Month: November 2020

As a little girl I was in the hospital a lot because of a heart condition I was born with, so I was around a lot of nurses and health care workers in general. When I think back to that time I can actually remember those certain nurses that were so kind to me. They would make me feel like I was the most important one in the hospital, even though I now know I was not! Sitting here thinking about how I can still pick out those nurses years later makes me realize that the littlest things, even just being kind, can make such an impact on your patient’s life. Nurses carry a lot of traits that make them into the kind, caring people they are. Two of those traits that enable nurses to have such caring personalities are; empathy and compassion.

Being able to feel empathy and compassion as a nurse is very important when taking care of patients. Empathy can be thought of in two ways, affective and cognitive. Affective empathy are the sensations and feelings people get in response to someone else’s emotions. Cognitive empathy enables a person to identify others emotions and actually understand them. People may thing compassion and empathy are the same, but they are not (Greater Good Magazine Staff, 2020). Compassion is the feeling that a person gets when they are confronted with someone else’s suffering, which allows that person to feel motivated to relieve their suffering (Greater Good Magazine Staff, 2020). I feel as though empathy and compassion go hand in hand even though they are not the same. The way I look at it, someone should feel empathy toward another person in order to be motivated to relieve their suffering because it starts with understanding and feeling for another person and their struggles. So, empathy is more taking another person’s perspective and feeling their emotions, while compassion is taking those thoughts and feelings and being motivated to help them.

Jean Watson developed 10 Carative Factors that should be used by nurses when in a caring role. Summed up into one word, these critical factors include: embrace, inspire, trust, nurture, forgive, deepen, balance, co-create, minister, open (Jean Watson’s Theory of Human Caring). Putting these factors into care will allow a nurse to see their patient as whole person and not just their patient that needs to be fixed. In order to easily incorporate the Carative Factors into every day care, it is important that the nurse understands empathy and compassion. Factor one, embrace includes the selfless behaviors that may be triggered by feeling compassion toward your patient. In order to inspire a patient and instill hope into them, the nurse must understand where they are at in this process and understand their feelings. Those are just two examples, but in order to effectively put all of them into daily care, empathy and compassion need to be felt. Feeling empathy toward a patient will enable the nurse to put themselves in the patient’s shoes and understand how they may be feeling by seeing things through their eyes. Feeling compassion will allow the nurse to strive to make a positive difference in their patient’s lives. By having that motivation based off of empathy and compassion, the nurse will have an easier time incorporating the Carative Factors into their everyday lives. It is obvious that using these factors into everyday care will make a positive impact on patient’s lives. Showing empathy and compassion toward patients will allow for a trusting relationship to be built. It will make the patient comfortable sharing any thoughts or feelings with the nurse, which is much needed when developing a plan of care. It will also allow the nurse and patient to work more closely together to form goals and plans that the patient is willing to work on and have the patient be more motivated when doing so. From experience, when a patient feels that the nurse genuinely cares about them and wants them to get better, the patient is way more motivated, so the outcomes are positive.

Over the summer I got a job at a long-term health care facility. It was my first experience working in health care, so everything was pretty new to me. I was not a CNA yet, so I could not do much besides making beds and answering call bells. At first, I was frustrated with having limitations on what I could do when all I wanted to do was help, but I ended up realizing that you can help a person and make a difference in their life without preforming direct care on them. This was a very important realization for me because it made me cherish and take advantage of the time I spend with a patient when I walk into their room because I know in some way, I am making an impact on them. Throughout my time at the nursing home and clinical, I have met very wonderful people and had many different experiences.

