Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Nursing leadership and management was a very insightful class. This class gave me the
opportunity to work alongside my Nursing Manager. The project that I felt our unit needed to
work on was the documentation of normal saline flushes. The magnitude of stress that comes
from being a manager on a very busy medicine floor, is daunting of that Im sure. Working with
her I was able to review my relationships with many of the Nurse Managers I have come in
contact with. Some good, some not so good, and one that was outstanding. I want to be a leader
when it comes to establishing a plan to help the clients. This class taught me about the
importance of having great leadership in all fields of healthcare, and this class helped me to
narrow my path of my nursing career.
Community was a difficult and time consuming class, but it was also fun and I learned a
lot. I did my windshield assessment project with the Davis County Health Department. The WIC
program (Women, Infant, and Children) provided the layout for my project. Assessing the needs
of the WIC program required me to sit down during multiple recertifications. I found this at
times to be very difficult; it was in part due to personal pride. I was a single mom of 11 years and
had never asked for assistance of any kind and yet these individuals were making their childs
next appointment with their IPad. I had to quickly get that mentality out, because it would affect
my position. I found that the deficiency in current immunizations records were insufficient and
needed some retuning of the forms. The plan was to contrive a simple question about current
immunizations and then educating the family, usually the mother about the options for
immunizing their children. The material provided the amount of knowledge needed to make a
concise informed decision.
Health assessment provided a refresher and advanced approach for nursing and medical
diagnoses. There were concerns about this class; I felt that at times during this class that the
assessments were asking us to go beyond our clinical and licensure scope of practice.
The skills learned in this class were important to be renewed on. The new assessment
tools are extremely valuable while enhancing assessment skills at the bedside.
Policies and ethics provided the knowledge of how polices are formed, how they get
published and the fortitude of policies. The information of this course opened my eyes to the
importance of being mindful and proactive about the political motions that nurses can be
involved with and the changes that can be made that would potentially affect the healthcare
options for all U.S. citizens.
Transcultural nursing was a favorite of mine. Learning about the differing cultures is vital
for each nurse to provide culturally sensitive care to an extremely vast multicultural world. The
mandatory reading was at first enlightening, interesting, and exciting; learning about the Hmong
culture proved to be very frustrating at times, but then it was also a beautiful disaster. The
frustration of the healthcare teams that were involved in this case also frustrated me. The poor
approach to obtaining adequate translation along with poor documentation, helped me to see the
importance of clear and concise documentation. These actions enlightened me to find sensitive
ways of implementing realistic cultural beliefs at the bedside. Awareness of differing cultures
and how they view their individual healthcare within the world of western medicine eventually
being incorporated into their culture will be the forefront to how the outcome of the disease
process will be delivered.
Gerontology was the greatest class for me, it gave me the opportunity to do what I enjoy
the most; helping educate and serve the aging population. Learning about how the body ages and
the changes that take place improved my assessment skills. Reviewing the systems during the
aging process and being able to dissect it in a way that I can teach it to the geriatric population is
very rewarding. The aging population is amazing! The willingness and excitement that the aging
population has towards finding out how they can stay healthy and vibrant is exciting. Meeting up
with MaryAnn weekly was the hardest thing for me to give up. We learned from each other and
became very good friends. We keep saying we are going to have a lunch date, but she is a very
active 83 years old, so our schedules dont mesh very well. Gerontology taught me so many
things, but the one thing that stuck out the most was that it is never too late to make wise and
healthy choices in ones life.
The final capstone class has given me the opportunity to utilize and facilitate all of these
classes together. Not all the classes have a direct correlation to my project or portfolio, but
because of these ten classes, I have been able to build up my confidence and knowledge of
various nursing processes. The ability to assess, plan and implement various approaches to
nursing and seeing evidence based practice in the clinical setting is vigorous to improving patient
outcomes, while decreasing signs and symptoms of various disease processes.
Capstone has given me the opportunity to collaborate with the Infection Preventionist,
showing me ways to collect and organize and then calculate the importance of qualitative
findings. This project also has improved my abilities with communicating in a public setting, this
was accomplished when I presented my finding of the alcohol cap and central venous catheter
audits during the monthly practice council board. Capstone has also provided the path to
unlocking valuable information and introducing me to informative websites that offer up-to-date
findings associated with infectious diseases. These sites and findings are essential tools to keep
all nurses from amateur to advanced, on the newest and updated communicable diseases. These
sites provide best practice and evidence based information to decrease risk or exposure to the
current outbreaks that affect the health of the world.
Capstone provided me with the opportunity to listen and learn from infectious disease
doctors who have been in practice over 20 years. The ability to maintain knowledge and be
proactive in the fight of infectious disease is priceless.
My future nursing goals have been improved by the knowledge that these classes have
given me. I see myself working close with the geriatric population. Providing them with current
up-to-date evidence based practices, and confidence and knowledge to implement these practices
into place. To educate and instruct the implementation of technology from nursing informatics,
in case they are homebound.
Capstone is the essential stone and foundation that provides the ability to stand strong and
firm in ones knowledge, while being a firm rock for others to rely on.
Having finished my BSN has been a tenacious work of love and passion for a career that
I truly love. I hope that I will be able to exemplify my love, passion and knowledge onto the next
generation of nurses.
Pamela A. Jensen RN