NR 500NP Week 3: Reflection on Learning
Purpose
The purpose of this assignment is to provide the student an opportunity to reflect on the weekly concepts learned in the course.
Activity Learning Outcomes
Through this assignment, the student will demonstrate the ability to:
- Examine roles and competencies of advanced practice nurses essential to performing as leaders and advocates of holistic, safe, and quality care (CO1)
- Apply concepts of person-centered care to nursing practice situations. (CO2)
- Analyze essential skills needed to lead within the context of complex systems. (CO3)
- Explore the process of scholarship engagement to improve health and healthcare outcomes in various settings (CO4)
Due Date:
Post should be entered to the Weekly Reflection on Learning thread by Sunday at 11:59 p.m. MST each week.
This assignment will follow the late assignment policy specified in the course syllabus.
Students are expected to submit assignments by the time they are due. Assignments submitted after the due date and time will receive a deduction of 10% of the total points possible for that assignment for each day the assignment is late. Assignments will be accepted, with penalty as described, up to a maximum of three days late, after which point a zero will be recorded for the assignment. 
In the event of a situation that prevents timely submission of an assignment, students may petition their instructor for a waiver of the late submission grade reduction. The instructor will review the student’s rationale for the request and make a determination based on the merits of the student’s appeal. Consideration of the student’s total course performance to date will be a contributing factor in the determination. Students should continue to attend class, actively participate, and complete other assignments while the appeal is pending.
Total Points Possible: 5
Requirements:
Reflection: write 1-2 paragraphs reflecting on your learning for the week. Guiding questions are provided or you may write about what you felt was most significant to you for the week.
You will need to post your reflection here before you are able to see other students’ posts.
Some possible areas to explore:
- In your experience, how have changes in healthcare affected nurses’ ability to provide person-centered, holistic care?
- As you think ahead to your future practice as an NP, which of the concepts covered this week resonates most with you? Why?
- How do you anticipate that the concept of cultural humility will affect your practice?
This week we reviewed the framework for person-centered care (PCN), cultural humility and the importance of self-reflection. We also reviewed time management and the value of planning out one’s week. Our lesson reviewed what caring means and why it is a central focus in nursing then and still today. We reviewed the framework for PCN and how using a holistic approach and being aware of one’s own personal biases through self-reflection will help improve patient outcomes.
Addressing the needs of the whole person, not just the disease, will encourage a person-centered care approach. I anticipate the concept of cultural humility will affect me through out the duration of my career. The United States is a melting pot and brings patients from all different cultural backgrounds. It’ll be important as a nurse practitioner to complete thorough health histories and research potential cultural barriers if I am not familiar with the potential barriers. Self-reflecting promotes growth and furthers your self-awareness on areas you can improve on!
As I completed the readings and assignments for this third week, I continue to feel self-motivated to become a nurse practitioner. My favorite aspect of the certified nurse practitioner role has always been the expertise in holistic care. I feel that nurse practitioners add this unique perspective to the health care team, resulting in better overall patient care including decreased readmission rates and improved patient feelings of support by their medical team. I really am proud to be a part of a profession that cares for the whole patient, beyond their medical diagnosis. This concept resonates with me the most as I mentioned it makes the nurse practitioner role valuable and unique within the health care system.
I am very eager to continue learning about the certified nurse practitioner role throughout this course.
Week 3 Reflection on Learning.
From experience, changes in healthcare have affected nurses’ ability to provide person-centered, holistic care either because of a lawsuit or insurance reimbursement issues or restrictions. Nowadays, nurses pay more attention to computers (documentation) than to providing essential services. They say to cover oneself; it is better to document and forget to do it than to do the job and not document it. Therefore, more attention is on the paperwork than on providing genuine care.