My experience with one specific patient at the nursing home really stands out to me when I think of putting empathy and compassionate care into action. I started working there during COVID, so the residents are not allowed to leave their rooms and the nurses and CNA’s always seemed too busy to talk to them. They were finally able to have a person from their family visit if they were taken outside, which I had the pleasure of doing as well. This woman had a visit so I went into her room to make sure she is ready so I could take her down. She was struggling with her wig and she was trying to do her makeup because she wanted to look good for her family. I saw her struggling so I asked her if she needed help. It almost seemed like she was surprised I was even giving her the time of day, which made me really sad. She ended up allowing me to help her, so I fixed her wig and I put her makeup on how she wanted it. That may seem like a little thing to help someone with, but I could tell that she appreciated it by the way her face lit up when she looked at herself in the mirror. I finally brought her outside and I was able to meet her granddaughter because that is who came to visit. She started telling her granddaughter how wonderful I was and how amazing she looks because of me even though I had just met her. She was talking to me during her visit with her daughter telling me about her life when she was younger and explained how she was a Rockette. When the visit was over her granddaughter asked when the person that does their nails would be back because she loved having her nails painted. I knew that they would not be back for a while, and as I was walking her back in I really tried to put myself in their shoes and realize how hard it must be to be in a place like this especially during COVID. I thought of ways I could help her without actually doing care on her, so I set up a “nail salon” in her room. I found a bunch of colors she could choose from and tried to bring all of the materials that a real nail person would have. She was so excited and happy, which made me very happy. I sat there and did her nails and she was talking to me more about her life and how it is here. Doing those simple acts of kindness for this woman ended up forming a trusting relationship, every time I see her she tells me I make her day. She even had her granddaughter bring in a scrapbook with pictures from when she was a Rockette to show me!

I will always remember the experiences I had with this woman and the impact I made on her life. I want to bring that type of care to any patient I come in contact with. I aspire to be the type of nurse that people will remember years later, just as I have. I will work hard to incorporate Watson’s Carative Factors into my everyday patient encounters to be able to see any patient as a whole person and not just a patient that needs to be fixed. I will go into every situation with an open mind and an open heart allowing me to feel the empathy and compassion that is so greatly needed in health care.

At the beginning of the semester we were asked to identify two personal goals for ourselves that we would work toward as the semester progressed. I took this as an opportunity to really reflect on my life and figure out what I struggle with most. I first thought about how I react to all of the events that happen in my life that I have no control over and even events that I do have control over. My emotional reaction and response to those types of situations can usually be very extreme, which causes me to live an anxious life. My first goal is very important to me because I knew by striving to reach for this goal, my anxiety regarding different types of situations would decrease. The goal is to be able to have control over my emotions and accept circumstances and events that are beyond my control. I then continued to think about the underlying cause of the anxiety and that was my busy schedule. My second goal is to be able to have a good life balance between school, soccer, friends, family, and myself. I have always felt very overwhelmed with having so many responsibilities since it causes me a lot of stress, and that I knew that it makes me on edge and anxious. Both of these goals are very important to me because working on them has begun to change my mental health.

            Having emotional control is something that is very important when it comes to a person’s mental health. Since I struggle with that, I put that as my top goal for this semester. When it comes to success I did not fully get to where I want to be, but I have come a long way from the beginning of the semester and even from past years. I attempted to use some of the strategies that I had listed at the beginning of the semester to help me attain this goal. I tried really hard not to hold myself at an unreasonable standard and limit overthinking. For example, when I am about to take a test I let my emotions take over and they end up consuming me, which at times reflects poorly in my test grade. I started giving myself credit for working very hard to study and I would tell myself that I did the best I could and that is all I can do, everything else is out of my control. I also started to not react right away, it still happens sometimes, but when something makes me angry or upset I try to give it time to think about it and how it really makes me feel before I react. This was not on my list, but something that has really helped me with this goal is taking CBD oil every morning. It helps keep me relaxed throughout the day, which enables me to focus on the strategies I had listed when dealing with emotional control. The biggest barrier for me is that since it is easy for little things to make me mad, it has been harder for me to fully reach the goal since I had to work hard on not freaking out over little things first.

