Exploration Of Professional Nursing Practice Essay Examples

Nursing

Introduction
Every decision encompasses anticipation for a better outcome for the future. Similarly, when a student makes a decision to come back to college to pursue the nursing degree there is a strong sense of anticipation to achieve both a short term and long term goal. The exploration of professional nursing practice provides an insight to a nursing student’s personal and professional philosophies. The discussion entails a better understanding of the nursing students’ perspective in becoming a better nursing professional in the future by reflecting on their clinical and interpersonal skills (McCabe, 2003).

Returning to College

The decision to go back to school to obtain the RN license is a pursuit of a life-long dream, and that is to ascertain my future in the healthcare sector and achieve legitimacy to the role of giving care. Despite being at the age of 46 years old, returning to college for an RN licensure still remains an ultimate goal. There were certain obstacles that came along the way, one of which is the poor performance in trying to obtain the degree particularly in areas of LPN and GTC. The aforementioned was not obtained successfully because of the surgery-comminuted fracture at the left tibia and fibula. As a result of the said fracture, a titanium rod with three crews inserted to the lower left leg had caused a lot of inconvenience and immobility. Moreover, the situation was frustrating in the sense that there is a need for my husband to get back and forth to the school in order for me to get to class. A similar upsetting feeling occurs when people also does the same for me as there is a feeling of helplessness caused by the situation to the point that an outburst is the only way to get out of the frustration.
Such outburst led to a frantic behavior where at one time all the books was thrown off the table because of too much frustration and made a decision to not go back to school anymore. Years have passed and after all the frustrations have subsided, I thought that going back to school at TCTC would be a life changing decision. Everything is going smoothly until the Director of Nursing that I have known for many years that also at the pining of my LPN, at my Daughters‘ wedding and that of my son’s have passed away. After having suffered a heart attack, the kind Director passed away and I was not able to see the good mentor even after recovering from her own surgery. One possible cause of the MD’s death was due to her refusal to take Plavix two weeks before the surgery. I was asked to step up and take charge because of the familiarity with Gloria’s job and what it consist of because we worked close together apart from the fact that Gloria signed off my Material Data Sheets.
Gloria did the nursing evaluations and was able to finish it before passing away in November to go back and get the RN license, so now I realized that I want to be like the DON that made a difference in my life. The encouragement to follow the dreams from CNA to LPN and now to RN has always been an inspiration. I had been with Hope Health and Rehab of Marietta for 10 years as a CNA and 14 years as a LPN, which is a total of 24 years. The decision to go back now is a particularly challenging because of the obstacles that are trying to get in the way. One of which is my son going to prison in June of this year and now my Dad is on a vent and he has been for two weeks now. However, the determination is strong and I am not letting anything get in the way this time. My family understands what it means to me to complete something that I wanted in life: to be able to continue another step in this life. Another reason to go back is because it is mandatory to have the RN license to be able to continue the job as an MDS Coordinator.

