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Blog 5

I really enjoyed my clinical experience this semester. I have learned a lot that has helped me grow not only as a nursing student but as a person. One area I have really improved in is my self-confidence. I am normally a shy and nervous person when I first meet people. Clinical has really forced me to get out of my shell and talk and get to know patients as well as the hospital staff. In the beginning of clinical I was really nervous and scared when entering a patient’s room. I was worried about what to talk to them about and if I was capable of helping them in the way they needed. After a couple weeks, my self-confidence greatly improved, and I was no longer nervous when walking into patients’ rooms. I enjoyed talking to my patients and getting to know them. I am now confident that I am equipped to help patients with their needs. I was also intimidated to ask the hospital staff questions. I quickly got over that fear because I learned it’s better to ask questions and risk being wrong than put your patient in danger. By doing this, I think my communication skills with the nurses and PCAs improved. I am now comfortable having a professional conversation with the hospital staff.

 

In my future practice, I would like to grow in my skills. Obviously, we need to be taught skills outside of clinical in order to perform them correctly in the hospital. However, there were many skills that I have checked off in during lab that I have not got to perform in clinical yet. For example, I would like to insert a catheter and perform trach tube suctioning in my next clinical. I would also like more experience with administering injectable medications. Due to COVID-19 cutting in person clinical time short I did not get a lot of experience passing meds. Another area I would like to improve upon is patient education because it is such an important role in nursing. I did not get much opportunity to provide patient education in this clinical rotation. In the future, I would like to perform more patient education in order to get the experience to provide the best learning experience for patients. Overall, I believe I performed well for this being my first clinical rotation and I am excited to transfer the skills I have learned into the next one.

Blog 4

I watched a video from YouTube called, “Good Communication Means Good Patient Care” from Texas Children’s Hospital. The video starts with a nurse at a patient’s bedside in the PACU. The nurse is calling the physician about transferring her patient to the PICU. She mentions the patient’s current status and asked for the physician to come asses the patient. The physician arrives to the PACU and greets the nurse.  At this point, the nurse starts to give a handoff report. The nurse and physician are standing by the patient’s bedside but are facing away from the patient. In order to improve communication, the nurse and physician should have repositioned their bodies in order to make the patient feel involved in their own care. In class, we learned how important it is to make sure patients fully understand their situation and have the opportunity to make decisions in their care. If the nurse and physician were repositioned, the patient may have felt more comfortable speaking up if she did not understand something.  The nurse then proceeds to give a thorough handoff which included a neuro assessment, vital signs, past medical and surgical history, medications, recent intake and how the patient is currently feeling. This is positive communication between the providers and the patient, because it allows both parties to be aware of the current situation. The physician then starts to call for transportation without having greeted the patient. This is an example of a communication issue because the physician should have greeted and introduced herself to the patient before starting the handoff. This would have made the patient feel more comfortable in her care. The physician then phones another physician and gives a full report to him at the bedside of the patient.

As I was watching this video, it seemed that the communication was much more provider focused than patient focused. Although it is very important for health care providers to get a thorough background and current status on a patient, these providers completely ignored the patient’s perspective. We learned in class that we should strive for patient centered care. The patient in this video was alert and oriented and could have contributed to the conversation if given the opportunity. From this video, I learned that the patient should always be your first priority and you should focus on providing every opportunity for them to be involved in their care. By doing this, the healthcare provider/patient relationships and communication will be greatly increased.

Blog 3

I have really enjoyed my first clinical experiences so far. It is very exciting to have a glimpse at the things I will doing in the future as a licensed nurse. There have been many new situations that I have encountered in the clinical setting that I have handled professionally.So far, I have felt comfortable with all my patients. They have all been very understanding and were happy to provide me with the opportunity to learn from their situations.

My biggest communication challenge so far in the clinical setting has been communicating with the nurses and care team above me. I have been a little intimidated to ask questions or offer help to the nurses I have been shadowing. They are all nice, but they are also very focused on providing the best patient care. I feel less competent to assist them, because I’ve had less training.

I have always been a pretty shy person who doesn’t like to insert themselves into uncomfortable situations. But as my time in college increases, I am gaining more confidence in myself and my abilities.  I can also read people very well. So, on the floor I can tell that the patients are the nurses first priority and job, as it should be. I feel like I am annoying the nurses and just getting in their way. However, I know that I need to change my mindset because I deserve to be there just as much as they do. They have been in my position before and they understand that nursing students are still learning. I have learned many skills and have had time to practice them in order to successfully deliver patient care.

