Pediatric Experience
Brittany Bilger
Craven Community College
Abstract
This paper explores the various roles of the school nurse, including health promotion in the pediatric setting and maintaining patient safety as well as preventing infection. Health promotion not only has a positive impact on the students attending the school, but on the community as well. Health promotion can include health fairs, and various screening procedures performed by the school nurse. The school nurse is responsible for providing quality care to students, and members of staff. It also describes the observed patient care performed by the school nurse and the value of the learning experience. Developmental differences and how they affect patient care are also discussed. Every aspect of nursing care revolve around the developmental state of the patient. Nursing interventions differ depending on the age of the patient to provide adequate and quality care. The aspects this paper explores provides knowledge upon a different area of nursing and a different physical environment of nursing.
Role of the School Nurse
“School nursing is a specialized practice of professional nursing that advances the well-being, academic success, and life-long achievement and health of students “ (School Nursing Scope and Standards of Practice, 2011). The role of the school nurse includes, but is not limited to, managing school health services, encouraging health promotion, collaboration, enhancing
Ever since I was little, I always knew I wanted to be a nurse but I never really knew what department in nursing I wanted to work in. As I grew up, I discovered my passion for kids and how well I worked with them. After some thinking, I decided I would major in Pediatric Registered Nurse. The main focus on Pediatric Nursing is obviously working specifically with kids, infants, toddlers, and teens. Pediatric Nurses deal with children’s illness and injuries. They also give parents information on nutrition, diet and health plans. Pediatric Nurses mainly work in hospitals, doctor’s office, outpatient care centers, clinics, or immunization centers. The main job of a Pediatric Registered Nurse is to record patient symptoms as well as medical history, draw blood, administer medication and give vaccinations. They also help pediatricians with examinations, oncology, dermatology, or cardiology.
This assignment will explore and critically evaluate the role of the registered nurse in the development of a plan of care that is patient centred. This will involve examining and critically analysing the chosen nursing model in a holistic assessment of the patient and the use of the nursing framework ASPIRE (Barrett, Wilson and Wollands, 2012).
For children with specific health needs the nurse is involved in the care plan for the child. This ensures all staff working with the child are aware of the child’s needs and what they have to do if the child is unwell. The school nurse can also be involved in “in school training”. For example: giving all staff training on the use of epi-pens for use if a child has a severe anaphylactic shock.
According to Shellebarger & Edwards (2012), Nurse Educators help shape the future of nursing by educating future novice nurses. Nurse Educators have a core curriculum to follow to ensure lifelong learning in their role. They help shape critical thinking skills in our future nurses by giving them the knowledge needed to think critically. “ Evidence has found that hospital based nurse educators influence safe patient outcome through contemporary evidence based teaching and their contribution of policy development supports safe practice” (Sayers,2012, p. 45). Nurse Administrators take on the role of patient advocates, by ensuring that patients are receiving the highest level of care (Hamic, Hanson, Tracy, & O’Grady, 2014). Nurse Administrators are an important part of management of nurses , they help develop policies and procedures and are change agents in their fields. The Nurse Educator and the Nurse Administrator should be
The changes to both student health needs and healthcare during the 21st century have an impact on school nursing practice today. It was because of these changes that the “National Association of School Nurses (NASN) developed the visual and conceptual Framework that explains the key principles of school nursing and provides structure and focus to current evidence-based school nursing practice” (NASN, 2016, p.45). The ultimate goal of the framework for the 21st century “is to provide a resource to guide school nurses in their practice” in order “to help students be healthy, safe, and ready to learn” (NASN, 2016, p.45). The framework for the 21st century school nursing practice consist of
| For nursing practice our goal is to help to promote health for the whole patient. We must remember that our goal is to get them back to a level where they are functional in the environment. Not all patient will get to the point that they are free from disease but we must help them get back to the level in which they can care for themselves and be as sound as possible for them. Our practice would involve teaching in this aspect in order to help the patient maximize the health that they either have or to help them reach the level that they want to achieve.
I always knew I want to work with pediatric population. During my clinical rotations, I always requested to work with pediatric patients if available. Unfortunately, my nursing instructor who understood this passion and extracurricular activities passed away shortly before graduation. However, that adds to motivation to help continue to help children and their communities. In the first month of clinical rotation at Seattle Children’s, there was a patient’s family who was getting frustrated. After
The American Academy of Pediatrics emphasizes the crucial role of school nurses in the community by providing quality health care to children. School nurses promote wellness and disease prevention to improve health outcomes and early detection and intervention such as periodical vision and hearing assessments.
During many years the role of school nurse was traditionally viewed as one where the nurse cared for students that were injured, applied bandages and gave out ice bags. Throughout the years the role of the school nurse has evolved into one of leadership and management along with many other duties including traditional roles as mentioned above. The services provided by a school nurse range from assessment and screening to coordinating care for regular students as well as students with special needs. School nursing requires experience and knowledge in school, public, community and emergency health to meet the many needs of school aged children and youth. The school nurse provides many services but the basic services provided include
There is so much to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) that can be confusing to many healthcare professionals, but there is also a great deal that is very straightforward and should be known by all who provide
WOW, that is a lot of patients! This week’s lessons discusses the evolving role of the school nurse not only attending the students’ needs but involvement in “policy-making activities at both the local and state levels (CCN, 2015) The question proposed in this week’s lesson regarding some of the roles for the community health nurses is also applicable to the school nurse. The school nurse is the clinician, case manager, advocate, educator, researcher, administrator, change agent, case finder, coordinator and consultant in order to meet the complex needs of students.
The role that nurse practitioner (NP) plays within the increasing complex health care system is a constant changing role with the Consensus Model and the introduction of the Affordable Care Act in 2010. The scope of the nurse practitioner (NP) includes the care of the young, the old, the sick and the well. The educational needs of a nurse practitioner vary greatly from that of a Registered Nurse (RN), in the amount of education as well as the focus of the education. NPs provide coordinated primary care with the use of comprehensive health histories and physical examinations, diagnosing and treating acute and chronic illnesses, the management of medications and therapies, ordering and interpreting tests results, and educating and
In this paper, I will be discussing my learning experiences during term three. In order to classify and expand on what I have learned, I will be writing about two roles I have assumed as a student nurse, how I have developed those roles through theory and practice, how my thinking has changed, and what I would like to change in the future.
Nurse’s roles are expanding according to the need of the patient and society. A nurse has to play roles from bed side nursing to the prevention of disease and illness, educating patient, families and collaboration with different healthcare teams. Howell (2012) indicated
Urgency of acute care varies depending on the situation but can range to anything from emergency surgeries, to injuries, chronic illnesses, and also for the recovery of those procedures. Majority of the patients in acute care settings are critically ill. Nursing responsibilities in acute care settings are vital to patient’s recovery due to the front line position nurses play as well as the wide variety of tasks carried out. Assessments are made during every encounter the nurse has with the patient along with monitoring the patient’s progress. Nurses are responsible for recognizing symptoms the patient may be experiencing due to illness or injury and whether they fall in the spectrum of normal reactions. Vital signs are measured routinely and can be indicators of the patient’s current status. When vitals are questioned diagnostic tests can be arranged to further assess possible comorbidities the patient may have. Care plans are made to plan interventions the health care team can take to help patients through challenges they face, both physical and mental. Nurses administer medications as well as first aid as needed. They are responsible for maintaining special equipment patients may require including monitors and ventilators are well.