NUR4010 HE34 Summer 2016 Community Health Nursing Self-Reflection
Wenyang Cai
Professor Aida L. Egues
Introduction
Being a Community Health Nurses (CHN) has a lot of similarity and difference with being a bedside nurse. Through this semester’s learning and clinical practicing, I had learned more knowledge and acquired more skills of being a CHN. As I begin to understand more about community health nursing, I would like to share some of my experience and evaluate of my knowledge and skills in the nursing community health class of this semester.
Objective 1: Demonstrates individual professionalism through personal behaviors and appearance.
I always make sure that I dress in an appropriate professional manner during clinical, with dark shirts and business outlook pants. absolutely no jeans. I attended clinical on time and completes assignments and clinical projects within the designated time frame. I actively participated in activities and communicate with clients and making sure that I maintains client’s confidentiality.
Objective 2: Employ analytical reasoning and critical thinking skills when providing care to individuals and families in the community setting.
I usually provide BP screening service for the clients in the Stein Senior Center and help the staff there serving lunch plates for the elderly and lead them to do the stretch exercise right before lunch time. when I was checking the BP for them, I learned to know the fact that many clients skipped doses of their BP meds because they said they forgot or they don’t want to, which alerts us that most of them don’t understand the importance of taking BP meds as prescribed. Therefore, I tried to talk to them on the importance of sticking with the BP meds and taking them as prescribed, and educated them the dangerous of skipping doses. In addition, when doing the education to the elderly, for each individual I have to figure out a different way that works best for them to explain the process of high blood pressure disease and make them have a better understanding about BP meds. I learned a lot from this and my analytical reasoning skill together with my critical thinking skill got improved.
Objective 3: Effectively communicate with diverse groups and disciplines using a variety of strategies regarding the health needs of individuals and families in the community setting.
By providing BP screening for elderly with diverse culture, I did a lot of teaching on the importance of taking BP meds on time and how to eat healthier for them. Some of them only understand little English, but I was still able to communicate with them by using body languages. I felt happy that after being here for one semester, I overcome language barriers when talking to some of the non-English-speaking clients. During lunchtime, by serving food plates for the elderly, I also learn about how to speak to and comfort some impatient elderly and make them feel less anxious about the waiting. In addition, our clinical group had a lot of fun when spending times to do the clinical project together. It was a project of holding a jeopardy game for the elderly. Professor Egues was of great help, she always asks us if we had any questions when we working on the project. We actively asked questions and talked to each other when we working on it and we had a lot of fun, and I’m happy to be with these amazing peers in the clinical this semester.
Objective 4: Establish environment conducive to learning and use a plan for learners based on evidence-based practice.
When I was doing teaching on how to control blood pressure effectively for the clients, I talked to them in a quiet environment and face to face. I also developed plans for them on what should they do to control their blood pressure step by step. If their family members were present, I also made sure that I did the teaching to the client together with their family members, and show the family members about some little things they can help such as what they could to do for the client to control the client’s blood pressure. In addition, our clinical group did the project of holding a jeopardy games for the elderly and asking questions based on songs, movies that were popular for the elderly’s generation together with questions on health and safety. They were actively participated in the game and had learned a lot while enjoying the game. I think this is a very good tool to help the elderly with health learning.
Objective 5: Utilize informational technology when managing individual and families in the community.
When our clinical group were together doing our serving learning project and clinical project of holding a jeopardy game for elderly in the Stein Senior Center, we utilized principles of community health process to build up our project. We incorporated core functions of nursing in the community, which include assessment, policy development and assurance into our project. We strictly maintain the confidentiality with records of our clients, for example, we were always making sure that everything we did on the center’s computer was deleted after we leave; and after we checked the blood pressure for the clients, we wrote down the BP numbers on the back of your blood pressure sheet and made sure that nobody else can see the BP numbers for other clients.
Objective 6: Demonstrate a commitment to professional development.
I actively participated in as many of the activities held in the Stein Senior Center as possible to experience what I could do as being a community health nurse. I participated in activities such as serving lunch to the elderly, doing BP checking and knowledge teaching for the elderly, Yoga class, Zumba class, and playing jeopardy game with them. By actively interacting with them, I have learned a lot from these lovely friendly elderly. One thing impressed me the most is that most of the elderly live happily in their lately adulthood by keeping a happy mood and taking part in many activities with their enthusiasm. They are really eager to learn. This makes me think about that as being a CHN, I should assume responsibility for lifelong learning so that I could provide as much knowledge for them as possible. Also, I always do self-evaluation for myself and to see what I did well and what I should learn and improve on that clinical day and try make good changes right after.
Objective 7: Incorporate professional nursing standards and accountability into practice.
As a nurse being in the community, I always reminding myself in my mind of the mission of being a CHN and strictly follow the standards and accountability of American Nurses Association into practice. I also complied with the agency’s policy, and worked hard towards the goal of the agency in order to do the best for the clients. For example, during the lunch time, I work collaboratively with the staff their and stick to the lunch rules that set up by the agency to serve lunch for the clients, and making sure that the clients were following the agency rules when they were having lunch.
Objective 8: Collaborate with clients, significant support persons and members of the health care team.
Our clinical group members always work effectively together in many activities, such as paring in serving lunch for the elderly and pairing to do the BP screening for the elderly. We also work actively collaborates with each other in our projects. We came up with different good ideas and put them together into the project. We break up parts of tasks and clearly assigned to every group member yet we still helping with each other when we working on each other’s own parts. We coordinated client-care based on client needs in the project and came up with appropriate and therapeutic interventions to build up and guide clients a healthy life.
Objective 9: Recognize the impact of economic, political, social and demographic forces that affect the delivery of health care services.
By walking around the community of the Stein Senior, our clinical group together came up with the assessment through the windshield survey. Together with utilizing the supplement statistic, we recognize the problems that exist in this community and the gaps in care system. After identified the problems in this community, we came up with diagnosis of potential safety problems and physical health issues and made solutions to these complex problems in the community, and we actively act as change agent in working hard for making an comprehensive service learning project for the clients in the community.
Summary
I have a knowledgeable semester after all I went through from the beginning to the end. I abundant myself with much more knowledge and skills as being a CHN. My communication skills and independent nursing practice skills got improved. I also enjoyed the teamwork when
our clinical team members were working actively together with professor Egues and we were always happily helping each other. We all felt happy with the big efforts we made and I learned a lot from them. Through this semester I gained more knowledge and critical skills as being a CHN, and I understood more about the role of being a CHN and would love to be a CHN in the future if I have the opportunity to
