Blog 23: Senior Project Reflection

(1) Positive Statement

What are you most proud of in your block presentation and/or your senior project? Why?

• What I'm most proud of my whole block presentation was that how my whole presentation flowed very smoothly. When I explained the break down of my EQ it flowed right into my my answers. The activity was the best part my whole presentation. I had 2 parts of my activity that explained my 1st and 2nd answer. When I did the 1st activity a lot of people were interested and fascinated on how many missed spots they missed when applied the Glo Germ lotion with glows under the UV light. Then my 2nd part of my activity, a lot of people were following the instructions on the board on how the properly apply on the personal protective equipment. What I liked about it was that once every one had it one people were taking pictures them wearing the equipment. 

(2) Questions to Consider

a.     What assessment would you give yourself on your block presentation (self-assessment)? 

• P because I hit all the main point of my topic and my 3 answers.         

b.     What assessment would you give yourself on your overall senior project (self-assessment)?

•  P because throughout the while year I made sure that I had all the information that I need to present like the history behind my answers, how my answer affect nurses, and my mentorship and mentors help me get the real life experience of nursing.   

(3) What worked for you in your senior project? 

• What worked in my senior project was that gathering all the information and presenting it to a class and explaining how everything in my project relate to each other. Also engage my audience that think about going into the nursing profession and/or doing this topic for senior year that they get to learn a little bit more about nursing and the general facts on protecting themselves from infectious diseases.  

 

(4) (What didn't work) If you had a time machine, what would you have done differently to improve your senior project if you could go back in time?

•  The thing that I would defiantly improve would be made saying more information and not my nerves get to me in certain at parts of my presentation because when I would say the background of my answers, I would forget what I said when I rehearsed it but it was my nerves getting to at time when it comes to being under pressure. 

(5) Finding Value

How has the senior project been helpful to you in your future endeavors?   Be specific and use examples.

•  Senior project has been so helpful because I got to volunteer at a hospital for the first time and I really opened my eye on how it is like to work at a hospital. An example would be when I had to do training at my mentorship, the training made me do a lot of hands on stuff like passing out lunch trays, making sure that everything a stocked up with equipment, and interacting with patients that are in need of assistance. In the future, I hope to persuade some profession in the medical field but most likely nursing. Volunteering has made me realize how working in a hospital setting can be a fun and nice environment to work in. Also with the presentations especially this one has helped me like the nursing profession more than I used to.        

Blog 22: Mentorship

    Literal

• Mentorship log

• Ishna Mesa, Casa Colina

    Interpretive

     What is the most important thing you gained from this experience? Why?

•  The most important thing that I gained from this was the experience being at the hospital and interacting with the people that inspire me into looking towards nursing at a career. As a volunteer I got to feel like I'm a worker at a hospital. The nurses and health care providers that I interacted with were very helpful when ever I had a question about anything. For an example, when I did my 4 days of training, I helped a lot with the nurses with communicating with their patients and do the things that they need help in. Usually my trainer would always take me under his wing and guide me to do things that I've never done before like making communicating between the patients and their health care providers and making sure that the hospital environment is safe for patients.

   Applied

     How has what you’ve done helped you to answer your EQ?  Please explain.

• What has helped me answer my EQ was my observations. If I was in the nurses station or out and doing rounds, I learned things from nurses on how they protect themselves and patients from infectious diseases. When I was trained by one of the RNs from Casa, she taught me a lot like it is important for visitors and workers to wear protective equipment when entering the room. The things that I observed in the hospital has helped me a lot on answering my EQ and experiencing some of those ways how nurses protect themselves from infectious diseases.

Exit Interview

Content:

(1) What is your essential question, and what are your answers?  What is your best answer and why?

• Essential Question: How can nurses best protect themselves from infectious diseases?
• Answers: Proper hand hygiene, proper use of personal protective equipment, and vaccinations 
• Best answer: Hand hygiene because hands contract a lot of germs that may cause infectious diseases be transmitted to person to person. 

(2) What process did you take to arrive at this answer?

• I came to this answer while doing research and talking to my mentors. I was looking up on how can nurses can protect themselves from infectious diseases. An article by Akanksha Jayanthi, talks about top 10 patient safety issues for 2015 and hand hygiene is one of them. Then I looked for more information through more articles and books why it was one of the patient safety issues.  

(3) What problems did you face?  How did you resolve them?

