Senior Experience: Fall 2011 & Spring 2012
Professional Nursing Development - NURS 40005
- Competencies:
- Writing a resume and cover letter
- Preparing for interviews and seminars
- Attendance of professional organization meetings
- Intensive writing assignments
- EBP:
- Violence related to physical restraints: View Seminar
- Personal Reflection:
- This course has helped me to better understand the importance of professionalism. With what I learned in this class, I am prepared for career interviews and know how to present myself as a professional to my future employer.
Nursing of the Critically Ill - NURS 40010
- Competencies:
- Focused head to toe assessments depending on their condition
- Enhanced critical thinking skills
- Ventilator monitoring and ABG interpretation
- Hemodynamic monitoring
- ECG monitoring and interpretation
- Learned how to better prioritize care focused to the critically ill patient utilizing time management and organization skills
- Gaining education on how to care for patients with cardiovascular and respiratory disorders, arrhythmias, shock, fluid & electrolyte alterations, neurological disorders, hepatic and gastrointestinal disorders
- Patient Teaching:
- Prevention of ventilator-acquired pneumonia through mouth care and suctioning the mouth
- Encouraged deep breathing and coughing to promote loosening of respiratory secretions
- Educating patient's and families on medications being administered and plan of care during my shift
- EBP:
- Nursing Process Paper on patient with traumatic brain injury: View Process Paper
- Personal Reflection:
- This course taught me how to prioritize care pertaining to the condition of the critically ill patient. My critical thinking skills have strengthened along with utilizing the nursing process while caring for patients in the intensive care unit, special care unit, and emergency department setting. I feel as though I got to experience many new skills in this course, while improving on past skills, and gained a better understanding of caring for the critically ill patient.
- Clinical Setting: Mercy Medical Center located in Canton, Ohio
Community Health Nursing - NURS 40020
- Competencies:
- Health promotion & Health Planning
- Primary, secondary, and tertiary levels of prevention
- Working as a team with others
- Commuting to a variety of new facilities in the community
- Understanding the roles of the public health nurse and community nurse
- Patient Teaching:
- Educated a group of 4 and 5 years at Epworth United Methodist Church day care on the importance of eating healthy foods and exercising to keep prevent obesity and cardiovascular disorders.
- Informed patient on importance of hand washing and immunizations in home health care.
- EBP:
- Community Assessment and Nursing Care Plan of the Massillon Community
- Clinical conference on Increasing Healthy Years for Minority Populations
- Personal Reflection:
- This course gave me a better understanding of the roles of the community health nurse; also the impact, and the importance they serve for individuals and groups in a community. It was enjoyable to help patients and families outside of a hospital setting. This course motivated me to contribute more of my time in helping out in the community.
- Clinical Settings: Canton Community Health Center, Stark County Health Department, Gabrail Cancer Center, Stark County Jail, Mercy Medical Center Hospice & Home Care, Wooster Community Hospital- Wound Care Center, Mercy Medical Center Jackson Stat Care
Psychiatric Nursing and Mental Health Nursing Care - NURS 40030
- Competencies:
- Therapeutic communication techniques
- Developing a therapeutic relationship with the psychiatric client
- Knowledge of different mental health disorders and psychiatric medications
- Patient Teaching:
- Educated individuals on the importance of social skills and how to properly use them in a social interaction
- Educated individuals about the importance to not abruptly stop taking their medications if they feel better
- Educated individuals about common side effects they might experience with antidepressants
- EBP:
- Biopsychosocial Assessment on a forensic client
- Interpersonal Process Recording
- Personal Reflection:
- This course helped me to understand more about psychiatric clients and the mental health illnesses they have to live with. I gained more insight on my own self-awareness throughout this course which will ultimately help me build effective relationships with clients in the future. I was able to improve on my therapeutic communication skills from multiple 1:1, nurse to patient ratio, interactions among a variety of clients with different mental health disorders. I enjoyed learning about the various mental health disorders and interventions that are useful for effective treatment with psychiatric clients. I know that I will be able to carry on the skills that I was able to strengthen throughout this course, and use them throughout my nursing career in the future.
- Clinical Setting: Heartland Behavioral Healthcare, Mercy Medical Center, Akron Children's Hospital, Crisis Center
Integration of Leadership and Management in Nursing - NURS 40045
- Competencies:
- Teamwork and teambuilding
- Effective staffing, communication, and decision making
- Organization, time management, and prioritization of patient care
- Change, power, and conflict
- Five rights of delegation and delegation of patient care
- Quality improvement
- Leadership and management differences
- Patient Teaching:
- Educated clients on indications for and side effects of medications, importance of deep breathing exercises and relaxation techniques to control anxiety, UTI prevention, skin care and importance of turning body every 2 hours to prevent skin breakdown, prevention of ventilator acquired pneumonia and importance of oral care every 2 hours
- EBP:
- Quality improvement involvement among nursing staff
- Prevention of central line-associated bloodstream infections
- View: 120 hour completed practicum journal
- Personal Reflection:
- This course has excessively increased my awareness and knowledge about leadership and management responsibilities in nursing. I had the opportunity to complete my practicum in the MICU at Aultman and was able to apply my skills and knowledge to the care of my patients. I was able to observe the real-life setting of how it would actually feel to work 12 hour shifts back to back. I was able to actually observe the leadership and management aspects, learned in class, to the ICU clinical setting. I was proud to see how much I had actually improved as a student nurse from my first clinical experience until now and was able to administer medications, fully care for 2 critically ill patient assignments, provide safe effective skills, and communicate among other members of the healthcare staff as a team to provide quality care for my patients. I feel that I was able to finally see the full spectrum of nursing from everything I had learned in nursing school up to this point and see how it is all put together.
- Clinical Setting: Aultman Medical Intensive Care Unit - Practicum: Completed 120 hours
