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Future career plans for nursing
Future career plans for nursing
The career of a nurse
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After three months of volunteering at my local hospital’s emergency department, I had one specific experience that led me to a career in nursing. One day, as I was rushing around the emergency department easing the nerves of frantic patients, I walked back to the triage desk when I heard a patient complain of chest pain. The RN sitting at the desk took the patient’s heart rate and pulse oxygen. While the pulse oxygen was normal, the patient had a heart rate of 180. Assuming the patient was stressed out, the RN instructed the patient to wait in the waiting room. By this point, I had been volunteering in the department long enough to know that the triage nurse would order an EKG for someone with those symptoms. I desperately wanted to tell the
During clinical this week, the student nurse had the opportunity of an observational experience in a Specialty Care Unit. The student was directed to the Surgical Intensive Care Unit (SICU) to observe a patient that was critically ill and receiving extensive treatment. The student observed a nurse caring for a patient while administering therapeutic hypothermia after cardiac arrest. The patient L.E. is a 73 year old male. The patient has no history of coronary artery disease or any problems with his heart.
As a medical / surgical RN, I provided care for the elderly, the infirm, the mentally challenged, the young, and the psychologically disturbed. The wide variety of patients exposed me to the effects of life style choices, health care choices, and the resulting impacts to the patient as well as to the family of the patient. This experience has fully matured my view of the awesome responsibility that we, as health care professionals, have been charged with, and it has furthered my desire to obtain the skills necessary to provide more advanced care for my patients. In addition to exposure, maturity and experience, my career as a medical / surgical RN has also sharpened my critical thinking abilities and provided insight on observing signs and symptoms that a patient may be unware of. Furthermore, as a charge nurse I learned the importance of collaborating with other health care professionals in order to provide the highest level of care available. In summary, my career as an RN has provided valuable experience, maturity, exposure to impact and outcome, enhanced my critical thinking abilities, and improved my collaboration
at the orphanage, I was able to help build a sidewalk and a garage for
During this internship I had a variety of tasks that made me understand and develop my skills in cardiac rehab, stress testing, working at the hospital in the CVCU, and also talking to the patients in the hospital about coming to outpatient cardiac rehab. During my time in the outpatient cardiac rehab I have learned and perfected how to take a manual blood pressure, check heart rates, oxygen levels, and be able to teach and instruct our patients on healthy habits to ensure they are staying healthy and active outside the rehab facility. I learned to do a full disclosure on a patient, meaning to check their EKG, find out their max heart rates during exercise, and send a note to the doctor if anything abnormal should occur. I’ve learned to chart and tech
This weekend I was paired up with a nurse from the floating pull. It was a very interesting experience. For the first time since the beginning of the semester I can say that I was faced with a lot of critical thinking situations. I spend the day running around reminding my nurse of things he forgot or task we had to finish. It was already 2:00 pm and I still hadn’t performed an assessment on a patient, at this point I remember what Mrs. McAdams had said before “ we are in the hospital to help but our main priority is to learn and practice our skills” so I made the critical-thinking decision to tell my nurse that I needed to at least complete an assessment and since we were about to discharged a patient I could performed a final assessment on him before going home. I performed my assessment, had time to document and helped my nurse with the discharged. This weekend was a very challenging clinical for me but I also learned a lot. I learned to managed my time better, be proactive in my clinical experience and I also found my voice.
It was a quiet and pleasant Saturday afternoon when I was doing my rotation at the surgical medical unit at Holy Cross Hospital. It’s time to get blood sugar levels from MM, a COPD patient. His BiPAP was scheduled to be removed before his discharge tomorrow. When I was checking the ID badge and gave brief explanation what I needed to do. The patient was relaxed, oriented and her monitor showed his SPO2 was 91, respiratory rate was 20. His grandchildren knocked the door and came in for a visit. I expected a good family time, however, the patient started constant breath-holding coughing and his SPO2 dropped to 76 quickly. With a pounding chest, the patient lost the consciousness. His grandchildren were scared and screaming,
In December of 1992, my paternal grandfather suffered a heart attack. He had been hauling several 50 lb. sacks of corn up into the deer feeder on his property by himself. He got into his truck, turned the ignition, put it into drive and before he could take his foot off the brake, he was dead. He was 68 years old. I was thirteen and that seemed so old. I remember that prior to the event there were many conversations within my family about the condition of my grandfather’s heart and cardiovascular system and how he needed to make lifestyle changes. I remember him taking nitroglycerine pills. I remember him coming to Dallas to go to an appointment so that they could perform tests with names like “stress EKG.” I remember that these things meant little to me at the time.
