ISTAN UTIASHEV RN

(edited personal information out for privacy purposes)

 Professional Experience:

May 2015 – Present Registered Nurse, (edited out for Privacy purposes) Inc.

• Available on call to address all medical emergencies at the assigned residences.
• Provided routine medical care for individuals with Developmental Disabilities.
• Trained and supervised staff in administering medications, taking vital signs and care of adaptive equipment.
• Advocated for person centered care of individuals with developmental disabilities as a member of the Human Rights Committee.
• Attended discharge planning meetings to ensure optimal follow up care of the clients.
• Collaborated with the interdisciplinary team to ensure optimal care for individuals with developmental disabilities.
• Traveled to multiple residences throughout the city to prepare sites for state audits.
• Completed two state audits with 0 citations and assisted in setting up new residences for individuals with developmental disabilities.

2013-2015 Head Counselor for Special Needs Department, (edited out for privacy purposes)

• Planned and applied behavioral intervention plans for individuals with autism spectrum disorders and intellectual disabilities.
• Guided interns in behavioral interventions to ensure safety of the program
• Planned and coordinated group activities for adults with developmental disorders.
• Performed health teaching for the adults on nutrition, vaccination and home safety

Volunteering:

2011-12 Volunteer –Emergency Department at (edited out for privacy purposes)

• Supported patients emotionally during a crisis.
• Transported patients to other units in the hospital
• Communicated patient concerns to the medical team.
• Assisted patients with any immediate needs within scope of practice.

TECHNOLOGY SKILLS:     Microsoft Office, Excel, Sharepoint, Powerpoint.

EDUCATION:  Currently enrolled in BSN program at New York City College of Technology (Graduating in spring 2017).  Associate’s Degree in Nursing from New York City College of Technology

CERTIFICATION: New York RN License number 697314

BLS Certified (2015-2017), ACLS Certified (2015-2017)

This week we held our health fair. It was a stressful endeavor that we plotted for most of the semester. We’ve chosen our topic on disaster preparedness as the community at Masaryk was hit especially hard by Hurricane Sandy. I was one of the coordinators in charge of organizing the event and it was somewhat stressful to consider all the factors that we needed in order to make the project a success. What if the clients didn’t show up? What if they lost interest? There was a lot of anxiety all around.

Fortunately once we got the fair started we had a good amount of success drawing people towards us. The most popular table by far was of course the triage table where we took blood pressures and blood sugars to the point that we had to transition more students to help deal with the clients. It was nice to also run into a lot of the community members which had become our friends over the semester and to take care of them.

We’ve made a lot of good friendships with the community members at Masaryk towers and I will certainly miss them. I will definitely pay the area a visit in the future and hope that it fares well. In the hands of the nurses that work diligently here, I am certain that it will.

One of the other issues that often come up during my community health nursing experience at Masaryk Towers is that I see a lot of clients that approach to have their blood pressure or blood sugar measured that are not aware of the exact parameters or the importance of having either measured. They are doing so without a clear understanding of what blood pressure means or what affects their blood sugar. Though I provide the teaching without judgment it is discouraging to realize that so many members of the community are in need of the education. I feel like a lot of the clients in this community (among others) need to learn how to take advantage of their health care providers’ services and to demand to be educated about their health.

There are of course reasons why clients prefer not to ask too many questions of their health care providers. Usually the fear of the unknown and the white coat effect account for it, but also clients feel that if they don’t know they will be less afraid of the issues. I think there is a need for the clients to be independent and to feel like they are in control of their health care. I think one of the biggest successes for community health nurses would be to help the community members feel in control of their health care and capable of being involved in it, instead of being passive recipients.

This is my second post regarding my clinical experience at Masaryk towers. In my clinical we have begun doing home visits for some of the more elderly clients. It is an enjoyable experience as a large part of my work is visiting the homes of my clients. We discussed the importance of assessing the residences of our clients as it allows us to gauge how they live and what kinds of services they need. We’ve seen one of the elderly residents’ residence and she was living in what can be mildly described as a chaotic mess. Her medications were disorganized, there was a smell throughout the apartment and the clothes in general were in a mess. It was discouraging to see the situation in which she lives in. She clearly needed assistance, but declined.

It is one of the main issues in community nursing. Clients really want to live independently in their own homes but decline the assistance that would allow them to do so. Unfortunately there is little we can do but offer these services, make their availability and educate our clients on their importance.

My name is Istan and this is my first entry for the Community Health Nursing class.

My clinical section is in Masaryk Towers, a group of buildings on the lower east side of Manhattan. I was told that the community here is comprised of people who were marginalized in other places and found a home here. It definitely looks like a hell of a place to settle down – lowers east side is a great neighborhood, but I am sure that was not the case when this was started.