• It was hard for me to find books on my topic. I would ask my mentors if they still had any books on nursing and they didn't and go to the library and some of the books were checked out or didn't have the information that I was looking for. But I solved it by looking at some medical books for some information about infectious diseases and vaccines.

(4) What are the two most significant sources you used to answer your essential question and why?

• Two most significant sources that I used to answer my essential question is my mentors and a medical journal by Royal College of Nursing. My mentors were very helpful. They were always there when I needed some clarifications when I didn't get some of the medical terms that some of the articles had. The article by Royal College of Nursing because it explained things in a nurse's point of view.  

April Post

At my mentorship, training started for the volunteers. The first day of training, my instructor taught me the basics that I should kind of know. He showed me how to preform pastoral care rounds, know the information on the patient's board and know if they can have regular water or Frazier water, and deliver meals to patients. On the second day my instructor taught me how to make patient's bed, pass out water to patients, take dirty equipment from the soiled utility room to dirty side of Central Supply. 

Blog 19: Independent Component 2

LITERAL
(a) I, Adriane Parale, affirm that I completed my independent component which represents 36 hours of work.
(b) -Heinasmaki, Terhi, and Ainna Fawcett-Henesy. "Infection And Infectious Diseases."
     -Frompovich, Catherine J. "Do Nurses Have It Right About Vaccinations?"
     -O'Connor, Anahad. "Health and Wellness - Well Blog - NYTimes.com."
     -Infection Control, Personal Protective Equipment/Body Substance Exposure by Citrus Valley Health Partners. 
(c) Hours 
(d) For my independent component two, at my mentorship I started my 3 day training for the new volunteer program. The first day I was assigned to shadow a Patient Care Technician. He showed me the basic elements of training, like answering call lights, delivering food trays and clear off all trays once staff has recorded % eaten, and proper application and removal of Personal Protective Equipment. Also I've volunteered at the school's blood drive and made sure that each downer checked in with their IDs and made sure that after giving blood they don't faint.
 
 INTERPRETIVE 
This really help me interact with the patients more and do more hands on work outside the nurses' station at my mentorship. The first day of training really helped me understand the importance of just the basics of my training which were knowing the visiting hours to making a patient's bed to knowing the proper application and removal of PPE. The blood drive also helped me understand that to make sure that if a patient/downer has traveled outside the U.S. that they have to make sure how long that person as been out. For the reason is that they have caught an infectious diseases after their stay outside the states.

     

APPLIED 
With the new volunteer program, the training that I'm getting helps me understand how nurses protect themselves from infectious disease by myself protecting too. The knowledge that a gained on my first day of training helped me understand my first and second answer which is hand hygiene and personal protective equipment. Also with the research that I did help me get more facts about my first two answers and a little more of my foundation of my E.Q. With the blood drive, my observations helped me understand how the nurses preform infection control in any setting. This component has allowed me to understand both of my first two answers more of the foundation because I was able to experience both of my answers. 

March Post

So all of March I did the same thing I would do at my mentorship, help out in the nurse's station, file papers, and walk around and make sure if any of the patients are in need of help. I started to do my independent component 2 at my mentorship and today the blood dive committee had a meeting with Thomas the blood dive coriander and just gave us information about the blood dive and rules for people to donate blood. But starting next month (hopefully) at my mentorship they will start this whole new system for the volunteers where they interact with the nurses more and the volunteers will start training soon with our instructor. And we get to be trained on transporting patients to the day room for lunch, how to feed them, and clear meal trays after hospital staff has recorded % eaten.

Fourth Interview Questions

1. What experiences have you had with patients with infections? 
2. What causes nurses to get an infectious disease? 
3. What can a nurse do to prevent infections from spreading?
4. What steps do nurses take to maintain low infection rates?
5. What are some of the things that hospitals are doing to prevent infectious diseases?
6. What are standard precautions?
7. How do standard precautions apply to all patients no matter their diagnosis? 
8. How could you help family members of a patient prevent infectious diseases?
9. How could you help the patient with infectious disease prevent acquiring it?
10. What are the medications that makes/prevent infectious diseases?
11. Besides hand hygiene, proper use of PPE, and vaccinations; how can nurses protect themselves?
12. What can you do if you acquire an infectious diseases?
13. If a patient is under the age of 18, what can parents do to prevent getting infectious diseases?
14. How do you keep patients that had an infectious disease acquiring it again?
15. How could the family prevent acquiring infectious diseases if one of their family members has been infected before?  
16. What are the common hospital acquired infectious diseases? 
17. How can the hospital help patients stop the spreed of infectious diseases?
18. Why we acquired infectious diseases?
19. How can nurses help patients with infectious diseases?
20. How can a patient in isolation recover then a patient that is not in an isolation room recover from an infectious disease?