            When it comes to Prochaska’s Transtheoretical Model of change, I started at the preparation phase for emotional control. I started planning right away what I would do to help me get a grip on my emotions. I then tried to incorporate those strategies into my everyday life. I would give myself credit where I deserved it, especially when it comes to how I have been dealing with emotional stressors. Through the semester I have progressed to reaching my goal, but I feel like I am currently still in the action phase because I am still trying to figure out what really works for me and I have yet to fully be satisfied with my goal. I do not think I have anything to change for next semester. If I keep changing at my own phase I will eventually get out of the action phase, and have my strategies become a part of my new behavior.

            Being able to determine some of the big stressors in my life, and being able to work to overcome them has been very helpful. My second goal is to have a healthy balance between school, soccer, friends, family, and myself. This is something I have been trying to do for years, so putting it in stone as a goal has allowed me to actually come up with ways to achieve it. I have done better this semester with balancing my life than I have any other year. Usually, if I have an exam I would need to be by myself for days so I can study and if I was not studying I would be at practice. That caused me to always be in a bad mood since I never had time for friends, family, or myself. One of the strategies I listed was to start school work as early as possible, which I really started doing. I realized that starting work and studying earlier and doing it for not as much time during the day really helped my mental health. I am now able to realize when it is appropriate to do homework and when it is appropriate to take a break and hang out with friends and family. When it comes to having time for myself, that can be hard since I have three roommates, but I have been going to bed earlier in order to have time to myself before I go to sleep. The biggest barrier for this goal is that I am a very bad test taker and I over think a lot of the school work I do, so it takes me a long time to do anything school related. I really have to think about how much time I am going to need and when I should do it. This has been hard because sometimes I find myself not taking the appropriate amount of time to complete what I need to do since I have been trying so hard to balance everything.

            Looking at where I am in the aspect of change, I would say that similar to my first goal, I am currently in the action phase. For the past few years I have realized this has been an issue for me so up until I made this a goal, I was in the contemplation phase of the Prochaska’s Transtheoretical Model of change. When I officially made this something a wanted to work toward, I moved into the planning phase where I made a list of strategies that would help me attain the goal. Taking the strategies that I came up with and incorporating them into my everyday life to the best of my ability, has allowed me to move into the action phase. I have come a long way and I am proud of how I hard I have been working on my goals, but I would not say that I have fully achieved my goal. I am on the right track to the maintenance phase, so I just need to keep doing what I am doing until I have a full grasp on balancing my life. If I had to think about something to change it would be to stop focusing on what I would be missing out on if I didn’t do something, and to think about making the decision that would benefit my life. I need to try looking at risks and benefits more before deciding, whether it be hanging out with friends or doing homework.

            Striving to attain both of these goals will help me a lot in life, especially if I get a hold over them at a young age. Having emotional control and being able to balance everything that life throws at you is crucial when it comes to patient care. Being able to control your emotions will help a lot when you’re a nurse because there are situations that you are going to have to deal with on a daily basis that may trigger emotional response. For example, nurses deal with sickness and death every day and that is something that could be potentially really detrimental to a nurse’s mental health. Having emotional control would enable a nurse to show their patients empathy and care for them without becoming emotionally attached or crossing any lines.

As I stated above, being able to balance your life will already make it easier to have emotional control because you would not be so on edge. Without balance, nurses can become tired and easily distracted since they could be thinking about the other things they still have to do. It is not good for the patient to have a nurse that struggles with balance, they may be more likely to make a mistake or not show empathy because they are too focused on their own life. This is something that I have thought about and that I never want to happen. I want all my patients to feel safe and I want to be able to only focus on them when I enter their room. That has given me even more motivation to achieve these goals. I do not think I need to make any changes in order to achieve them, I just feel as though these are goals that will eventually be reached over time and the time is not here yet. I am very proud of how far I have come since I set goals that I have been struggling with for years. I will continue to work toward them and use my strategies as a guide whenever I see myself drifting away from my desired outcome.