So far we spend a lot of time discussing cultural competency and what we will do and not a whole lot of doing what we actually can do. That’s the unfortunate reality when you deal with a community clinical – we don’t have assigned patients and people aren’t exactly flocking to us. Still, we make do with the people that come up to us and do simple assessments and answer questions. Aside from the blood pressures/ glucose checks we do a lot of teaching. It’s easy to forget how much an average person does not know. A lady came up to me asking for a sugar check because the last time she took it, it was elevated. She was not a diabetic and had no idea what hgba1c was or what her level was. I asked her if she was fasting before she checked her sugar last time and she had no idea that it was necessary. This made me realize that while we try to be therapeutic we can intimidate some of our patients because they are not exactly understanding of what our brief assessments are. I probed more and asked if she could bring me her last CBC and CMP levels and realized that on top of not knowing what that meant she did not keep a personal health record.

My goal for this semester is to promote the clients in this community to establish and maintain a personal health record because that will make them more involved in their health care and certainly build up their confidence and understanding of our role in maintaining their health.

When I first saw the movie Wit in my Health care in Literature class, I remember feeling a great deal of empathy towards the client’s crisis yet conflicted due to the fact that I am a representative of the health care field. The movie shows a much skewed angle as a recipient of health care services. Notably the narrator comes off as snobby and the health care providers are largely portrayed as incompetent or redundant in order to emphasize the author’s theme of health care insensitivity. The largest take away from the movie is that there is a great gap between the culture of a health care provider and a health care client. I have never heard of anyone really discuss this theme prior – on our scope of education we frequently talk about knowledge deficit on the patient’s end and a need to be culturally sensitive on the end of the health care provider. However, don’t we as health care providers have our own culture on which we need to educate our clients? I feel like at many times it would have been more appropriate to explain to the client why some redundant questions always will be asked by any health care provider – why some students will come off as incompetent when performing an examination.

As health care providers our competency is highly scrutinized by our clients and it is not so in most professions. On the opposite spectrum, we lose sensitivity to our clients in their vast multitudes. Our first patient and our first case fades as the clients are populated in their vast multitudes and are less defined by themselves but more by the reasons of their pathologies and their bed numbers. After seeing this movie again I am reminded that there needs to be a bridge built over this great gap between cultures of the health care clients and health care providers. As nurses we are often the ones finding themselves filling that gap, however even more so, we must not bear this burden alone but instead seek to create a permanent progress. As we advance towards a more involved health care with greater education available to the clients I believe we would benefit from being more empathetic towards the clients and letting them into our own complex world of health care and keep the lines of communication open.

My experience at the B.S. in Nursing at CUNY Citytech has been very insightful. The professors and the chairperson of the program are very supportive of the students. They are understanding regarding the many challenges of working full time while pursuing higher education. I feel the passion and dedication that my professors have in the science of nursing and they certainly do their best to instill that passion in their students. I particularly enjoyed my Physical Assessment and Community Health Nursing course that I had with Dr. Leinung, a professor who I really connected with on a personal level. Dr. Rafferty, the chair person of the program has always been in open communication via email and available to meet in person as well. I really feel like I have personal connections with many professors at this program and will always appreciate this education experience. It is my aspiration to someday be able to give back to this college by working as a professor as well.

As a nurse working closely in an interdisciplinary team I find that my greatest strength is the ability to communicate and collaborate with others. In my current position at Services for the Underserved I work in a team with Medicaid Service Coordinators, Program Directors, Residential Habilitation Specialists and Behavioral Intervention Specialists. Together we meet for clinical meetings to evaluate our clients’ progresses at the residences and our future goals. Aside from routine meetings there are always emergencies that show up, from medical to behavioral and it is through our excellent communication skills that we are able to ensure that the care of our clients is optimal and that they have the best quality of life they can.

I also seek to innovate and optimize my work to the best of my ability because I seek to get more work done and the only way to do so is to be more effective. My goal is to treat my clients as well as possible and it doesn’t end when my time runs out. That is why I seek to ensure that I can complete my work in more efficient ways and spend more time with my clients.

I am a resilient employee. I’ve started in some challenging environments and was able to ensure that the care required was still provided for the clients. I was initially assigned to an Intensive Care Facility for 28 clients for the weekend shift and was available to triage and address all medical emergencies that occurred during the time and of course they occurred and they occurred frequently. Still, I was able to ensure that appropriate treatment was provided and coordinated and followed up on with the next shift.

I am dedicated. My line of work requires me to be on call 24/7 and be readily available for my residences for any medical emergencies. There were days when I have received more than sixty phone calls with the many situations that have happened. There have been 4 am phone calls when a client had eloped from the facility and was detained by the police. There have been situations when my diabetic client’s BGM tested at 15… Medical emergencies and other types of crises are just another part of the day for me.