Blog 17: Third Answer

Content:

Just like you did for answer 1 and 2 post your:
 

EQ: 

• How can nurses best protect themselves from infectious diseases?

Answer #3 (Write in a complete sentence like a thesis statement)*

• One of the best ways for nurses to protect themselves from infectious diseases is vaccinations.

3 details to support the answer (a detail is a fact and an example)

• Nurses come into contact with patients with different types of diseases and may contract infections, according to the CDC. 
• It provides some protection for nurses at work in the healthcare settings. 
• Vaccines are one of the best ways to put an end to the serious effects of preventable diseases.

The research source (s) to support your details and answer

• "Infection Prevention & Control." http://www.heywood.org/services/infection-prevention-and-control

• "10 Best Strategies for Infection Prevention and Control." <http://www.beckershospitalreview.com/quality/10-best-strategies-for-infection-prevention-and-control.html>.

Concluding Sentence

• Vaccinations are like a invisible shield for nurses to protect themselves from infectious diseases.  

February post

My interview with Elvessa really helped me find my second answer and understand it more than from the research I've been doing. She helped me understand how using Personal Protective Equipment is one of the best way to protect nurses besides hand hygiene. She told me that when nurses use PPE (for short) that it protects the whole body of the nurse and that all the microscopic germs that nurses get from going to each patient can transfer to another patient. Also she told me that when they use PPE it helps protect not just the nurses but also patients because when nurses come in contact with a patient with an infectious disease it is possible that it can be transferred to another patient by the nurse. So when nurses use PPE they stop the spread of diseases and protect everyone including themselves.

Blog 16: Answer 2

1.  What is your EQ?

•   How can nurses best protect themselves from infectious diseases?

2.  What is your first answer? (In complete thesis statement format)

•  One of the best ways for nurses to protect themselves from infectious diseases is hand hygiene. 

3.  What is your second answer? (In complete thesis statement format)

•   One of the best ways for nurses to protect themselves from infectious diseases is using their protective equipment like gloves, face masks, scrubs, etc properly.

4.  List three reasons your answer is true with a real-world application for each.

• In hospitals, when their are precaution signs outside a patient's room, it means that contact with the patient and with anything that is inside the room is contaminated.
•  The two nurses that came in contact with Ebola while caring for an Ebola patient, used a special protective equipment to protect themselves from getting it themselves but some how they got it for the reason is that they maybe didn't put their PPE (Personal Protective Equipment) properly. 
• At my mentorship, anyone that enters a patient's room with any precaution sign on their or enter any isolation room, there is PPE provided in the front of the door to anyone who enters the room.

 5.  What printed source best supports your answer?

•  Staf, Guidance For Nursing. "Wipe It out One Chance to Get It Right."

 6.  What other source supports your answer?

• Case, Bette, and Joan Fox Rose. "Ebola and Personal Protective Equipment (PPE): Best Practices to Keep Nurses Safe."

7.  Tie this together with a  concluding thought.

• Working at a hospital as a nurse, they are at risk in catching a health care-acquired infection (HAI) so using the Personal Protective Equipment properly can lower the risk in catching HAIs. 
  
  a health care-acquired infection (HAI) or inadvertently spreading infection from one patient to another. - See more at: http://www.nursingcenter.com/lnc/static?pageid=811924#sthash.JIf2nNGb.dpuf
  a health care-acquired infection (HAI) or inadvertently spreading infection from one patient to another. - See more at: http://www.nursingcenter.com/lnc/static?pageid=811924#sthash.JIf2nNGb.dpuf
  a health care-acquired infection (HAI) or inadvertently spreading infection from one patient to another. - See more at: http://www.nursingcenter.com/lnc/static?pageid=811924#sthash.JIf2nNGb.dpuf
  a health care-acquired infection (HAI) or inadvertently spreading infection from one patient to another. - See more at: http://www.nursingcenter.com/lnc/static?pageid=811924#sthash.JIf2nNGb.dpuf

Blog 15: Independent Component 2 Approval

1.  Describe in detail what you plan to do for your 30 hours.

• For my 30 hours I planning to volunteer at the school's spring blood drive. Continue to volunteer at my mentorship and try to got their on Fridays and Saturdays for more than 3 hours. 