Along with creating steps which will lead me towards my ultimate career goal, the creation of a specific five-year plan for myself was key. In five years I will be in school, hopefully in my final year of my Masters degree; a plan which seems so simple to achieve, however requires an extensive amount of hard work and dedication. Being so far in my academic career already, I will hopefully have worked in summer internships or been employed during the year by a speech-language pathologist or various health institutions to gain experience in the profession and potentially become full time employed by one of these institutions post-graduation. Within the five years, I will have as well established networks and built relationships with multiple
While routinely preparing the patient for his procedure, which involves placing multiple ECG leads and cardiac mapping patches, this nurse noticed the patient looking very apprehensive. This nurse stopped preparations and asked the patient if he was okay and if he had any questions. His eyes became a bit teary. This nurse reached for his hand, which he squeezed, gratefully. An explanation ensued regarding the purpose of each piece of equipment in the room, the placement of each patch and the purpose of the same, and why so much equipment was needed. At this point, the patient squeezed this nurses hand and related that he had just needed that moment to connect with someone. He was having an anxiety attack and just did not know how to let anyone know. After a quick squeeze, preparations resumed, and the procedure started. Later in the day, the patients’ wife stopped this nurse to let her know how much she helped her husband calm his fears before the procedure. Being present for the patient does make a
I started my Nursing career in India and then I came to the United States and became an RN. I entered Nursing with the thinking that Nursing is a profession that will always allow me to have a job and all my patients will get better. However, from my experiences I understood that Nursing is more than just giving medications, and it requires clinical competence, cultural sensitivity, ethics, caring for others, and life-long learning about others and the evolving field of medicine. Florence Nightingale once said:
This career option as an assessment employer for the child protective services could possibly be a long-term career option. Although, I do not believe I would want this as my long-term career goal. Choosing to work directly out of college would also allow myself to gain experience within the field which would improve the possibility of getting a better job or getting into graduate school. If I was hired and I did accept the position within five years my goal would be to continue working while attending school to further mu education. I would continue to work to gain more experience as well as helping me get through school by paying off my tuition. I would not leave this job until I graduate and had another job lined up.
In 1990, my aunt Ann started experiencing heart-problems. My family was very close to Ann because she lived only a block away. Aunt Ann would walk over to our house everyday for a visit. During this particular summer, Ann noticed that she was becoming increasingly out of breath from just the short walk. The entire family strongly urged that she see a doctor as soon as possible.
I followed the RN nurse who was to assist and prep the operating room (OR). She first went into the clean utility room, where she picked up essentials for the surgery. When everything was gathered and prepared, we had to sit and wait for the patient who had arrived late. The RN would check the computer constantly to see if the patient was on file. After the clock hit 9, which was the time for the surgery, the RN nurse decided to go help put the patient on file quicker. When we arrived at the patients room, there was a nurse making the patient fill out papers. The RN nurse took over the papers while the other nurse completed the documents on the computer. While watching all the questions being asked, and the time it took to fill out the paper work, I realized that the paper work process is not easy.
For my clinical observation experience I went to the Emergency Department at JFK Medical Center. The first emergency nurse I was assigned to was responsible for six beds. When I first arrived the nurse explained to me that she prioritizes her care based on urgency and airway problem. Since the rest of her patients were stable, she went to perform a focused assessment on a new patient assigned to one of her beds. This patient came in because he had fallen in the bathroom. As soon as she was finished assessing this patient, she went to the
Finding it difficult to balance the line of respecting the culture while also standing up for what I believe to be ethical, I learned to examine and critically think about the patient's feelings and situation. I was often asked to do things that were beyond my scope of practice as an EMR. I spent the majority of my time on the Pediatric ward, often having more patients than beds and facing more death than I thought I could handle. Coping with the highs and lows of this challenging experience sparked an interest in healthcare in developing countries. Paediatrics was the most chaotic and emotional place I have ever experienced; one minute doing CPR while another child begins to convulse, the next minute seeing a previously unresponsive child talking!