Clinical Prevention and Population Health Skills
Throughout my time in the nursing program at Auburn University, I have had various encounters with clinical prevention and population health skills. During my first and second semester, I was involved in a program called Tiger Chat. During this program, we were tasked with educating school age children in a rural environment about the importance of hygiene, healthy diet, and exercise. Being tasked with this ensured that we not only learned the information for ourselves but understood it on a level in which we could communicate it’s importance to others. Preventative education plays a vital role in a registered nurse’s day to day life, as each patient in the hospital is
uniquely sick, and requires some form of ongoing education.
Diversity Skills
During nursing school, I have honed in my skills in diversity through clinical experience in various populations. When delivering care to patients at a hospital in Montgomery, Alabama, I remember a time when a patient felt that they were being delivered a different level of care based on their race. Our entire clinical group took half of the day to look at the patients chart, and compared it to others facing similar health concerns. While at a first glance, the treatment looked similar, but upon further examination we saw that for this particular patient, it appeared that each item that was charted was done so hours later, between several different nurses. We took this time to discuss bias among healthcare professionals, and explored ways in which to mitigate that, with the first step being recognizing one's own bias. This prompted further investigation into my own bias, both inside and outside of healthcare, which has made me much more capable of providing compassionate care.
Leadership Skills
My leadership skills come from beyond Nursing school, however, a recent clinical comes to mind in which I’ve utilized those skills within the nursing practice. Our 5th semester Leadership clinicals involve students acting as a student charge nurse, in which we “staff” the floor and manage patients, delegate care, and provide assistance when needed. During my shift as student charge nurse, it was a particularly busy day at a facility in Auburn, Alabama and each room that we were in charge of was consistently flowing of patients. I was able to assist my fellows nurses in making sure they were receiving orders from doctors in a timely manner, with the assistance of my clinical instructor. I also took control of the rooms
Scholarship for Evidence Based Practice
During fourth semester of nursing school, I was involved in our programs capstone project which entailed doing research on our local community. We quickly learned about certain health risks affecting our community, specifically hypertension and stroke. Based on our findings, we developed a plan, based on current evidence based practice standards, to teach our community about the importance of controlling hypertension. While most older adults have already heard about the need for controlling hypertension, we decided to focus on the complication of strokes. We conducted research surrounding the prevention and recognition of stroke, and presented that information to our community, providing each attendant with a flyer covering the topics we discussed.
Communication and Collaboration Skills
My communication and collaboration skills have been developing throughout nursing school. As I started the program, I would say that my communication skills were one of my most lacking. However, throughout interacting with patients over the past 2 years, I have developed a sense of confidence and compassion as I speak. This was on full display during my fourth semester rotation in the emergency department. The nurse that was in charge of me was assigned to a patient suspected of overdose, whom was given Narcan. As the patient started to become more aware of the situation, they became very emotionally labile. Their fits of anger, sadness, and confusion caused most of the other nurses to disregard the patient but due to my newly developed communication skills, I was able to stay beside the patient and comfort her for nearly an hour. During this time I was able to put into practice therapeutic communication, while collaborating with the healthcare provider in charge of them. Though it took several doses of Narcan over a few hours, I was able to demonstrate compassionate communication while establishing boundaries with the patient regarding her abuse of controlled substances.
Critical Thinking and Clinical Judgment in Clinical Practice
During my preceptorship at a hospital system in Atlanta, Georgia, I am working in the intensive care unit (ICU). While at this rotation, I was caring for a client with a complex cardiac condition. During our routine assessments, I noticed that the client was experiencing pulseless electrical activity (PEA). I immediately recognized that this was a cardiac emergency and alerted the appropriate staff. While waiting for more hospital staff to arrive, I began chest compressions on the client while my preceptor began providing manual respiration. This led to advanced cardiac life support (ACLS) being provided to the client. Because of my prompt recognition of the PEA, the client was able to be intubated and regained normal cardiac activity.