Caring
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Report Bias with Acute Trauma
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Human Trafficking Presentation
This presentation identifies the healthcare needs of Human trafficking victims, defines what human trafficking is, and gives examples on what steps the healthcare staff can take to advocate for this population. This presentation was created by Hanna Freeman and Shannon O’Roak. If there are any question please contact soroak@une.edu.
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Post Hospital Elder Life Program
Throughout my volunteering in the hospital elder life program (HELP), I was able to work with multiple patients who were experiencing delirium. This helped me realize that by orienting the patient, socializing with them, and ensuring the patient was getting adequate sleep, nutrition, and fluids delirium can be prevented. The HELP program provides a great opportunity to ensure a patient isn’t developing delirium and if the patient is, the volunteers in the program can notify the nurse so interventions can be implemented. The most meaningful part of my HELP volunteering experience was when I got to do a friendly visit with a patient who didn’t receive many visitors. This patient…
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Prioritizing Emotional Well-Being and Resilience in the Care of Older People
During the pandemic, I did have conversations with elderly individuals which were primarily my grandparents. My Nanny lived alone in an assisted living facility during the pandemic, which was very lonely for her. She kept herself busy by calling friends and family and talking with them and having visitors such as close family members take her on drives. My Nanny did demonstrate immense resilience through this time since she spent a majority of the beginning of the pandemic by herself. She wasn’t even able to socialize with other members of her assisted living facility due to the risk of their age group and their risk for COVID transmission. I also…
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Telemedicine in Acute Care
Before learning about telemedicine and telehealth in class, I was unaware that there was a difference between the two. I now understand that telemedicine allows a provider to diagnose, prescribe, and treat a patient all virtually when a patient is in a healthcare facility. This reminds me of the tele sitters they utilize in the hospital to watch fall risk or elopement risk patients. Telemedicine is a useful tool for nurses and providers because it allows for the staff in the health care facility to prioritize their patients that can’t be treated through telemedicine. Telehealth is different from telemedicine because telehealth is used to contact patients in a primary care…
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Needle Exchange Program
Before our class presentation on the Needle Exchange Program, I didn’t know much about the inner functions of the program, and how much it helps the community. I saw the needle exchange program as beneficial before this presentation because it helps protect members of the community and promotes safety and safe recreational drug administration. While I do believe our first priority as nurses is to encourage the cessation of recreational drug use, this is not always possible. Some patients are not ready to quit recreational drug use when we see them for treatment, and at this stage our priority becomes keeping them safe. The presentation and class discussion on the…
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Pre-Hospital Elder Life Program Eportfolio Post To my knowledge currently, delirium is an acute process that frequently affects the elder population in the hospital setting. Delirium is acute confusion, which is often misunderstood as dementia. Ways to prevent delirium include assessing patient mental status at least once per shift, re-orienting patients to their room, preventing infections such as UTIs, reorienting patients to person, place, and time, and providing mind stimulating tools such as crossword puzzles or books for the patient to read. It is important to be able to recognize delirium in patients because it can impair healing in patients. I have previously experienced caring for a patient who is…
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Thinking About the Journey
Since I started my college career in nursing, I have done a lot of research on nursing specialties. The specialty that speaks to me the most is women’s health/fertility nursing. This would be my dream job as a nurse because I’d get to communicate with patients, run tests, and do IVF treatment. Other specialties I am interested in are cardiology because I really enjoyed learning about the heart, dermatology because of my interest in skin care, and nephrology because I have had personal experience with kidney-related health conditions. I’m also interested in furthering my career as a nurse and becoming a women’s health nurse practitioner. As a nurse practitioner, I…
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Critical Care Chapter
One chapter that was particularly fascinating to me was chapter 2 called Getting my Feet Wet. In this chapter, Theresa Brown has a patient who’s back splits open. This shows all of the odd occurrences that can happen in the nursing field. Brown’s patient’s back split open due to such a large build up of fluid. The pressure was too great for his skin to hold all the fluid in so it just split. Brown called a code on this patient who ended up being okay. She describes in that moment how her only concern was her patient. She wasn’t focused on anything besides keeping him as safe as possible…
