This presentation was completed by Avery Lutrzykowski and Mckenna Remillard. We discussed the LGBTQ+ population and the societal and health care discrimination that people who identify within this population face. We also discussed ways to create more inclusion within society and a hospital setting.
Category: Role of Nurse
When the pandemic hit the United States in early 2020, I remember my parents calling me to expressing their worries and fears for my grandparents. Both sides of my grandparents are older and were at risk of being harmed by COVID. Due to this, they self-isolated for an extremely long during the pandemic, which was a common theme for many individuals across the world. One of my grandmothers struggled a lot because before the pandemic she taught piano to local students. Once the pandemic hit, she was no longer able to have piano lessons. One way we helped her was setting up facetime and zoom meetings with her students so she could continue to teach. Other activities that my grandparents did were facetiming me and other family members, creating book clubs that they wrote messages in the books and sent them to other friends, and having window visiting with neighbors and family members. During the pandemic, I think my grandparents were very stressed, but I expected that because everyone was extremely stressed out.
After listening to the lecture presented by CECE, I was shocked how much it related to my own elderly family and friends. I was shocked to hear that many older adults have anxiety and depression and that older adults have one of the highest rates of suicide within populations. Throughout the presentation, I kept thinking about how I would incorporate all aspects of care to older adult clients when I began my nursing career. I would first want to focus on both their physical wellness but also their mental health well-being. By having the ability to teach my patients how to take care of themselves through exercising, eating healthy, non-pharmacological pain malmanagement, and safety around the house, I will be helping their physical well-being. By explaining treatment thoroughly, creating a trusting and caring relationship through open conversation and spiritual wellness, I hope I will be able to care for the older adult clients’ mental wellness. I plan to focus on both aspects to create the best environment for my patients.
My perspective has changed greatly on aging, I was very naïve to think that older adults did not suffer from anxiety and depression or suicide. I always thought older adults were at the end of their lives and their health was beginning to decrease. However, after watching the lecture I finally understood and created a new perspective for older adults. My new perspective is how strong elderly individuals are. So much of their lives are changing from new health needs, retirement, or family members, these individuals have so much change happening and handle everything that is thrown at them. Due to this, my perspective on aging has changed to view these individuals as strong and independent. I am thankful for this lecture for opening my eyes to a better view and ability to care for older adults.
Prior to the lecture on Telehealth and telemedicine, I was very unaware of what each could do, as well as how versatile they both were. Before the lecture, my honest preconceived notions on telehealth and telemedicine were that they were both the same and neither worked. I did not realize there was a difference between the two. Throughout nursing school, we are taught that the only way you can treat and care for your patient was being able to be hands-on. In my mind, telehealth and telemedicine are not hands-on so they would not be effective in caring for patients. I also felt that from a patient’s viewpoint, the level of care they receive may feel lower due to the lack of presence. During COVID when school was shut down, I struggled to stay engaged in my learning due to the lack of in-person interactions. Due to this, I assumed that telehealth and telemedicine would not be beneficial because the patient would struggle to engage in their healing.
After the lecture, I was shocked to see how progressive and positive telehealth and telemedicine were in the hospital. Telehealth helps employees train and educate, have meetings, and other non-patient services. Telemedicine helps take care of patients and provides them services they need to heal. I was shocked to learn about Tele-ICU because the intensive care unit is one of the most critical units at the hospital. Due to this, I did not expect to learn that telemedicine has become a large part of patient care. Many companies are creating robots to aid in the care of patients to further progress the telemedicine world. These robots allow providers, who live far from the hospital, to provide care quickly to individuals. These new advances in the realm of telehealth and telemedicine were abundantly helpful in the past few years with COVID-19. This form of medicine and communication helps providers and hospital staff engage in patient care without further exposing themselves.
What I have learned in the Telehealth and Telemedicine discussion will greatly benefit me in the future of the nursing practice. Through this lecture, I was able to better understand the need for telehealth and understand what can be used to reach providers and create meetings. I also will use telehealth in my nursing practice through continuing my education and learning because medicine is a field that continues to evolve. I will use telemedicine to monitor my patients without having to see them in person, this will increase the discharges from the hospital and create an environment where nurses and providers can catch a deteriorating situation quicker. I am excited to be able to use this new and progressive form of healthcare in my future practice to provide the best care for my patients.
I believe that there are many different qualities that a nurse exemplifies through his/her work. Some of these qualities are more obvious than others, I think one of the best qualities that tends to go unseen is the nurse’s ability to think critically. This quality is so important for nurses to be able to change on the fly and think on their feet to develop the best plan of care of a patient in high pressure situations. I think this trait goes unseen for numerous reasons but the biggest factors is because some fictional shows depict nurses very differently. In many medical shows, high pressure situations are only given to physicians or surgeons. This decreases the knowledge of nurses being able to think critically and help in those situations. This quality is incredibly important in nursing because in everything interaction with patients, the nurse must think critically about the best decision for the patient.
This picture is taken in Bern, Switzerland. This river has fast currents that lead to a dam. Many adventurous individuals will take a swim in the cold waters and get dragged along. When I was visiting this river, I was nervous to jump in and get swept away by the rushing water. However, I pushed myself to try something new and believed I would be able to escape the current. This image represents the quality of critical thinking to me because understanding a situations and pushing yourself to think efficiently but correctly is a way to develop your critical thinking skills. I believe to develop this skills you must be open to new things and see others perspectives to develop the best possible decisions. By making the decision to jump into the cold river, I had the opportunity to try something new and have fun!
Although this picture may seem to have no connection to nursing, to me it does. Nursing is about caring for others and learning new things to continue to better yourself and others. This image is from a hike that I experienced and learned many knew things. I watched the sun rise and saw how numerous different people reacted to it. I sat in silence and observed others around me, learning, understanding, and caring. Nursing is learning, understanding, and helping others. This photo is the epitome of that because of the story behind it.
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