Life Role Transitions

For this assignment, I had the opportunity to interview Samantha Hage De Reyes, family nurse practitioner, currently working at the University of California, Riverside (UCR) Health Center in Riverside, CA. Family nurse practitioners are described as health professionals with analytic skills for evaluating and providing evidence-based, patient-centered care across settings, and advanced knowledge of the health care delivery system (Hamric, Hanson, Tracy & O’Grady, 2014). My objective was to ask a series of questions pertaining to the role of a family nurse practitioner, challenges concerning this nursing role, opinions regarding the future of family nurse practitioners, and more. This interview was conducted over the phone, and it was a valuable opportunity to learn more about what it means to be a family nurse practitioner and to start thinking about what I want to achieve in my own

Many people have many different definitions of a family. Some include family as the people they live with, some include their entire extended family, and some include friends, neighbors, coaches, and teachers. According to the Vanier Institute (2013), a family is “a combination of two or more persons who are bound together over time by ties of mutual consent, birth, and/or adoption” (para. 2). Whichever way you look at it, families often play a major role in life. It only makes sense that when a person begins to go through a drastic change in life such as illness, the family will be involved. This is why it is important that nurses learn how to provide suitable client and family centered care. They can do this by following the four

My second nursing diagnosis was also connected to my family that I am assessing for this class, they happen to live in the neighborhood also. One family is a part of many that make of the community. Alteration in family coping related to lack of emotional support/family support while family member is going through a stressful time. Interventions; counsel them and have them set aside one day a week to interact together by going to some of the community family night outings at the churches in the area, also seek counseling through local clergy or support groups like emotions anonymous to help them express their perceptions of what is happening to their family.

Ensure a safe place for medications and adapt medication regimen. Provide for patient education and screen the children for physical and mental problems. Most especially, the clinical nurse specialist needs to collaborate and coordinate with ancillary care as the family will have ongoing issues. Health teaching must include all the psychosocial aspects of care and certain problems experienced by the family will require advocacy. Nutrition should be the first concern after shelter and the strategies may involve coordination, referrals and advocacy as well as guidance and teaching. Lack of good nutrition and an adequate daily diet is a source of impairment in all areas. The clinical nurse specialist will also act as advocate both for individual homeless families and all families that require solutions to problems brought on by homelessness.

Women are subservient to males, and males may be dependent on the female of the household. There is a high incidence of alcohol abuse among men. Adolescent children are often less mature for their age. Family and friends should be allowed to remain with a dying patient, and organ donation is viewed as helpful to others. The belief that nothing new happens today that has not happened in the past may affect what illness/sickness leads people to seek health care. I should maintain a distance appropriate for care delivery and investigate health care beliefs or practices. Monitor for signs and symptoms of safety issues within the family unit. Do not assume that maturity is linked to age. Provide time and space for family to be with hospitalized family

Discuss the nursing interventions to be utilized with a family member who is in crisis in the care setting and interfering with the healthcare team’s performance.

Communication is key to effective healthcare practices. According to American Journal Of Critical Care (2014), Patient-centered care starts with “effective communication, being empathetic and available, avoiding personal prejudges, and listening therapeutically are integral parts of patient-centered care” (Riley, White, Graham, Alexandrov, 2014, p. 320). This will improve communication; promote patient involvement in care, which creates a positive relationship with the healthcare provider and medical team. This results in improved adherence to treatment plan. Clinical practice guidelines need to be implemented for the patient and family members to be able to be involved in informed decision-making regarding healthcare needs. The fundamental core of nursing is to have a partnership with the patient and their family regarding the patient’s outcome.

Optimising a family’s strengths are vital when experiencing, illness, stressful times and challenging periods. The FSF believes that all families have strengths, these initial strengths will develop and refine overtime, thus family strengths must be encouraged. The Australian Family Strengths (AFS) Nursing Assessment Guide, a family assessment tool, isn’t created to rank a family in accordance to their strengths. Even a family that doesn’t demonstrate any significant strengths cannot be defined as having no strengths. The FSF helps families to utilise and develop their family strengths, which has been reported to increase resilience to key and promote health

Primary role of the community nurse is the assessment of the person’s home is pivotal. Review of family members, care giving impact, family dynamics and historical family information is vital to make a complete assessment. Secondary role is the identification of early mistreatment or abuse of the older person and reporting it to the appropriate agencies. Tertiary role is ongoing translations and interventions. Community nurse monitors home situations and provide ongoing support to the family, specifically the older person. The role of the nurse in advocacy for the older person is continued and lobby for additional services.

Although I enjoy all facets of nursing, I truly believe that it is in the field of family practice that the foundation of the nursing process begins. I have seen many patients over the course of my career without a stable, primary care healthcare provider. Health and wellness begins with day-to-day habits, and a nurse in family care is uniquely poised to give wellness advice and guidance. Family nurse practitioners often perform similar functions to physicians: making diagnoses; prescribing tests and medications; and helping patients over the course of their life trajectories lead more fulfilling lives. Primary caregiving is truly wellness promotion. It involves not simply healing the sick, but also reducing the likelihood that patients will become ill. I have seen so many patients with preventable illnesses that could have

Helpful in times of stress, such as acute or long-term illness, nursing can engage the family in focusing on their

According to Capuzzi & Stauffer (2012), the tenuous, but nonetheless important, relationship between the different stages in career and life are understood to be explored in clients in two different stages of change. The first stage is known as the transtheoretical model of behavioral change. This model consists of six stages that clients experience during the onset of their change (Capuzzi & Stauffer, 2012). The stages of change are (DiClemente, 2003): precontemplation, contemplation, preparation, action, maintenance, and termination (p. 527). Depending on the issue the client is dealing with will determine what stage he or she is at. For example, in the precontemplation stage, clients lack

It can be very frustrating at times dealing with the family members of the older patient that I see in the emergency room. I have such limited time to take care of everyone’s needs before the next patient comes in by ambulance that I often forget how the family feels seeing their parent on an emergency room cart in pain and confused. My definition of the comfort I can provide in the emergency room are often very different from the family’s expectations. According to Gerontological Nursing (Tabloski, 2014), the attending nurse needs to understand the patient and family’s goals, wishes and values to attend to their

Transition theory is one of the most applied theories in the nursing practice. In fact, whether or not nurses are aware of this theory, it is often used in the nursing practice because nursing is all about helping people that are going through changes, whether they are physical changes like an illness or developmental transitions like the birth of a child. Meleis reiterates this point as he states “Nurses often are the primary caregivers of clients and their families who are undergoing transition. They attend to the changes and demands that transitions bring into the daily lives of clients and their families” (2000, p. 13). Before going any further in exploring Transition theory, we must define transition. Meleis states that “Transitions are both a result of and result in change in lives, health, relationships, and environments” (2000, p. 13). Transitions are the times when a nurse can step in and act as a therapeutic medium and help the individual have a smooth transition from one semi stable state of being to another semi stable state of being (McEwen & Wills, 2014, p. 237). This is the essence of Transition Theory. It is the process that goes on between people undergoing some changes in their lives, and the nurse who is guiding care for a stable outcome.

One needs to be there to comfort them and keep them calm when needed to. Caring for people come with the job of being a nurse. If a person cannot care for the people they are helping, they will not surpass as a nurse. In order to be a nurse, one has to have a great deal of patience. In a single shift, one may have to deal with aggressive patients, angry family members, a grumpy co-worker or supervisor, and even some patients who have many “intestinal accidents.” To get through all this, one needs to keep positive and have a smile on their face.