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NUR2460 Reflection Blog Post 5

Comparing myself to the beginning of the semester, I believe that I have become a much stronger communicator. I would like to note how unconfident I was in not only what I said when I spoke, but how I said things when I spoke. I feel like when interacting with patients, for example, I would never know what to say especially when they said something that made them feel vulnerable. I didn’t know how to handle the emotions behind interactions with other people.
I feel like the best way I improved in that remark is acknowledging how people feel and using tools to interpret their feelings and to help them understand it more themselves. I feel like since I have grown to understand people’s emotions in conversation that I have a firmer grasp on how the conversation grows and who the person is. It’s marvelous because like I said before, I didn’t know how to handle the vulnerability. Now that I have the tools, I feel much more confident in my speech. With this confidence, I feel like I understand conversations as opportunities to grow and get better at talking rather than a place that I am weak in and mess up a lot in.
I feel like my biggest spurt in confidence (this is all kind of a brag but was also very eye-opening to how effective therapeutic communication techniques are) was my week 6 of clinical or so. I feel like I really put a heavy focus on my communication as I spent a lot of time in the room with my patient. I remember her telling me about an experience in the hospital that she seemed traumatized about and I hit her with all of the therapeutic verbal communication techniques. I know I did a good job because she complimented me to my instructor and told her that I made her feel like I truly cared for her and provided excellent care. It was really rewarding to know that the Maya Angelou quote about people not forgetting how you made them feel was really true. That being said, I think another big improvement I have seen was first hand realizing how useful effective and therapeutic communication is since it will reinforce my implementation of it in the future.
Speaking of the future, I would still like to see myself working on my nonverbal communication techniques. I think I could always be more mindful of them. If I focused less on my verbal communication techniques and a little more on my nonverbal techniques it would be a good balance and I feel like the tradeoff would make me come off as more sincere. I would also like to see an improvement in my fluency of speech since I still stumble on my words a lot. Being mindful of my own feelings as well is something I need to improve on and I feel like that contributes to my stumbling problem. This blog was really a good reminder of my goals and I feel like I need to start practicing with people in my personal life so that I can continue to be increasingly more effective with my communication down into my nursing career.

NUR2460 Reflection Blog Post 4

For the basis of this post, I watched an episode of The Good Doctor on Hulu. The healthcare situation involved a woman with chemical burns in her bronchi causing inflammation. A little backstory is that she was lying all along about how it was a grease fire but the damage in the throat was not caused by smoke or thermal burns, but after lots of divulging into what was in her body they figured out what chemical may have caused her burns and the resident confronted her. There were minimal nurse-patient interactions but it’s still important for residents to also know how to communicate therapeutically.

The residents used a lot of therapeutic communication techniques well. One that they used was plain language. They explained procedures to her in simple language that she could understand, an example being they told her she was gonna have a bronchoscopy but elaborated and said they’re putting a camera in her throat to look at injuries. This woman was also Muslim, so they had to respect her cultural boundaries and not touch her unless it was necessary. They normalized her emotions and they believed her pain and symptoms despite her lie. Once they found out her lie, they told her it was normal to lie for the reason she did and respected her situation. They respected her wishes and validated her

What the residents did not do well is used accusatory language when questioning her about her injuries. Upon performing the bronchoscopy mentioned earlier, they found the chemical burns. Since it wasn’t a smoke injury, the resident went to her room asking, “Why did you lie?”. Using this language limits information that can be gathered by the provider and can strain the trust between the provider and the patient. Further, the resident also mentioned how the chemical that they thought she may have used was being used to make chemical weapons and he explicitly stated that to the patient. Now, let me remind you this patient was Muslim, and it may be possible that there was some sort of bias from the resident about how the chemical was being used. This possible implicit bias was picked up on by the patient and this further caused a disconnect and distrust of the resident. This all could have been prevented had someone phrase it differently. Maybe instead of saying “Why did you lie,” and implying the patient was making chemical weapons, they could have said, “We need you to tell us more about how you got that injury so that we can treat it appropriately” and gone from there instead of accusing her. It would have helped to avoid the “why” and using aggressive language.

Because of the poor technique used, the patient might not have cooperated as much. This would have led to poorer outcomes and the provider may have become more ineffective with other patients if they were preoccupied with this non-cooperative patient. A lot more could have gone wrong simply due to poor communication techniques and possible bias.

NUR2460 Reflection Blog Post 3

So far this semester, I’ve only had one clinical day but it was a day that I realized so many of the challenges I am going to face this semester communication-wise. The biggest challenge that I’ve faced is probably being clear and concise. For example, I stuttered over my words a lot, phrased things awkwardly, used many filler words, and sometimes ramble. I think what makes this challenge such a big deal for me to overcome is that I know that clear communication can make a huge difference in the care of a patient. Things need to be tidy and clean so that there are no dangerous discrepancies in understanding.

I think what makes this challenge so big is that I have been an unclear communicator for what seems like all my life. I’m a person of habit and it’s hard to break such bad habits especially when I do it almost every day without thinking about the implications it has. Another thing about me that contributes to this challenge is that I am naturally a more anxious person because I have unreasonable expectations for myself. I think that me becoming anxious and overwhelmed in the still unfamiliar environment of the hospital I tend to overthink things in my pursuit of being a perfect student and the stuttering and rambling gets worse. I have to admit, I think I did pretty good with this my first day of clinical but it was still noticeable to me. The last big thing about me that contributes to this challenge is how I’m not mindful of the way I talk sometimes and so I prevent myself from even recognizing when I am ineffectively communicating until long after.

