This movie was a great documentary that showcased nurses throughout the profession’s development. The documentary began by reflecting on a time before nursing was considered a major profession. The movie brought up many amazing individuals including Florence Nightingale, who was a huge component of the beginning of nursing. I enjoyed watching the movie and thought this quote, “It is hard to not find someone who’s life has been touched by a nurse” perfectly summed up the profession of nursing.

Throughout my time in nursing school at the University of New England, I have been given many different skills that will aid me in my transition to practice. However, one skill highlighted in the NURSE movie that I have truly no experience with is end of life care. Through my clinical rotations and work as a CNA, I have only had one patient that was nearing the end of their life and on hospice care. Due to this, I feel as though I have not had the opportunity to obtain of skill regarding end of life care and education regarding death. The documentary did an amazing job discussing this skill and how many nurses have created the skill into a positive tool when caring for patients.

One population that the movie highlighted that I have not yet served in my time as a nursing student, is the Native American population. The documentary did a fantastic job discussing the care of this patient population as well as how to incorporate their beliefs into the care the nurse is providing. Throughout school, I wish I had an opportunity to travel to a patient population, like a Native American community, to care for individuals there. At UNE, we have learned briefly about populations like Native American populations and how to incorporate their beliefs into our care. It was interesting to see this population be discussed in the movie about how to care and travel to these populations.  One barrier that was shown in the movie was the ability to get access to care. Oftentimes, individuals may not have the resources to obtain care. These resources can include transportation or insurance. The documentary discussed way to still care for these individuals. The best example I saw while watching the movie was nurses traveling to Native American communities to provide care rather than trying to get the communities to the hospital setting. This allowed these individuals to get the care they need even when they may not have the resources to do so. After finishing this documentary, I reflected on areas I may want to improve my understand of populations and inclusion. Two areas that I would be to improve on is better understanding how to provide care of individuals that may have immigrated to the United States that may have different practices regarding medicine as well as different views for certain religions. Both populations may have strong beliefs that I would like to be inclusive with if I can. I think better understanding their beliefs would help me provide the best care for these populations. Overall, I truly appreciated this documentary and its ability to highlight to humility and compassion of the profession of nursing.

After working with the guest speakers that we were fortunate enough to have in our Transition to Practice class, I realized I needed to develop an understanding of what my strengths and weaknesses were. This self-reflection can help put me above other applicants. I think my best strength is being a student-athlete at UNE. Throughout my four years here, I have participated on the women’s varsity ice hockey team. This balance of school and sports has given me the ability to prioritize, and time manage extremely well. An average week for me during season would showcase why this is considered a strength. Throughout a week, I have practices on Monday through Thursday starting around 5 and ending around 8. I have games and travel on the weekend (Friday and Saturday). This type of schedule can create barriers to prioritizing homework and exams. However, I can time manage extremely well and prioritize homework when it is needed.  Since being a student-athlete has led me to be able to time manage and prioritize, I believe it is one of my biggest strengths. Regarding weakness, I reflected on my life and came up with a weakness that I could improve on in the hospital setting. The first is having the ability to delegate tasks to others. I struggle delegating tasks because when I get on a roll, I tend to just want to do everything by myself and I also feel bad having to task someone else with the intervention. One way I plan to address this weakness is to understand that at the hospital, we are a team and teammates always work together. I think this viewpoint will help me better delegate tasks to others.