Healthcare and Nursing Reflective Essay
Table of contents
INTRODUCTION
FEELINGS
EVALUATION
ANALYSIS
CONCLUSION
ACTION PLAN
INTRODUCTION
It was hot afternoon in the regional hospital in which I was doing my placement. It was my first day of placement I had been in the doctor’s lounge, waiting for my superior- the one under whom I would be working. I showed up thirty minutes early with the intention of making a great first impression because we all know a good first impression sets the tone for the rest of your working days. Emergency personnel rushed in a patient. This patient had been coughing continuously; breathing was very rapid, patient complained of tightness in the chest. In addition to these symptoms the patient found it very difficult to communicate with me. The patient’s face was pale sweaty and the fingers and lips had turned a cyanotic blue color. (Web MD). The diagnosis I made immediately was that the patient was experiencing an asthma attack.
I tried to calm down the patient using my basic knowledge and rushed off to find the doctor who was in charge of me or the head nurse before carrying out any further actions. However, I could find neither nor most of the nurses. After a few more minutes of searching, I found out that all protocol in the department had been called for a meeting and no one had an idea when it would be over. The only people available were two nurses, one originally from my department and another who had been called in from another department to help assist with checking vitals and delivering medications to the other patients that needed to be taken care of, ordering new medications from the pharmacy for patients who needed to replenish their supply or start a new course of medication and prepare documentations of other patients for the doctors to review when they arrived for ward rounds. This period was one of the very few ones that required literally all-available hands on deck but ironically very few hands were available.
MY FEELINGS
I then decided to use my instinct and knowledge acquired from medical school to restore the patient. Just like the first days of medical school, the same “range of feelings, from excitement, to nervousness and then stress” washed over me. At this moment I was in a state of mild panic, wondering what to do. I felt myself visibly shaking and sweat beading up on my forehead. It was just my first day and I hadn’t received orientation. I needed to tell myself to be calm to be able to think of the next step to take. I then run up to one of the nurses to ask what steps to take. She was initially confused as to who I was and what I was doing in the department. After a quick explanation, she understood and instructed me to pick the appropriate medication and administer to the patient. I then proceeded to do so, administer an asthma nebulizer and left the patient, thinking …
