Essay On Clinical Experience

As part of my clinical experience at St. Joseph unit, I had an opportunity to work with my classmate, Kingly and Dat. Dat was a very kind and efficient nursing assistant and I felt fortunate to have had the chance to work with and learn from him. Our day together seemed as though it was typical for the residence. The first resident was Ms. Nancy; she is in room no. 220A. My duty gave her breakfast and feed her in morning. Upon waking Ms. Nancy I respected her privacy by always knocking before I entered the room and asking permission to enter. I have introduced myself and followed standard precaution by washing my hands before start any procedures. I tried to talk to her while I was feeding her. I tried to wake her up before the breakfast is over. She only ate 35% of her meal. Then, Dat showed me how to use a full sling mechanical lift to move Ms. Nancy to shower chair and show me how to use shower chair while showering Ms. Nancy. After finishing

Another of my teaching methods delivered is by way of ‘on the job’ training which allows me to assess their progress, explore their knowledge and skill by observing and questioning their processes. This method of teaching falls in with Kolbs (1984) four stage experiential learning cycle.

During clinical this week we were shadowing a nurse on our clinical unit. I had a couple personal goals at the start of the day. First off I wanted to get comfortable with the unit. I wanted to learn where everything was located in case my patients, throughout the rest of the quarter, asked for something. I also wanted to learn how my nurse prioritized patients. While I am aware that I will only be taking care of one patient on any given day this quarter, I know that learning this skill will be useful in my nursing career.

Kolb’s theory (1984) is based on a four-stage learning cycle in which the learner contacts all the stages. These stages include first, concrete experience (how an individual encounters a situation), second, reflective observation (what an individual thinks about the situation), third, abstract conceptualization (how the individual analyzes the situation), and fourth, active experimentation (how the individual’s use of the conclusions in a situation change or prepare for another situation) (p. 21). Kolb also understood that individuals have different learning styles. Some individuals learn by observing while others learn by hands-on experience. Therefore, Kolb created side cycles to explain where in the learning cycles an individual’s learning style would fall. Although Kolb’s theory is a

This assignment was beneficial in assisting me to evaluate my employment potential as a RN. I can now see growth in my organization skills, ability to analyze my academic and clinical experiences, visualize my growth during nursing school, and showcase my accomplishments and competencies.

The final week is approaching and soon my future as a nurse will be determined. My grade in Fundamentals of Nursing is borderline passing and the idea of failure is more realistic than expected. The thought of where I am going to go from here if I do not pass my nursing class is undecided. At this point in the semester, failure is not an option. I do not know if I would retake the class or follow a completely different path. I’m very happy with the nursing curriculum and I enjoy the learning experience, but the exam questions are more complicated than just set in stone only one correct answer questions. I struggle with applying the nursing knowledge to real life situations when the best options needs picked but all could be done.

This week I would say I had an interesting day. It was full of experience and knowledge too. Such as performing morning care for two residents and help, them to get ready for breakfast. I was glad for having the opportunity to help those people because the previous week I did not get the chance to help any resident with their morning care. Although my assigned resident refused care, including taking his blood pressure at the begging. Therefore, I had to leave the room for a while and look for another resident needed my help. Moreover, while waiting for my assigned patient, I had to go and help other residents with her care. It was learning experience for me helping residents with their care, but also at the same time. I was feeling helpful

I thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity I had to visit children’s country home. It was a great opportunity to learn more out about the facility that provides 24-hour skilled care to medically fragile and technology-dependent children. I loved how the home was able to provide the children with such a loving home and support their complex needs. I found my least favorite part of the clinical experience was reading and hearing some of the heart breaking background stories regarding the children’s disabilities.

Today clinical was another learning experience. I worked with a traveled nurse named Manu, he has been a nurse for 6 years now. For a guy he is very OCD about the rooms being cleaned and organized and I liked that, because the nurse that gave us report left the room upside down and I had to reorganise the rooms. He emphasis how much he dislikes when the room is not kept and when the family members are visiting they may compare the environment their love once/family member is in to the type of care that’s being rendered when they are not present, which is a valid point.

