An event or lesson that occurred in my nursing education that I never want to forget is when I was doing clinicals in the hospital they were having a bad nursing shortage and hired many traveling nurses this one nurse did not get along with students very well and there was one day I was placed with him. We had one patient who had cellulitis and had come in that morning. When we first went in, the nurse was not nice to the patient, and they became frustrated. I then took the patient in his medicine, and I was very nice to the patient, and he was very compliant with me. I came back out and went to the bathroom and grabbed a quick granola bar. When I came back from my snack there was yelling, and people gathered around my patient's room. I went straight to the room. My professor and my nurse were trying to calm the patient down, but he had pulled out his IV and there was blood everywhere that he was throwing around. My professor had seen me walk in and due to me being only a couple of months pregnant she signaled me to get out of the room. The patient was becoming louder and kept fighting with the nurse. The patient decided to leave AMA. I later found out that the nurse had become very rude to the patient and the patient did not want him as a nurse anymore. This situation taught me that all patients need to be treated with respect and kindness even when you are having a rough day, they are not feeling good and there is a reason they are there.
Professional Exemplar
I graduated nursing school in 2022 and since graduating I have worked in the primary care setting in pediatrics. My role as a nurse in the primary care setting is mainly as a teacher. I teach parents of children about routine vaccinations, when well child checks should be, wound care, developmental milestones, fevers, medications, and so much more. Over the last two years of working in the primary care setting I have become a more confident teacher and have tried to improvemy skills as a teacher. One clinical situation where I felt my teaching made a difference in the care of a patient was one day, we had a 7-year-old patient who had stepped on glass over the weekend. The patient's mother had returned from treatment that day and had noticed the child's foot wrapped in toilet paper and asked what happened. After learning that the child had stepped on glasses and cut open his toes on Friday,mother brought him into the clinic. Th cuts were deep on three of his toes with remnants of dried blood and tissue still stuck to the wounds. The patient was too far out from getting stitches, so I was charged with the task of cleaning out the wound, dressing it and educating the mother and child on how to care for the wounds and when to follow up. The mother stated that she didn't know what to do so she wrapped it up in what she could find and brought him into the clinic. I told the mother that it was good to take him in a get the wound cleaned and looked at. I taught the mother how to dress the wound, apply medication, and how to clean it. I taught the mother that he should get the wound clean and to not be walking on it without a dressing or something to keep the wound clean. I gave them lots of supplies and answered any questions the mother had. After my teaching was complete, the mother thanked me and stated that she was thankful for the education because they were living in a tent, and she did not know what she would do to keep the cuts clean. I followed up with the patient a couple of days later and the wound was already looking so much better. I knew that this educationchanged the outcome of the patient’s healing.