleeping, and sitz bath use.
Evidence-based Practice: See Case Study
Competencies Met During Rotation:
IV push medication administration, IM medication administration
(newborn), subcutaneous medication administration, heel sticks and
newborn blood glucose measurement, ability to detect non-reassuring
fetal heart rate patterns on monitors.
Personal Reflection: I thoroughly enjoyed this very specific area of nursing. I was able to educate new mothers and fathers on various aspects of infant care and had had several very receptive mothers when educating about personal care after delivery. Being involved in the families' exciting arrival of their new additions brought me much joy and I felt that I learned quite a bit during this clinical experience.
Assessment: Pediatric head-to-toe assessment, focused respiratory, GI and EENT assessments.
Patient Teaching: Smoking cessation, disease pathology, home medication use.
Evidence-based Practice: See Case Study
Competencies Met During Rotation:
Effective interaction with and explanation of procedures to children
and parents, hanging IV infusions, attaching tubing, setting pump rates,
and correcting problems with IV pumps, calculating safe pediatric
medication doses, charting for childhood asthma pathways, IV medication
administration (toddler), and IV discontinuation.
Personal Reflection: The practice I gained during this rotation in communication is indispensable. I had to communicate with less-than-interested parents on several occasions, and making them realize just how important their child's health was was not always an easy task. I feel that I now have a better understanding of family dynamics and how to get through to some of the more difficult families of ill children.
Assessment: Community needs assessment; in-depth community assessment of the city of Canton, OH.
Population Teaching: Sexual health teaching to Kent Stark students during AIDS Awareness Week.
Evidence-based Practice: See Case Study
Competencies Met During Rotation:
Treating an entire population as a client rather than just an
individual patient, gaining knowledge of various types of community
health services where nurses provide care, and gaining knowledge of
health promotion and primary prevention activities as they pertain to
entire communities.
Personal Reflection: This
rotation gave me new insight in what it means to be a nurse. I was able
to visit a variety of settings that provided care to the residents of
northeast Ohio, and was able to explore different venues of nursing such
as hospice nursing, health department nursing, oncology nursing and
much more. It was very boundary-stretching to care for a community
population rather than just a few patients on a hospital unit.
Assessment: Biopsychosocial assessment, which looks at the needs of the entire individual, not just the physical aspects.
Patient Teaching: Self-esteem and its affect on anxiety and a person's view of their mental illness.
Evidence-based Practice: See Case Study.
Competencies Met During Rotation: Gaining knowledge of various medications used for psychiatric illnesses, expanded on use of therapeutic communication, and I became able to enter into informal contracts with patients and effectively listen and communicate with patients struggling with various mental illnesses.
Personal Reflection: This rotation gave me an insight into such illnesses as schizophrenia, personality disorders, major depression, substance abuse problems, and manic depression. I was able to work with individuals struggling with mental illness and help them form goals and expectations for themselves in order to live as functional a live as possible. I also had practice dealing with patients that are manipulative and aggressive. I feel that the communication techniques and experiences from this course can be utilized an any nursing setting I may come across in the future.
