Week 1 Assignment: Course Project Phase 1: Selected Nurse Information (Graded)

NR393 COURSE PROJECT PHASE 1:

SELECTED NURSE INFORMATION TEMPLATE

Directions: Answer the following areas and questions below.

1. Name, Credentials, Email, and Phone Number of Selected Nurse (25 points)

Name:

Credentials: Registered Nurse

Email Address:

            Phone Number:

• Years Selected Nurse Has Been an RN and practice areas (15 points)

How many years has your selected nurse been an RN?

10 years

What are his/her areas of practice? Medical Surgical

• How long have you known this RN and how? (25 points)

How long have you known your selected RN? 5years

How did you meet?  We met through my school friend

• Why did you select this RN? How do you think this RN is making history? (40 points)

Why did you select this RN?

 Nurse Latonia helped referred me to the job I have now. She mentored my friend and I through nursing school. She was my go to person when I have difficulty in nursing school  and when she became my charge nurse, she is my go to person on clarification on what I am not sure of.

How do you think your selected RN is making history?

She is making history by helping every new nurse that come to work on the floor welcome and by making herself approachable. No question is stupid to her. She is ready to help in everyday possible. I have never seen her say no to any nurs asking for help. Even without asking for help when she see that the workload is overwhelming  she come to help without asking her. After the end of the shift she stay back to make sure every  nurse that work the shift with her are done with their work.

• Date, time, and location of scheduled conversation (30 points)

Note: Date must be scheduled between Saturday of Week 2 or during Week 3. 

Date of scheduled conversation: 11/13 /2020

Time of scheduled conversation: 12am

Location of scheduled conversation: Med- Surg floor

Christ hospital

• Submission method planned for Week 3 Phase 2: Conversation with the Selected Nurse (15 points)

      How do you plan to submit your Week 3 Phase 2: Conversation with the Selected Nurse? Select One: Audio recording, Audio video recording, OR typed on Week 3 Phase 2: Conversation with the Selected Nurse Template

Although I am sure that throughout this course I will learn much more about nursing history, what I do know about it directly impacts my practice as a nurse. Reading in the weekly lesson about the progression of nursing as a profession made me realize I am so grateful that nursing has transformed into a modern profession with regulation and a distinction in medicine. Nursing appears to have always been rooted in caring and nurturing, as can be observed in ancient examples such as that of ancient Rome, where men of shining qualities administered care to the sick, to pre-medieval times in Europe where women provided holistic healing, and the Christian church opening hospitals for the indignant during the crusades. 

I really loved the biblical example of Phoebe, described as a deaconess. Truthfully, I had never heard the term until now, and see how this early version of nursing had its roots in the Christian duty that compelled many to view this course as their contribution to the world. It was interesting to see how Theodore Fieldner began an official movement, one could say, to bring this profession into organization and attract young women into its service. Although nursing has often been female driven, I was very interested to learn the history of men in nursing goes into ancient times as well, with the first official school of nursing for men opening in India in 250 BCE. 

So, how do all these things affect me? Nursing is only what I know it as today because of all these nurses who came before me, and how they established nursing not only as a course of caring and advocating for those less fortunate, but as a true profession that is organized and regulated, holding it’s own in the field of medicine. I stand as the guardian between my patient and all the providers managing their care. I proudly have specialized training and schooling, with state and federally recognized licensure because Sophie Hubeli passed the first state board examination in 1913. The women’s suffrage movement contributed to the freedom not only for women to vote, but the advancement on the views of women, such as work and lifestyle, that make my independent and free choices not only accepted but applauded. I am expected to understand how to titrate the drip medications that save my patient’s life minute by minute, as well as how to change their linens. I am expected to manage the continuous dialysis machine that gently cleans their blood when their kidneys shut down, as well as hold their hand when they feel overwhelmed. I am expected to catch a doctor’s mistake before it can harm my patient, as well as patiently feed my patient who cannot lift their hands. I am grateful for the nursing history that came before me, and I look forward to seeing nursing continue to grow and expand as it has in recent years, because my practice is much more because of this expansion.

