Clinical Reflection

Being able to reflect back on my clinical experiences this semester kind of makes me wish that we were still able to have clinical at the hospital in person, but with the current situation I am happy that the College of Nursing is adapting our learning so we are not being put into this stressful situation. Even being online through virtual simulation, I have seen many improvements in myself and my communication between the knowledge that I have learned and the confidence that I have gained.

For the improvements with myself, I have noticed how much more knowledgeable I am about procedures, patient diagnoses, and especially medications. I am now able to look at a patient’s summary of stay and see their diagnosis and know why they have certain medications that they are taking and what they are indicated for. It is amazing how much content we are able to retain in such a short amount of time, but being able to learn it in the classroom then apply your knowledge in a real-life setting really helps to engrain the material into your practice. Another improvement I have seen in myself is my ability to remember critical values such as lab value ranges that are critical to know when evaluating how your patient is responding to the treatment regiment that they are on and how you will use those values moving forward in their care. Being able to know what certain lab values ranges are supposed to be makes me feel more confident in how I am retaining the material and how I am enhancing my education.

My improvement with communication has also gained significantly, somewhat due to feeling more comfortable in the clinical setting but also from my gain in confidence in what I am doing. I am able to give a more thorough handoff-report that includes all necessary information that my nurse would need to know, and I also know the key elements that I have to listen for and specifically ask for when receiving a hand-off report as sometimes not everything that is vital is stated. I am able to ask my nurse or clinical instructor what certain medications are being used for when I don’t understand why they are being described and actually understand the other uses that medications can have. I have been able to communicate with the other PCAs and nursing students to coordinate care with my patient and even help my peers understand certain topics that I feel confident about.

The growth that I would like to see in my future practice is being more confident and willing to perform the skills that we get checked off in the clinical setting. I feel like sometimes when I have to perform a skill in clinical that I had to get checked off on, I get more nervous to do it for the sole fact that we had to get checked off on it so it seems a lot more serious to me. I would also like to get more concrete with the content that I know because I feel like there were multiple times in clinical when me and the other students would be asked a question and I felt like I knew the answer but didn’t want to say it but then I would end up being right I would say about 75% of the time. Just being able to solidify that knowledge and being confident applying it is something that I need to work on and get better with, which I hope working at the hospital over the summer will allow me to do. Being able to get the extra practice with my skills and knowledge in the hospital being independent will definitely help solidify everything that I have learned so far and maybe even get me ahead in the content for next year.