Short Term Goal

The short-term goal that I made for myself requires that I allow myself to have more time to spend on studying. To put it in progress, at the beginning of the year, I will be making my husband in charge of the finances and payables. It is difficult, but in order to get ahead in life, I had to do something, and putting him in charge was the best thing for all of us. It had something to do with my family’s financial plans, the first thing to do is to identify that there is an existing problem in terms of spending and needed to free up some in order to sustain the financial demands of my studies by means of putting the one person in the world she could trust with her money. This is difficult in particular because the decision would mean giving up control but knowing deep down inside it was the best for everyone since there are instances that I sometimes forget to pay some of our bills here and there while focusing on the 40 hour week job and going to night classes at Brown Mackie College in Greenville.
There are a lot of tendencies to mismanage the monetary resources, which is leading up to a potential financial trouble to the point of almost losing our home. Now with the husband’s help with managing their money, I will have more time to study and less stress in my family life. The important thing I need to do is to get started and determine the short-term goal. When I achieved the short-term goal; I would able to move on to accumulate money, time to study, and less stress; to be able to complete the long-term goals for me and my family, I have created another short-term goal for myself in getting caught up at work and finished taken the MDS test online through AIS. This is essential to get stress out of the way before clinical at
Mackie College. AIS Central is an online employee centered education portal that MDS employees working for Covenant Dove, which needs to be taken on an annual basis.
It provides access to the RAI module while providing training as well as competency testing. As for the long-term goals I wish to graduate college while obtaining the knowledge to pass State Boards for the RN License. The next goal is to finish the house that we are building. There are a lot to do on our home, but when its done it will be there forever; for our children and grandchildren to call home. It is a goal that the family has had and has not progressed due to lack of money. My family means the world to me and to be able to finish college and to become an RN would allow me to have the time to spend with the family and to make the money we need to complete our home. I have discovered two skills as a result of the continued efforts to become an RN. First is gaining the delegation skills, which enables an effective delegation of accountability. Delegating responsibilities would mean giving an opportunity for co-nurses to deliver quality care and exemplary performance (Currie, 2008).
Becoming a licensed RN encompasses a responsibility to delegate roles to LPN’s such as administering medications. As an RN its is important to follow through and monitor the work of the LPN’s to ensure that all instructions and the delegated responsibilities were delivered according to instructions (Brinkerhoff, 2003). This is because whatever mistakes the LPN’s have caused encompasses a critical effect towards the patient and the lead RN is the one accountable to the consequences of such mistake. Another important skills obtained from taking up are advocacy skills, communication, and problem solving skills. Having advocacy skills would mean having the capacity to influence and collaborate with fellow nurses to create better nursing practices. Having the right communication skills would mean having the right attitude to interact with people particularly with the patients. On the other hand, the problem solving skills is as equally important in terms of responding to unexpected situations that requires exercise of reasonable judgment without compromising anyone in the health organization.
Because of the previous job as an MDS Coordinator, I was able to adapt into different roles in the organization including setting Medicare meetings. Furthermore, the previous job experience allowed me to set D/C dates, ask clinical questions, and nutrition weight loss and weight gain. In addition to the primary roles of an MDS Coordinator, the job also entailed being a therapy assistant, taking care of payment plans, and physician’s schedule. When not in my usual work or during day offs, there is always a summary note left to anyone covering my shift in order to make sure that none of the responsibilities or processes involved in my jobs were not put into a halt. The previous job experience allowed me to understand the importance of properly communicating information to my peers. This allowed me to develop certain goals and strategies to address issues. Once a personal strategy was developed, an RN would be able to establish plan of action and a timeline that will guide them to accomplish the activity.
An RN is expected to have the skills to strategize and develop the same thinking towards issues occurring within the healthcare work settings. For example, having faced with a difficult situation involving a patient’s life on the line is not only limited on the responsibilities of the doctors, but also rely on the effective skills of the nurses. One of the real situations in the healthcare environment is a patient having a stroke. The medical situation may occur unexpectedly and when such thing happens and the RN is the only person available to address the situation. In such critical situations, the ability of the nurse to think fast and make decisions upfront would mean saving the life of the patient. Looking back at the experiences I had with Gloria, she was able to show me how to apply the skills and strategies in a practical setting. One there was a patient that came under the Medicare Part A, but could do a therapy. Gloria knows that the doctor can write an order to hold the therapy for three days; the solution to avoid the patient from getting dehydrated is to introduce the IV fluid.
In the journey to become an RN, there are two important skills to learn. First is critical thinking, which can be defined as the purposeful judgment within a clinical decision and problem solving conveyed in reasoning, analysis, inference, interpretation, and knowledge. It is important for all nurses to have the critical thinking skills to accurately make decisions in difficult situations, to be able to determine why and how, ultimately to find an answer to those questions (Simpson & Courtney, 2010). This critical thinking skill is important for nurses in order for them to change the nursing stigma that the profession only involves taking orders from the doctors and giving care to the patients. Critical thinking allows nurses to integrate the clinical practices into real time practices in difficult situations. The second important skill that I wish to learn as a nurse is the physical and health assessment skills. This involves having the capacity to tell what’s wrong with the patient based on the vital signs and other abnormalities that are visible on the patient (Carna, 2013). The Health assessment skills on the other hand involves looking into the patient’s health history and make comparison of the changes that are occurring and use the nursing knowledge to address the perceived health conditions.
Integrating professional development towards becoming an RN is essential to succeed in the profession. I can assume that I am emotional ready to learn and to go forth in the goal to graduate and passing state boards to obtain her RN license. I also had the level of confidence that I never had before when I tried to go back to college in the past. Now I have the support system consisting of her family, friends, as well as co-workers, whereas before when I was doing it all without the help of my family. My daughter is also working on her RN at the same time and she was helping out with the granddaughter, I would say that I am my own terms of achieving my goal and to ultimately obtain my license.

References

Brinkerhoff, D. (2003). Accountability and Health Systems: Overview, Framework, and Strategies ( TE 018). Retrieved from Partners for Health Reform Plus website: http://www.who.int/management/partnerships/accountability/AccountabilityHealthSystemsOverview.pdf
Carna. (2013). Entry-to-practice competence for registered nurses. Retrieved from College & Association of Registered Nurses in Alberta website: http://www.nurses.ab.ca/content/dam/carna/pdfs/DocumentList/Standards/RN_EntryPracticeCompetencies_May2013.pdf
Currie, P. (2008). Delegation considerations for nursing practice. Crit Care Nurse, 28(5), 1-3. Retrieved from http://ccn.aacnjournals.org/content/28/5/86.full
McCabe, C. (2003). Nurse–patient communication: an exploration of patients’ experiences. Issues in Clinical Nursing, 13, 41-49. Retrieved from file:///Users/norbertyap/Downloads/Communication%20article.pdf
Simpson, E., & Courtney, M. (2010). The development of a critical thinking conceptual model to enhance critical thinking skills in middleeastern nurses: a middleeastern experience. Australian Journal of Advanced Nursing, 25(1), 56-63. Retrieved from http://www.ajan.com.au/vol25/vol25.1-8.pdf