Typed

The elderly are our communities’ most vulnerable population. Before we knew of the Corona virus, the facility where I work experience, several patients were diagnosed with the flu. The interdisciplinary team met to discuss how to prevent the flu spread within the unit or the floor. These three patients reside due to the facility layout and our resident’s cognitive status. At this time, I had to function as the Infection Control Nurse. It was impossible to isolate all the residents from each other without restraining them, which was unbelievable. We had stopped visiting families to the facility and started to disinfect the entire facility. We did the first thing we did was to educate everyone on hand hygiene and infection prevention practices and cleaning the surroundings. That includes staff and patients who cannot follow directions; completing these tasks is complete for them. The facility implemented these policies two and a half weeks before the state of Connecticut Department of Public Health informed all healthcare institutions to close their doors. This facility had already instituted these practices. The chapter speaks to the fact that additional cleaning will prevent illness as noted, “Two other Roman peers of Pliny, Marcus Varro, and Columella, discovered as Florence Nightingale did 1,800 years later that the health of the house was important to the health of the family”( Judd, Sitzman et al., p. 28 2014)

The facility had one case of COVID-19 when an antibody test was conducted on all the residents at this nursing home a month later. I believe the staff effort to work with the infection control department’s aggressive action has decreased the number of residents who contracted COVID-19 and prevent its spread to which lost no life. The nurses at this institution are making history each day

Judd, D., Sitzman, K., (2014) A History of American Nursing Trends and Eras (2^nd ed.) North Carolina, Jones & Bartlett Learning 9781284044324.

So many people are being more careful about infection control as a result of COVID19 at my hospital/on my unit. The other day we were discussing that we wonder if we will still practice universal masking in the hospital after the pandemic. My retort was that I hope we do.  If you think about all the respiratory illnesses that we could have avoiding spreading with universal masking in the hospital, it makes sense to continue at least within hospital environments. In the fall of 2019, a bunch of nurses contracted RSV just for example. I wonder if we had universal masking, would we have had to worry so much about this happening? RSV is contact and droplet precautions. If we standardized masking, we would already have the precautions in place to prevent spread of RSV from person to person. Also, employees are better at cleaning their areas at the nurses’ station and claiming a particular area for one person. 

Things have definitely changed, perhaps for the better with infection control since COVID began.

Faye Abdellah made several marks on nursing history by developing a nursing theory that shifted the focus of nursing care from a disease-centered approach to a patient-centered approach. Faye Abdellah designed the twenty-one nursing problems that focus on nursing practice and individual patients care. Faye Abdellah believes that every patient is different and able to understand the differences in our patients will enable us to provide holistic care. Her nursing process promotes patient quality of life and encourages patient participation in the process (Abdellah, 1976).  I personally believe that patient decision-making is fundamental to achieving optimal health. Faye Abdellah’s plan was to improve patient quality of life by accurately diagnosing the patient disease process. Her model of nursing was progressive for the time because it refers to a nursing diagnosis during a time in which nurses were taught that diagnoses were not part of their role in health care. She designed a ten-step approach that can be used to identify patient problems and eleven skills used in developing a treatment plan. I often utilized different steps that were identified in her nursing theory in my daily nursing care. I often had this model in mind when I educate my patient about their care. I often educate my non-compliant patients that medication alone will not do the magic, that their participation is always needed in order to maintain and promote optimal health.

As a nurse educator who often talk to patient and nurses about diabetes, CHF, wound, and stroke, I understand that it can be very difficult talking to noncompliance patients who are frequent flyer to the hospital. When talking to nurses, I can feel that they gave up on some of this patient already. I believe identifying patients’ self-care need is important in improving patients’ quality of life. I often help nurses and patients understanding the major determinants of health behaviors as a basis for behavioral counseling to promote healthy lifestyles. Some patients are non-compliant because of their socio-economic factors, while others are non-compliant because of the environment they live in. I often tell nurses and patients that health promotion and disease prevention should be the principal focus in health care, and when health promotion and prevention fail to anticipate predicaments and problems, then care in illness becomes the subsequent priority. When I talk to my non-compliant patient, I focused on positive motivation instead of negative motivation. I noticed most nurses usually focus on the bad thing that would happen if a patient is non-compliant with their medication or diet, while I  teach them to be a focus on the good things that can happen if they are compliant with their medication and diet.