A lot of what I need to do to overcome this challenge is being mindful of 1. how I feel and 2. when I am in the middle of my committing my challenging communication problem. Being mindful will assist me with my emotional regulation and would help to minimize the anxiety I feel and therefore slow me down and decrease my cluttered thoughts and speech. I guess until now I didn’t really think about what emotionally regulating could do for me when it comes to communicating. Thinking about how this applies to me also put into perspective the importance of recognizing how you feel before you attempt to communicate meaningfully in a professional setting.

I think what I am going to do to become more mindful of my speech is to think about what I want to say before I say it and say nothing more unless I’m asked of it. That way I have time to think about what I say and I can keep it concise by limiting unplanned and unnecessary words. To be mindful of how I feel I think I need to remind myself to think about how I feel before I interact with anyone, kind of at the same time as me considering what I am going to say. If I feel any sort of anxious I think I will try stress-reducing exercises like a death breath or belly breathing. Another thing I want to try is to remind myself that I am here to learn and that it’s okay to say something wrong and to ask questions.

Overall, I think it will take a lot of practice and time to overcome this challenge. I need to check myself often.

“Check yourself before you wreck yourself.”

NUR2460 Reflection Blog Post 2

For this blog, I spent my 30 minutes in a dining hall on campus. The thing that I noticed is that dining halls or restaurants, in general, were made to be conducive to more effective and genuine conversation and that there are some things to take out of this intentionally social design.  Chairs are arranged in tables in such a way that forces people to face each other. These same chairs are all clones of one another, so it doesn’t matter who is sitting in the seat as they put people on the same level. This helps to encourage eye contact and encourage conversation. Not only that, but the food itself encourages a clear establishment of who is the sender of a message and who is the receiver at any given moment where someone may be chewing. The chewer will have to demonstrate their listening by nodding and maintaining eye contact.

This gives the chance to whoever is not chewing to talk and discuss. This person who is talking may be holding a fork or a drink and so their nonverbal communication is limited with their hands. With that, I saw many people that I observed using head movements and facial expressions to convey nonverbal messages. These head nonverbals help to convey genuine expression and create more meaningful communication. With this in mind, it helped me realize just how much of an impact nonverbal cues have on any conversation. They are subconscious usually and so they convey genuinely how you feel and people know this, so it’s very useful to be mindful of these cues to enhance a conversation if you feel like you aren’t acting interested or like you’re listening enough.

This experience also made me realize how hand placement and activity is another important way to convey messages. For whatever reason in my past, I was very interested in watching educational self-defense videos and the host has always said, “While eyes may be windows to the soul, hands are the windows to someone’s intent.” And even in a regular, non-self-defense setting, he’s right. People eating and keeping their hands busy by eating food conveys peace and enjoyment. When I observed, I didn’t see a single person (that was talking to another person) having a bad time. They were interested in conversation because, in part, of what the dining environment implicates: peace, sincerity, and joy. It is a setting that makes people naturally more inclined to communicate because it forces connection.

Those who were at a table alone, I observed, were almost always using their phone to watch something or to listen to music. This made me think of how technology is used to set up barriers in conversation. For example, people who are uninterested in conversation may half-listen with their phones out because they simply don’t want to talk anymore. So, people were alone because they wanted to be alone. They showed it by keeping themselves busy with their phones and purposely isolating themselves from social situations. Nobody I saw that was involved in a conversation was wearing earphones or on their phones.

Dining environments are great models of what helps to make effective (nonverbal) communication and the role technology has in nonverbal communication.

I find it hard to act like I’m listening to someone sometimes when I know I am and it turns off the conversation. Maybe I should just pretend I’m in a restaurant with the other person and that I have food in my mouth.

(Also, sorry for writing so much. I didn’t much feel obligated to write this much but it’s that it was something I enjoyed thinking about. Thank you!)

NUR2460 Reflection Blog Post 1

Hello, my name is Kason Hill. I’m looking forward to this semester at the CON and cannot wait for classes to get into full swing. Just happy to be busy again!

I am from Marysville, Ohio which is about 30 miles northwest of Columbus. I grew up in a family of 5 with a brother and a sister and currently have 4 dogs. It’s a pretty busy home. My dad is a nurse and is probably my greatest inspiration to go into nursing. He’s worked at an extended care facility for about 20 years and I’ve visited with him at work as a kid and got to see some of his patients. Visiting his patients made me realize how important being a caring and professional nurse was to keep people a little more comfortable in a place where — upon initially moving into — most comfort goes out the window. It quickly became a role I sought after and I have wanted to be a nurse since my freshman year of high school.

I usually spend my free time at home hanging out with friends, cooking, caring for my dogs, or playing video games. One of my favorite activities is to go on night walks with friends in my neighborhood park and have conversations (it’s kind of illegal but it’s relaxing, oh well). I am definitely a night person and love to be busy at night. It’s when I enjoy things the most I think.

Starting to get into the ‘working’ aspect of nursing is what I am excited for most; building on my patient interaction skills and practicing my hard skills too. No one clinical rotation is super exciting to me, they all seem super interesting in their own ways and I am really looking forward to all of them since I’m really into exploring all that nursing has to offer me.

Thanks so much for reading. I’m ready to have a great semester!

Hello world!

This is my first blog post. Just so that I can say that I had my first before my assignment.