In the context of professional practices reflection is defined as the examination of personal thoughts and actions (David, 2004). In this essay I am reflecting on an incident that happened in my earlier years of working as a professional nurse. The incident I am sharing and the subsequent learning I have gained by reflecting it helped me in the later years of my nursing career.
When someone close to me developed lung cancer,I began to think differently about smoking. A friend of mine,Charlotte Delbo,smoked cigarettes,she developed lung cancer from smoking them.Now,whenever I see smokers,I feel scared for them I saw Charlotte suffer so much. Charlotte was a brave women. During World War II In France,she fought against the Nazis. But she was eventually caught,she was sent to a concentration camp as a political prisoner.The conditions in the camps were horrific,she survived .After the liberation,Charlotte smoked cigarettes. In the early 1980s,her doctors told her that she had lung cancer,they said they could not cure her because she was already too sick. Charlotte survived the Nazis,she could not survive the long term
For as long as I can remember, it was a constant trial and error effort to get her to stop. It would affect me as well because I cared for her. She would go through the rough stages of withdraw and then give up. The withdraw symptoms of nicotine are almost as bad as the symptoms of alcohol, cocaine, or heroin (Epping-Jordan et al., 1998). For a while, I used think that hypnosis would cure my mother’s cigarette smoking habit instantly! I thought all we had to do next is go to Las Vegas and get her hypnotized. Now, I’ve applied psychology to figure out that doing hypnotic therapy sessions would work better instead of going to Las Vegas for
Many people in the United State do not have an understanding on what it means to be healthy or unhealthy. Some believe that there are healthy because they are not sick. After losing my grandfather to lung cancer, I developed a passion in educating and helping people improve their lifestyles. Although, my grandfather quit smoking 10 years prior to his death, I wish preventions and intervention were enforced earlier on. My grandfather grew up in the era when smoking was cool. No one was concerned about the harmful effects of smoking. Nonetheless, there is still hope to help others. I believe that everyone has the potential to improve
The purpose of this assignment is to help clarify the meaning of therapeutic relationships. As a student nurse, I believe that it is my duty to empower my patients and fellow nursing students and staff by engaging in therapeutic relations building exercises. I believe communication is a vital task in nursing and it is essential to build trusting relationships which in turn yield a positive recovery in any patient’s condition. In this assignment I will express what I think therapeutic relationships mean. I will also address my strengths in building therapeutic relationships. Lastly, I will focus on the areas I need to improve or develop to better help my patients, their families and fellow health care team members.
One of my first memories in the United States was taking a Drug Abuse Resistance Education (D.A.R.E) class. I was in sixth grade and a top student, as talking about drugs and alcohol and the way they affect us was fascinating to me. This is why, the following year, I volunteered to become a peer educator in Teens Against Tobacco Use (T.A.T.U). For a couple of years, I gave presentations to young students which included facts, demonstrations, and games, to spread the knowledge that tobacco is harmful and that staying away from smoking prolongs life expectancy and increases the quality of life. It should come as no surprise, then, that I consider myself a big proponent of staying tobacco-free and encouraging others to quit smoking as a great way to promote health. I remember watching my mom and sister as they took part in their nightly ritual of smoking a few cigarettes to unwind. “Did you know that a main component of cigarettes is used as rocket fuel?” I would ask them, as I opened the window and they stared back at me blankly. “We know, we know” was the answer every time. I knew that convincing them to quit was no easy task, but I was committed. Day after day, I proudly stated a new fact about the evils of smoking. Finally one day, they quit. At first, they attributed it to the cost. Since we had just immigrated to the United States, the cost of cigarettes was simply not something they could afford. I didn’t believe it. I proudly
A cousin of mine, Susan, approached me after her father received open heart surgery. Susan’s father, age 59, has been a chronic smoker since the age of 19. What went from two cigarettes a day quickly become two packs a day, with no end in sight. During July of 2015 he complained of feeling dizziness, shortness of breath,
Smoking is a severe health issue which can results in pain, sickness and depression. Not only does the misuses of tobacco and nicotine have a devastating
Of the roughly 42 million adults in the US that use tobacco, nearly 69% of smokers want to quit and more than 42% of those wishing to quit will make the attempt through various methods(1). These methods range from the "cold turkey" method, nicotine replacement therapy, behavioural therapy and even medicine. Each method has it's unique strengths and weaknesses as well as varying success rates. There are many reasons to quit and many ways in which to do so, either with methods that involve slowly weaning off of nicotine, like gums and patches from replacement therapy, to nicotine-free methods which require support from various sources.
As I approached my 50th birthday and realized that I'm now a middle-aged man who had been smoking for 20 years, I knew I had to find something that would help me kick the addiction once and for all. I read several articles and books on how to quit smoking, but nothing I read seemed to keep me from going back to cigarettes.
Researchers and doctors all over the world constantly discuss smoking problems. There is an incredible amount of information offered to people who fight the desire to light a cigarette, on a daily basis. But, as any drug, smoking is difficult to be forgotten, even with all the issues it brings.
Breaking the addiction to smoking is never an easy task. There are so many excuses for not quitting while conversely there are just as many justifications to quit. However, whereas some may quit successfully boasting of awe-inspiring feats of willpower others may find that they remain stuck in a continual fluctuation struggling to break the addiction with a self imposed evil that seems almost inescapable.
With many decades worth of health data now available, it has never been clearer that smoking is one of the most dangerous habits a person can engage in. It is no wonder, then, that so many smokers are committed to quitting and improving their health.
This is a paper to assist a fifty-two year old, widowed white woman, with two young children to assist her on her cessation to smoking. She states that she has been smoking since was seventeen years old and smokes a pack a day. She states that she would like to stop smoking because she would like to have a ‘healthier lifestyle’. She works full-time in an administrative position in a nursing facility. She does not have a support system in the home but does have support from friends in community and fellow workers at her place of employment.
Smoking is the leading cause of preventable death in the United States and worldwide (Centers for Disease Control, 2013, World Health Organization, 2008). Tobacco cessation counseling is a vital component of any public health strategy seeking to decrease mortality, disease and costs associated with smoking. To that end, the Healthy People 2020 Tobacco Use Objectives cover three main areas: reducing tobacco use, instituting health system changes, and creating social and environmental changes (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2013). Objective TU-10 falls under the category of health system changes as it seeks to open doors for patients to make quit attempts and to pursue tobacco cessation methods by increasing