Journal Application Essay Paper

WK 11: Assignment: Journal Entry

Critical reflection on your growth and development during your practicum experience in a clinical setting helps you identify opportunities for improvement in your clinical skills, while also recognizing your strengths and successes.

Use this Journal to reflect on your clinical strengths and opportunities for improvement, the progress you made, and what insights you will carry forward into your next practicum.

To Prepare
Refer to the â€œPopulation-Focused Nurse Practitioner Competenciesâ€ found in the Week 1 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 â€œClinical Skills Self-Assessment Formâ€ you submitted in Week 1 and consider your strengths and opportunities for improvement.
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.
In 450â€“500 words, address the following: Journal Application Essay Paper

Learning From Experiences

Revisit the goals and objectives from your Practicum Experience Plan. Explain the degree to which you achieved each during the practicum experience.
Reflect on the three most challenging patients you encountered during the practicum experience. What was most challenging about each?
What did you learn from this experience?
What resources were available?
What evidence-based practice did you use for the patients?
What would you do differently?
How are you managing patient flow and volume?
Communicating and Feedback

Reflect on how you might improve your skills and knowledge and how to communicate those efforts to your Preceptor.
Answer the questions: How am I doing? What is missing?
Reflect on the formal and informal feedback you received from your Preceptor.

The practicum experience in the clinical setting has enabled me to identify my strengths and weaknesses in working. I have been able to achieve various goals and objectives that were in the practicum experience plan. The first goal was to acquire skills for carrying out mental status examinations. A mental status examination is an effective tool for gathering objective data (Rocha et al., 2019)Journal Application Essay Paper. I achieved this goal by examining patients with various conditions ranging from mood disorders, anxiety disorders, psychotic disorders, substance-abuse disorders, and personality disorders and understanding the different manifestations of the patients with the conditions and their correlation. Secondly, I came up with the patient’s diagnosis by recording the patient history, carrying out a physical examination and laboratory tests, and coming up with the best plan for managing the condition that could help improve the patient’s quality of life. The physical examinations enabled me asses the physical well-being of the patient and also come up with other differential diagnoses. The laboratory findings and other psychiatric screening tests were more useful for confirmation of diagnosis.

There were various incidences of challenging experiences during the practicum. The three most challenging ones were the violent patients, resistant patients, and those who claimed that blame the family members for persecuting them with no clear explanation. I could not make history, physical examination, and even mental status examination for the violent patients during admission, and I had to restrain them for some time and administer medications that could enable them to calm down and later take the details. Some of the patients were resistant to communicating; some of them preferred using sign language because they were not in the mood to speak, which made me have a hard time understanding the sign language a little bit. The patient, who claimed that the family members were persecuting him, refused to see them whenever they visited him and even claimed that it was better for him to remain in the facility than to go home. It was challenging since I had to provide assurance and convince him.

The experience enabled me to understand that it is vital always to take a complete patient history and conduct assessments to come up with actual and differential diagnoses. I have also learned how to communicate with resistant and impatient patients and those with other mental health conditions. Various resources were available in the healthcare setting, including psychotherapy sessions, entrainment materials, healthcare providers, lab services, and outpatient and inpatient services. The evidence-based practice I used was cognitive behavioural therapy for psychosis, which greatly improved most patients’ health outcomes. Evidence-based practice play a role in improving the quality of healthcare, practice and research (Abu-Baker et al., 2021). I would encourage the mental health patients about various health behaviours that can promote the quality of life. I manage patient flow and volume by ensuring communication among the different health workers and patients, encouraging positive views, and facilitating collaboration.

Communicating and providing feedback to the preceptor is vital. I ensure that I communicate in time and express my thoughts and concerns in a way that the instructor can understand. In cases where I need clarification, I ensure I explain my issue clearly and understandably. I also provide regular feedback and be specific and also listen attentively. The best way to improve my skills and knowledge on how to communicate with my preceptor is through checking my motives in addition to strengths and weaknesses in communication and improving the weaknesses. Journal Application Essay Paper

References

Abu-Baker, N. N., AbuAlrub, S., Obeidat, R. F., & Assmairan, K. (2021). Evidence-based practice beliefs and implementations: a cross-sectional study among undergraduate nursing students. BMC nursing, 20(1), 1-8. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12912-020-00522-x

Rocha Neto, H. G., Estellita-Lins, C. E., Lessa, J. L. M., & Cavalcanti, M. T. (2019). Mental state examination and its procedures—a narrative review of Brazilian descriptive psychopathology. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 10, 77. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2019.00077

The practicum experience in the clinical setting has enabled me to identify my strengths and weaknesses in working. I have been able to achieve various goals and objectives that were in the practicum experience plan. The first goal was to acquire skills for carrying out mental status examinations. I was able to achieve this goal by examining patients with various conditions ranging from mood disorders, anxiety disorders, psychotic disorders, substance-abuse disorders, and personality disorders and understanding the different manifestations of the patients with the conditions and their correlation. Secondly, I came up with the patient’s diagnosis by recording the patient history, carrying out a physical examination and laboratory tests, and coming up with the best plan for managing the condition that could help improve the patient’s quality of life. The physical examinations enabled me asses the physical well-being of the patient and also come up with other differential diagnoses. The laboratory findings and other psychiatric screening tests were more useful for confirmation of diagnosis.

There were various incidences of challenging experiences during the practicum. The three most challenging ones were the violent patients, resistant patients, and those who claimed that blame the family members for persecuting them with no clear explanation. I was not able to make history, physical examination, and even mental status examination for the violent patients during admission, and I had to restrain them for some time and administer medications that could enable them to calm down and later take the details. Some of the patients were resistant to communicating; some of them preferred using sign language because they were not in the mood to speak, which made me have a hard time understanding the sign language a little bit. The patient, who claimed that the family members were persecuting him, refused to see them whenever they visited him and even claimed that it was better for him to remain in the facility than to go home. It was challenging since I had to provide assurance and convince him Journal Application Essay Paper.

The experience enabled me to understand that it is vital always to take a complete patient history and conduct assessments to come up with actual and differential diagnoses. I have also learned how to communicate with resistant and impatient patients and those with other mental health conditions. There were various resources available in the healthcare setting, including psychotherapy sessions, entrainment materials, healthcare providers, lab services, and both outpatient and inpatient services. The evidence-based practice I used was cognitive behavioral therapy for psychosis, which greatly improved most patients’ health outcomes. I would encourage the mental health patients about various health behaviors that can play a role in promoting the quality of life. I manage patient flow and volume by ensuring communication among the different health workers and patients, encouraging positive views, and facilitating collaboration.

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