Week 10 Assignment 2: Journal Entry
Assignment 2: Journal Entry
Critical reflection of your growth and development during your practicum experience in a clinical setting has the benefit of helping you to identify opportunities for improvement in your clinical skills, while also recognizing your clinical strengths and successes.This week, you will write a Journal Entry, reflecting on your clinical strengths and opportunities for improvement.
To prepare:
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Refer to the “Advanced Nursing Practice Competencies and Guidelines” found in Week 1’s Learning Resources and consider the quality measures or indicators advanced nursing practice nurses must possess in your specialty of interest.
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Refer to your “Clinical Skills and Procedures Self-Assessment Form” you submitted in Week 1 and consider your strengths and opportunities for improvement.
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Refer to your Patient Log in Meditrek and consider the patient activities you have experienced in your practicum experience and reflect on your observations and experiences.
Read more: Nursing Journal Writing Services
Journal Entry (450–500 words):
Learning from Experiences
- Reflect on the three most challenging patients. What was most challenging for each?
- What did you learn from this experience?
- What resources did you have available?
- What evidence-based practice did you use for this patient?
- What new skills are you learning?
- What would you do differently?
- How are you managing patient flow and volume?
Communicating and Feedback
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Reflect on how to improve on your skills and knowledge and how to communicate that back to your Preceptor.
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How are you doing? What is missing?
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What type of feedback are you receiving from your Preceptor?
By Day 7
Submit your Journal Entry Assignment.
Submission and Grading Information
To submit your completed Journal for review and grading, do the following:
- Click the Week 10 Journal Rubric to review the Grading Criteria for the Assignment.
- Click the Week 10 Journal link.
- Next, click Create Journal Link.
- In the title box, enter the title of the Journal Entry. Please title it: WK10Journal+last name+first initial.
- In the Entry Message box, type your Journal Entry or click Browse My Computer and select the document you saved as "WK10Journal+last name+first initial.(extension)" and click Open.
- Click Post Entry.
Week 10 Journal Entry Sample
When I joined this career I knew that there are situations that I would meet challenges and strength. However during this time in my nursing practice, I have been able to discover my nursing qualities, strength and weaknesses. For any nurse, whenever one interacts with his or her clients, they are able to discover what is good and what is worse about themselves. I think that I have been able to learn more about myself, which has made me a lot stronger than the way I give myself credit for. I have come a long way that I have been able to also face my fears and biases and learning to cope or deal with ways to help my clients.
Among my strong areas is that I am a very empathising nurse, this has made me discover a lot about my patients, it allows me to communicate to the patient and document patient issues in a very open manner. In line with this I am also good in documentation of patient information, I understand that failure to do the right documentation, leads to litigation especially when such a failure will result to patient developing complications or death. Also another strength that I discovered about myself is the ability to apply evidence based practice in my nursing profession. I have been able apply it very well in different patient situations. One encounter in application of evidence based practice was with a patient with diabetes, where I was required to provide her with care will she was admitted in the hospital, also when dealing with teenager who was suffering from obesity and lastly with a patient that was about to undergo surgery. Through evidence based practice I was able to take these three patients to the process for which the outcomes was successful. The best thing I discovered about evidence based practice is that it allows me as a nurse to follow the nursing procedures difficult patient situations. I also discovered that there are difficult patients and cooperative patients in the process. To me the most difficult patients are the elder patients since most of them are not easy to communicate to. Most old patients are superstitious, while others especially those approach end of life, often believe that it is their fate that they are going to die. For this reason, I have had to find new approaches to reaching out to these patients.
Among the things that I discovered I need to improve on is time management, I discovered that often times I end up with fatigue for working long hours without rest. I also discovered that this has to do with the fact that I get so attached to long term care patients which could be a risk to my practice, as this makes me vulnerable to compromising with the patient. Among the steps that I have decided to take, is to join a class especially regarding time management in healthcare. This will provide me with the skills to organize my schedules where I can meet the needs of my family, my social circle, and my career development and most importantly the needs of my patients.
In conclusion, I think that so far I am in the right path. I am going to use my strengths in meeting the needs of patients and ensuring that I develop abilities to fight my weaknesses. Currently my career is in the right path and I strive to be a better nurse in my area of practice to attend to my patients better.
