How do you envision your career moving forward in advocating for your patients? Your community? Yourself?

week 1/je

 

• Have there been challenges you have faced? If so, what strategies did you employ to overcome these challenges?’

I believe it is impossible to have any type of job that you would not have to find a way to overcome certain challenges. I am a nurse on a med surg floor right now and I would day the biggest challenge I have faced so far would be staffing and nurse to patient ratio. “Nurses are the providers with the greatest presence during health care delivery, and they provide the most holistic approach to patients” (Diana J. Mason, 2016, p. 161). With that being said, on the med surg floor I work on, we sometimes have 7 patients each and it makes it close to impossible for me to feel like I am being the nurse that I know I can be and provide the care that each and every patient deserves. Being a nightshift nurse I feel like they believe we are not busy or we have a lot of down time to be able to handle these 7 patients but I feel as I do not get to spend quality time and provide the care patients need having 7 patients. Prioritizing each patients needs is the only way I’ve been able to make it through nights that we have had 7 patients each. I make sure to show up at work at least 30 minutes early to look at my assignments and see what exactly it is that I am going to be working with.

• How do you envision your career moving forward in advocating for your patients? Your community? Yourself?

I feel like a large part of being a nurse is being a patients advocate. You have to listen to each patients wants and needs and be there to help lead them in the right direction of the care they need. It is important to listen to a patients needs and get whatever question they have regarding their health answered. Ive been a nurse for a little over a year now and I feel like I am becoming more and more of a patient advocate. I feel more comfortable and confident in the care I provide as well as educating patients and helping them form questions they may have for their doctors or other medical staff. I have recently signed on with a travel agency and I plan to start taking a few assignments here and there in hopes to help build skill and confidence in my nursing profession and be able to be more of an advocate for my community as well as myself.