To overcome this communication challenge, I will constantly remind myself of my potential and skill level. I will also exude more confidence on the floor. Due to this new mindset, I will be more assertive when asking questions and do my best to assist the nurses.

Blog 2

I spent 30 minutes at a Starbucks coffee shop observing others around me. Sitting at the table across from me, there is a male and a female around 20 years old. They both are doing work on their laptops with headphones in. Occasionally, they take out their headphones to engage in verbal communication and talk to one another. When they are talking to each other they are both smiling and have positive facial expressions, which are examples of nonverbal communication. From observing their nonverbals I assume that they are both happy. They are sitting across from each other with their feet turned towards one another. From this body language, they seem to be enjoying each other’s company and are friends or possibly a couple.

At the table next to me there are two girls a couple of years older than me. The table can fit four people, but they are sitting on different sides so that they don’t have to sit across from each other. From the way they have positioned themselves I can tell that they have purposely created distance between one another. I have been here for two hours and I have not seen or heard them engage in any verbal communication. They are also doing work on their laptops and wearing headphones. For their nonverbal communication, I have noticed that they avoid eye contact with each other, as well as the rest of the people in the coffee shop. They both have straight faces and are not smiling. From observing their nonverbals I assume that these people do not want to be approached and are very focused on their work.

The table behind me is filled with four college aged girls. They are not on any technology, except for the occasional glance at a phone. They are talking very loud and enthusiastically, which leads me to assume they are sharing stories of the previous weekend. As for nonverbals they are using many hand gestures that assist with storytelling. All four of them have smiles on their faces and keep direct eye contact with the person talking. Their eye contact lets the person talking know that they are listening and engaged in the conversation. From observing the interactions between these girls, I assume that they are good friends and I would feel comfortable approaching them. All three of the tables I observed had very different verbal and nonverbal communication styles. From this exercise I learned a lot about how people communicate and want pay closer attention to different communication styles in the future.

Reflection Blog 1

Hello! My name is Alex Dean. I am a sophomore at Ohio State, and this is my first year in the Nursing program. On campus, I am involved in Kappa Delta Sorority where I hold leadership positions like sisterhood chair and set leader for new members. As sisterhood chair, I plan and coordinate events for members to have fun and get to know each other better.

I am from Dublin, OH and have lived there my entire life. I went to Dublin Jerome High School and was involved in track, soccer, student council, and a freshman mentor program. I have two little brothers named Ian (17) and Gavin (13). They are both very involved in lacrosse and want to continue playing in college. As for pets, I have a Shetland sheepdog named Gia (8) and a lizard named Marvin. One of my family’s favorite things to do together is traveling. In 2018, my dad and I went on a service trip to Pelerin, Haiti. There we had the opportunity to help with the manual labor of building a church, as well as teaching vacation bible school (VBS) to the children. I will never forget how happy the kids were to see me every day and the sad looks on their faces when they discovered we had to leave. From this trip, I learned that I wanted to work with kids in the future and have the opportunity to positively impact their lives.

I have also had multiple internships which ultimately led me in the direction of the nursing profession. Senior year of high school I shadowed a physical therapist at OhioHealth Sports Rehabilitation Center in Dublin, OH for seven weeks. There I observed and assisted patients with their rehabilitation routines. I enjoyed my experience, but learned that I wanted to work somewhere more fast-paced and exciting. My second internship was seven weeks at Doctors Hospital in Columbus as a patient transporter. I observed nurses and transported patients to all areas throughout the hospital. I loved the variety and exciting environment that nursing had to offer, especially in the Emergency Department.

What solidified my decision to pursue nursing was my involvement with the Nationwide Children’s Hospital. When I was seven years old, I was in a horrible bike accident. The doctors and nurses said I would have died if I had not been wearing a helmet. During my recovery at Nationwide Children’s, the nurses would always try to cheer me up or encourage me to eat by doing, “stupid human tricks”. It was the little details that made the biggest impact on my recovery process. I have continued volunteering with Nationwide Children’s since my accident and have discovered that I want to be the nurse that makes a positive impact on a child’s and their family’s life.