Many patients receive culturally awkward medical care due to unaddressed cultural differences between healthcare providers and their patients. This culturally discordant care is due to the lack of diversity in the healthcare workforce in the United States. (Susan & DeNisco, 2015, P.587). Cultural humility will play a significant role in my practice. Cultural humility will create a balance between the nurse and the patient. This week’s learning has taught me to be open-minded and ready to listen and hear the patients.
DeNisco, S. M. (2015). Advanced Practice Nursing (3rd ed.). Jones & Bartlett Learning. https://bookshelf.vitalsource.com/books/9781284099133Links to an external site.
This week was very informative for me. We learn more in-depth about patient-centered care and holistic approach. I plan to apply this principle as a future nurse practitioner by considering my patient’s views, experiences, preferences, and beliefs when making clinical decisions for overall better health outcomes. I can also make this happen by seeing my patients as individuals and fostering open communication where my patients can freely give their input and ideas.
In applying cultural humility, first, I will be willing and open to learning from my patients from other cultures, bearing in mind that while I am an expert in my scientific knowledge, my patients are experts in their own life and symptoms. They hold power in their personal history and preferences. By acknowledging these facts, I will make sure that the cultural aspect that is most important to my patient is incorporated into their treatment plan. This brings me to self-reflection in my future role as a nurse practitioner.
According to Mahon and O’Neill (2020), by practicing self-reflection, “you learn through and from experience towards gaining new insights of self and or practice.” I will apply this principle by constantly reflecting on my practices, learning from my mistakes and successes, asking myself why this worked and why this did not work, reflecting on myself to make sure I do not have any bias towards my patients, being open to learning from feedbacks and taking responsibility for any outcome in my practice, evaluating my performance in practice to avoid past mistakes which will help me problem solve and gain new knowledge. By self-reflecting, I will recognize my strengths and weaknesses, impacting my practice.
References:
Mahon, P., & O’Neill, M. (2020). Through the Looking Glass: The rabbit hole of reflective practice. British Journal of Nursing, 29(13), 777–783. https://doi.org/10.12968/bjon.2020.29.13.777
I learned numerous lessons in week three. First, the week assisted me in appreciating the importance of education in advancing nursing practice. An RN nurse can serve the patients effectively at their level. However, through advanced learning, RN nurses gain effective knowledge that assists them in serving the nursing fraternity in higher positions such as leadership (Hughes et al., 2020). In doing so, nurses with advanced nursing skills can develop important policies that not only aid in solving the healthcare system’s problems but also increase their significance in managing healthcare quality.
Among the lesson learned this week, the ability to provide person-centered care was among the key important points learned. The entire process of restructuring the quality of the healthcare system starts with the ability of the nurses to offer holistic and patient-centered care (Smith & Foronda, 2021). This type of service allows nurses to value the patients’ health and work hard to meet the patient outcome. I feel that if all nurses can gain the skills to offer holistic care, the healthcare quality could be high within the healthcare system. Therefore, there is a need for nurses in leadership positions to develop programs for junior nurses that allow them to understand the concept of person-centered care.
In my future role as an NP, I would practice the concept of cultural competence in nursing. This process would involve offering culturally competent care to patients to meet the desired patient outcome (Smith & Foronda, 2021). This measure would also help me anticipate the concept of cultural humility that will aid in heightening the quality of healthcare services. This concept would also play an important role in designing my future path in nursing, especially in becoming one of the unique nurses that aid in bringing change within the healthcare system.
References
Hughes, V., Delva, S., Nkimbeng, M., Spaulding, E., Turkson-Ocran, R. A., Cudjoe, J., … & Han, H. R. (2020). Not missing the opportunity: Strategies to promote cultural humility among future nursing faculty. Journal of Professional Nursing, 36(1), 28-33. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.profnurs.2019.06.005Links to an external site.
Smith, A., & Foronda, C. (2021). Promoting cultural humility in nursing education through the use of ground rules. Nursing Education Perspectives, 42(2), 117-119. doi: 10.1097/01.NEP.0000000000000594
