Posted: March 16th, 2022

Nursing Practicum Reflective Journal Essay

Nursing Practicum Reflective Journal Essay

Students are required to maintain weekly reflective narratives throughout the course to combine into one course-long reflective journal that integrates leadership and inquiry into current practice as it applies to the Professional Capstone and Practicum course.

In your journal, you will reflect on the personal knowledge and skills gained throughout this course. The journal should address a variable combination of the following, depending on your specific practice immersion clinical experiences Nursing Practicum Reflective Journal Essay :

New practice approaches

Interprofessional collaboration

Health care delivery and clinical systems

Ethical considerations in health care

Population health concerns

The role of technology in improving health care outcomes

Health policy

Leadership and economic models

Health disparities

Students will outline what they have discovered about their professional practice, personal strengths and weaknesses that surfaced, additional resources and abilities that could be introduced to a given situation to influence optimal outcomes, and finally, how the student met the competencies aligned to this course.

While APA style is not required for the body of this assignment, solid academic writing is expected, and in-text citations and references should be presented using APA documentation guidelines, which can be found in the APA Style Guide, located in the Student Success Center.

This assignment uses a rubric. Please review the rubric prior to beginning the assignment to become familiar with the expectations for successful completion.

Introduction

Prior to attending the practicum, I thought that the theoretical knowledge had acquired in class was sufficient to allow me operate as an independent nurses. However, having attended the practicum, I now understand that I was lacking as a nurse. In fact, the practicum gave me the experience and proficiency to allow me become independent. I now understand that the classroom work only constitutes part of the education process, and that the practicum allowed me to gain practical experience to make me a better nurse. In this respect, I am better prepared to operate as an independent professional nurse who is capable of improving nursing services provision and offering superior nursing care having attended the theoretical class program and acquired practical skills from the practicum.

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1st experience: new practice approaches

My first clinical experience was an introduction to practical nursing practice and the material to be covered during the practicum to include the departments attended. This section focused on evidence-based practice and the need to research to identify the most suitable protocols in each situation. Emphasis was placed on application of the theoretical classroom knowledge and assessment skills in clinical practice. In addition, the importance of independent reasoning in diagnosis, risk reduction and health promotion was mentioned. My take on the content was that I would be learning how to adapt nursing principles and practices to each situation, particularly when evaluating and applying nursing protocols to realize effective practice. The experience allowed me to appreciate how research evidence can support the right aspect of information to address different peculiarities (Wessel & Manthey, 2015)Nursing Practicum Reflective Journal Essay.

2nd experience: interprofessional collaboration

My second clinical experience was to gain an appreciation for interprofessional collaboration. This was based on the fact that nursing is just one part of medical care and different professions must contribute to achieve positive care outcomes. This means that I must develop close relationships with other medical professions charged with providing health care so as to realize an additive effect. In this case, collaboration would require that the different professions share responsibility for care to include presenting the right information and responding as required. For instance, pharmacists are responsible for drug dispensation while nurses are responsible for drug administration. For that matter, working as an individual achieved less since only part of the patients’ needs would be addressed while working as a team achieved more since much of the patients’ needs would be addressed (Wessel & Manthey, 2015).

3rd experience: health care delivery and clinical systems

My third clinical experience was to gain a better understanding of clinical systems to include their conceptualization and application. The focus was on the environmental dynamics affecting nursing practice that explained how each environment (such a home, or hospital) would require a unique approach that also noted distinctions in patient population. Besides that, I experienced how certification, accreditation and licensure determined the responsibilities assigned to each nurse (Wessel & Manthey, 2015).

4th experience: ethical considerations in health care

My fourth clinical experience was to identify how best to apply ethics in the provision of nursing care. In fact, I got to understand that nurses are faced with ethical dilemmas on a regular basis, requiring them to make decisions with far reaching consequences. The most common ethical issues revolved around centrality, communication and confidentiality with regards to nursing care provision with each situation being unique (Jensen, 2014). While I have some personal opinion of what would entail ethical practice, I comprehend that ethical nursing practice is outlined within nursing principles thereby making the dilemma essentially a question of whether or not to practice as prescribed in the principles.

5th experience: population health concerns

My fifth clinical experience was to identify and present strategies for addressing population health concerns that included the whole community with all demographics represented. The content identified a population at three levels of a system, community and individual. The system is concerned with organizations, regulations, policies, laws and power structures. The community is concerned with norms, attitudes, awareness, practices and behavior. The individual is concern with the family in terms of knowledge, attitude, belief, practice and behavior. This means that to address population health concerns, I must first identify the population level before developing a strategy to address the problem at the identified level (Porche, 2017) Nursing Practicum Reflective Journal Essay.

6th experience: role of technology in improving health care outcomes

My sixth clinical experience was to identify the role of technology in improving health care outcomes. In this case, the focus was on understanding how health care has developed over the year from the medieval era of using simple drugs to the current modern age of using genetic technology. Each technological advance has been purposed to improve health care provision through facilitating correct diagnosis and treatment, as well as improving medical staff efficiency by improving their efforts. For instance, automated monitoring equipment ensure that fewer nursing personnel are employed in the emergency department since they would only need to respond to information presented by the equipment and not manual conduct the monitoring (Davis & LaCour, 2014).

7th experience: health policy

My seventh clinical experience was to determine the function and value of health policy. I now comprehend that policy shapes how nursing care is provided. In addition, I determined that nurses play an important role in policy development since their position as contact persons for the patients allows them to collect their opinion to influence policy development. Also, they can use evidence from research to influence policy. This means that as a nurse, I am not only concerned with providing care but also influencing the development of policy that directs the care provision (Porche, 2017).

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8th experience: leadership and economic models

My eighth clinical experience showed me that the best value can be realized by having nurses in leadership positions. As things stand, stakeholders have limited awareness of contributions made by nurses through practice, policy, science and profession. This means that although nursing has clinical, social and economic value, that value is often downplayed since nurses do not occupy leadership positions (Jensen, 2014). This means that as a nurse, I can maximize value by occupying a leadership position where I can make decisions Nursing Practicum Reflective Journal Essay.

9th experience: health disparities

My ninth clinical experience entailed exploring health disparities. The most common disparity I identified was prejudice in the delivery of medical care. I noticed evidence of the prejudice in the demographic disparities with higher incidence of chronic ailments and premature birth reported for marginalized and low income communities. Although addressing this disparities may be difficult at the individual level since they have cost implications, public attention can be drawn to the issue to influence development of policy that address the issue (Jensen, 2014).

Conclusion

It is evident that the practical experience advanced my experience and proficiency with nursing. Through attending the practicum, I have become a better nurse with greater appreciation for the theoretical material I covered in class. As a result, I would recommend that other nursing students attend practicum as part of their coursework.

References

Davis, N. & LaCour, M. (2014). Health information technology (3rd ed.). Amsterdam: Elsevier.

Jensen, S. (2014). Nursing health assessment: a best practice approach (2nd ed.). Philadelphia, PA: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.

Porche, D. (2017). Health policy: application for nurses and other health professionals (2nd ed.). Burlington, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning.

Wessel, S. & Manthey, M. (2015). Primary nursing: person-centered care delivery system design. Minneapolis, MN: Creative Health Care Management Nursing Practicum Reflective Journal Essay.

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