Throughout my five weeks in clinical I was able to meet many patients and help them out in any way I could. Although I wish our clinical experience this semester was longer and that we were able to do more, I still feel like I was able to make a difference. 

            The first week of clinical I was very nervous to do any type of patient care. We were given a patient that we had to go in and introduce ourselves to and then preform an assessment on them. The patient that was given to me had just been admitted into the facility, so he was new here. Thinking back on it, I did not realize that I was one of the first faces he actually saw when he got there, but I did everything I could to make sure he was comfortable with what I was doing. It seemed like he was excited that I had come in to do my assessment on him and talk to him because I do not think he had talked to many people since he had been in there. I first helped him unpack the rest of his things while he explained to me what had happen that got him in there in the first place. Then, I started preforming assessments on him while he was still talking to me, which made me feel even more comfortable. I learned that his daughter is a nurse, so it almost felt as if he was cheering me on as I was doing my assessment. He was telling me what to feel for when taking is pulse and he would help me out in any way I needed, which was very comforting. After I was done I needed to report back to my instructor, but he had asked me to come back in so I could talk to him.

            Eventually I went back into his room and asked if he needed anything. Even though I had just met this man I had already felt comfortable walking into his room and helping him out. I got him some water and I found his glasses, then I sat down to talk with him. He ended up telling me about his family, his life when he was younger, and how he was feeling in that moment. I could tell that he really just wanted to let all of this information out, so I just sat there and listened for the most part. I wanted him to feel like someone was there that actually wanted to give him their time of day and listen to everything he had to say. His life turned out to be very interesting and I genuinely enjoyed listening to him. When I was leaving he kept thanking me for talking to him and caring for him. He said I made his day and that he doesn’t really get the opportunity to talk to people like that very often. I could tell that I had made a difference in him, and I was the familiar face he knew from the first day. The weeks after that, while he was still there, I would go into his room and say hi to him and see how he was doing even when he was not my patient. I could also tell that meant a lot to him because his face would light up! I have had many great experiences with patients, but that one really stood out to me!

Being able to complete a medication reconciliation was a very cool experience because I got to use my knowledge from class to help with figuring out specific information or concerns regarding my client’s medications.

            Although the medications my client are on do not have many severe adverse effects, there were still some safety concerns that popped out at me. Dizziness may not seem like a big issue, but it has the potential to be when all of the medications she is on has that as one of their main adverse effects. Being dizzy could impair your day to day life, so it is something to watch out for and tell a HCP if it does happen. Another concern to me is that she is on Sprintec, which is an oral contraceptive she uses for birth control. She informed me that she suffers from migraines and from personal experience and by researching it, that form of birth control is not safe for her. It increases her chances of stroke because of the hormones in the pill. I did let her know that, so it is left for her to decide if she wants to switch to a safer form. The Pepcid she takes has an adverse effect of abnormal heart rhythms, which is rare, but something she needs to take into consideration since she has a heart murmur. None of the safety concerns were necessarily related to her age or her ability to understand her medications.

            My patient demonstrated a good understanding on why they are taking each medication along with information about each one. It is important for a patient to understand why they are on the medications they are on for safety reasons. Having knowledge about the medications you take will decrease the chances of overuse and any potential effects it could have on the body if misused or mixed with a food or drug it does not react with well. There were no serious medication reactions found within the medications she reported taking, however there are some interactions with issues she suffers from specifically. Again, suffering from migraines and taking oral contraceptives with certain hormones can increase the chances of blood clots, stroke, and other medical problems. My patient had a little information on it, but did not know how serious the effects could turn out to be.

            The medications that my patient reported to me all did different things, and were used for different issues. I was impressed with her initial knowledge on each of the medications even though there were some things she did not know. Anything I found concerning I did end up sharing with her, so now she has even more information on the medications she takes.