Since graduating from Indiana University with a degree in Neuroscience, I have encountered employment at Billings Clinic. With over 1500 hours of clinical work experience, I think I have learned an insurmountable variety regarding medicine. This job enables me to shadow medical providers on a daily basis, which has provided me with the opportunity to watch suturing techniques, review diagnostics labs, treatment options, and prognosis determinations. Working with a plethora of providers, physicians and mid-levels, has helped me to understand how each doctor is unique in their own respect. This summer, I will also be shadowing several neurosurgeons, and viewing procedures like tumor resections and total disc replacement. Often times, there is not one specific treatment option in the clinical setting. Some providers like the tried and true methods, while others are bold and prefer the most novel methods of treatment. This perpetual balance has helped me to understand the role of being a physician.

I felt my strengths were communication and collaboration. I had no problem speaking to the students, Professor Lugar, and the nurses on the unit. By collaborating with the nurses on the unit I helped to promote a learning environment for the clinical group. I shared my previous experience on the OB unit, created study guides, and quiz. The students were able to ask me questions not only of OB but also HCAL. It felt great to be an asset to the students. I’m grateful for this experience and hope to continue to further help the students in any way I can.

Although this limitation can become a barrier for the experiential learning theory Rogers’ developed, it is possible for this to overcome this with patience. As the main purpose of this theory is to allow personal growth within the student, we must note that personal growth appears differently for each individual learner. The role of the facilitator is to help engage all types of students in self-motivated learning to help them improve their overall growth from significant information.

Kolb’s experiential learning cycle is a theory that argues that we learn from our experiences of life on a daily basis. Cognitive ability is the way people learn and Kolb believed from an early age we begin to develop a sort of instinctive preference as to the way we process information and use it. Kolb (1984) believes that the process of learning follows a pattern or cycle. Kolb’s cycle is made up of 4 stages; the first stage is concrete experience and Kolb believes that life is full of loads of different experiences that everyone can learn from and whether you are at home, work, school or even out shopping that there was experiences everywhere within those sectors and that it was a way for us to start the learning cycle. The concrete experience is the doing stage, the stage where you have the experience. We then have stage two which is reflective observation, this stage involved looking back at our experiences and reflecting on them. Stage three is the abstract conceptualisation which is

In the reading Experiential Learning: Experience as the Source of Learning and Development by David Kolb (1984), he proposed that learning is a cycle process in which individuals learn through their own experiences in life. This notion of the learning cycle in which he was influenced by the ideas of three other theorists (Piaget, Dewey, and Lewinian) called it Experiential Learning Theory. Kolb’s theory was based on how people learned by imputing information and processing the information. Within this two abilities, there are four steps in which Kolb’s believe the learning process occurs. The first one he calls “concrete experience”, in which one actually does the learning right then and now. The second one is “reflective observation” when the learner thinks about what they did as a reflection of the experience. The next step is the “abstract conceptualization”, where the learner makes a generalization of the experience. The last step is “active experimentation”, where the learner puts to practice his/her understanding and adapts to it. The learner does this by taking all the first three steps of the learning cycle and seeing the results (pg. 30). Learning is a process in which individuals learn through trial and error. This process can then be reused with our prior experience to strengthen the outcome of our first experience. It is shaped as a cycle in the way we process information cognitively. This is how I understood of the reading on Kolb’s Experiential Learning Theory.

Never say never. It is a phrase that is commonly said but rarely taken seriously. I, myself, am guilty of this. Starting at a very young age, children always think about what they want to be when they grow up. At some point in everyone’s life, mostly in the teen years, a person must choose what career they want to have. When I was young, there were numerous jobs I thought I wanted to have. I wanted to be anything ranging from a photographer to a lawyer. Of course, some of the careers that I thought were “cool” wouldn’t be sufficient in providing a steady income. Although there were a plethora of jobs I was interested in, there was one field that I would not dare think twice about: the medical field. I wanted absolutely nothing to do with the medical field. I didn’t like, and still don’t like, blood, needles, lacerations, stitches, and such. However, one major event, or rather a week-long span of significant events, changed my opinion of the medical field. Within these events were three key moments that helped shape my view of the medical field to what it is today.