Nursing 403 – Practice Summary Paper

 

Purpose of Assignment

The purpose of this paper is to guide you through a process of self-reflection and self-evaluation to discover the scope of your personal and professional development while enrolled in the RN-BSN nursing program at Old Dominion University.

 

Approach to Assignment

I approached this assignment by sitting down and choosing at least one assignment that I felt best represented my learning in each of the “great eights” categories. After I was able to do this, writing the paper became an easy reflection on my learning and growth.

 

Reason for Inclusion

I included this paper in my portfolio because it is a great summary of how far I have come during this program. It gives specific examples of how my hard work has influenced my real life nursing care and practice. It paints a picture of who I have become as a nurse during my two years in the BSN program at ODU.

 

Curricular outcomes

 

Critical thinking

• Uses nursing and other appropriate theories and models to guide professional practice.

        In this paper I reference the nursing theories of Florence Nightingale and Riverside’s nursing model to shape my personal and professional philosophy of nursing in the conclusion. I discuss Nightingale’s holistic theory and model of nursing and how it has influences my own professional practice. It was Florence Nightingale who stated that nursing was a calling from God to provide the sick with civilized, holistic care and this was one of the components of my philosophy of nursing.

 

• Uses decision-making skills in making clinical decisions or professional judgments.

        I discuss my critical thinking and decision making skills while discussing my work with the AVATAR patients during my first semester of nursing school. I then compare these virtual clinical situations to a real life situation involving a patient with chest pain who truly only had GERD. I discuss how I was able to assess this patient and made a critical thinking decision and recommendation to his physician.

 

• Evaluates nursing care outcomes through the acquisition of data and the questioning of inconsistencies.

        I go into detail about a few projects in this paper which involved influencing change in my own practice. Both the teaching project involving bedside reporting and the evidence-based research project involving the use of curos caps to prevent central line infections involved following through with nursing interventions and assessing the quality of the outcomes to make a decision about whether or not the intervention was successful.

 

• Revises actions and goals based on evidence rather than conjecture.

        I explain in this paper that, after completing copious amounts of research, I took both my bedside reporting and curos caps research projects to my boss to see if we could implement change for the better on our floor. We then, as a unit, revised our actions and goals by implementing new policies about these two topics.

 

• Engages in creative problem solving.

        I discuss a situation in this paper about a group project that I completed in which I was the group leader and one member never participated. At the end of the project, I got the group together and we voted on how to best solve the problem. We ended up splitting up the missing member’s work and completing it as a team in order to receive full credit for the assignment. I was able to lead a group to solve the problem creatively.

 

Nursing Practice

• Applies appropriate knowledge of major health problems to guide nursing practice.

        In this paper I discuss two projects, one about Huntington’s disease and one about heart disease, and how my research on these topics now allows me to provide more holistic care to patients suffering from these illnesses. I also discuss how I evolved the nursing practice on my floor by helping make the policy for curos caps to be used on all central lines to prevent central line infections.

 

Communication

• Expresses oneself and communicates effectively with diverse groups and disciplines using a variety of media in a variety of contexts.

        I use this paper to express myself effectively by explaining my feelings about my personal growth and learning in this program. I also describe my experience communicating with others through several different mediums throughout the program such as blackboard, email, discussion board and virtual meetings.

 

• Produces clear, accurate and relevant writing using correct grammar, spelling and punctuation.

        This paper is written in a clear and straight forward manner using correct grammar, spelling and punctuation. It is a good example of my ability to communicate with others through my writing.

 

• Accesses and utilizes data and information from a wide range of sources to enhance patient and professional communication.

        In this paper I reference my teaching project in which I accesses data and information about bedside reporting to enhance the patient and professional communication on my floor. I was able to share this information with my colleagues and help make a policy change about it.

 

Teaching

• Provides teaching to patients and/or professionals about health care procedures and technologies in preparation for and following nursing or medical interventions.

        I discuss my teaching project about bedside reporting in this paper which involved teaching my co-workers about the importance of implementing bedside reporting into their current practices. I also discuss several other projects including my Huntington’s disease wiki, curos caps research paper and cultural website which included teaching my classmates and sharing information about those particular subjects. 

 

• Evaluates the efficacy of health promotion and education modalities for use in a variety of settings with diverse populations.

        At the end of my teaching project I evaluate the effectiveness of my educational session using a short written quiz as well as a teach-back demonstration. This session was held during a unit meeting at my work which was comprised of several different nurses with several different educational and professional backgrounds.

 

• Uses information technologies and other appropriate methods to enhance one’s own knowledge base.

        In this paper I discuss various ways that I conducted research for many different assignments throughout the program. I explain that I used scholarly and peer-reviewed articles that I found on Google as well as articles I found using the ODU library. I was able to use these technological resources to enhance my own learning base.

 

Research

• Applies research-based knowledge from nursing as the basis for culturally sensitive practice.

        I discuss my culture website project about Denmark in this paper. To complete this assignment, I had to complete a great deal of research about the health care systems and customs in Denmark. I was then able to apply these research findings to my website project and, in turn, encourage culturally sensitive practice.

 

• Shares research findings with colleagues.  

        I share all of my research findings throughout the program with my colleagues by posting this assignment as well to most of my other assignments to my portfolio website. This website will later be shared to the public online and with my fellow classmates.

 

Leadership

• Assumes a leadership role within one’s scope of practice as a designer, manager and coordinator of health care to meet the special needs of vulnerable populations in a variety of practice settings.

        In this paper I share that since the beginning of this program I have become both a preceptor and a charge nurse. Both of these roles require me to adapt to the needs of many different people from many different backgrounds. I go into detail about an orientee that I had that was having a hard time learning from my teaching methods. I explain how I adapted my teaching style to help her learn.