2.  Discuss how or what you will do to meet the expectation of showing 30 hours of evidence.

• I'll take pictures of me volunteering at the red cross and at me mentorship.

3.  Explain how this component will help you explore your topic in more depth.

• This component will allow me get more hands on work, interacting with nurses and other volunteers when I join and volunteer at the Red Cross. At my mentorship they are restructuring the volunteer program so I will more than helping in the nurses stations but I will be doing more interactions with patients like clear off patient’s tray table before breakfast, lunch, and dinner to ease the process of meal tray delivery, transport patients requiring feeding assistance to and from the day room before and after breakfast, lunch, and dinner, ensure patient’s water is filled, and provide any other tasks within their knowledge base.

4.  Post a log in your Senior Project Hours link and label it "Independent Component 2" log.
Senior Project Hours

Independent Component 1

Literal  

• (a) I, Adriane Parale affirm that I completed my independent component which represents 33 hours of work.

•  (b)       

• Ballard, Karen A. "Patient Safety: A Shared Responsibility." Online Journal of Issues in Nursing 8.3 (2003): Manuscript 4. Nursing World. Web. 03 Sept. 2003.
• "The Future of Nursing: Focus on Education." Institute of Medicine of the National Academies. National Academy of Science, 10 Feb. 2011. Web. 21 Aug. 2014.
• Ishan Mesa, nurse at Casa Colina
• Nurses: If Florence Can See Us Now (Documentary)  

• (c)Senior Log

• (d) To complete my 30 hours from my independent component 1, I attended Casa Colina every Saturday and threw November break for 2-3 hours a day. At times I would do rounds, which is I would go to each patient room and see if the need of any assistance. Sometimes I would go to each patient's room and see if the glove compartment is full with each size or do paper work and put incoming admins charts together. Also I watched a documentary on the foundation of nursing.  

INTERPRETIVE 

A film the gives a point of view of nurses across the country about nursing.  

I helped reorganized each nursing binder and threw away old paperwork.

2014 Annual Skills Day

APPLIED

This component helped me understand the foundation of being a nurse because it showed me that communication and interaction with patients is one of the keys in this profession. The film Nurse: If Florence Could See Us Now helped me understand a rare look into the complex, exciting and challenging world of being a nurse. Also volunteering at a hospital helped me understand that nursing is so important because people need to be nurtured and be supported throughout their treatment and stay at the hospital. 

January Post

This month all I did is go to mentorship and do the same thing, filing papers and help out patients that need in some assistance. If finished my 50 hours and my independent component last week. While doing my independent component, I've learned that it's important that nurses have to properly put on their PPE (Personal Protection Equipment) when it comes to taking care of patients with an infection.

Blog 13: Lesson 2 Reflection

1.What are you most proud of in your Lesson 2 Presentation and why?

• I am proud that I said a lot of my information about my answer and that my activity was fun for the class because I think the information helped them understand why my answer is my 1st answer.

2. a.     What assessment would you give yourself on your Lesson 2 Presentation (self-assessment)?
       AE       P          AP       CR       NC

•      P/AE

     b.     Explain why you deserve that grade using evidence from the Lesson 2 component contract.

• Even though I seemed like I was too nervous and that I said "Umm" a lot I think deserve a P/AE because I met all the requirements, I said a lot of information about my answer and why it's important, and that my activity was very related to my answer 1.  

3. What worked for you in your Lesson 2?

• My activity was fun for the class and that I said what I needed to say about my answer and topic.

4. What didn't work? If you had a time machine, what would you have done differently to improve your Lesson 2?

• What didn't work is that I think I kept repeating myself a little bit and that I kept saying "Umm" a lot.

5. What do you think your answer #2 is going to be?

• I think my 2nd answer is going to one of the best ways for nurses to best protect themselves form infectious diseases is properly putting on PPE (Personal Protective Equipment).

Blog 12: Mentorship 10 hours check

1.   Where are you doing your mentorship?

• At Casa Colina Centers for Rehabilitation in La Verne  

 2.   Who is your contact?

•  Ishna S. Mesa 

3.   How many total hours have you done (total hours should be reflected in your mentorship log located on the right hand side of your blog like your WB)?

• 45 hours

4.   Summarize the 10 hours of service you did.

• I go to Casa Colina every Saturday and I would go to either the east or west nurses station and ask if they need any help with anything. Usually I would got make copies and make admission packets for incoming patients and go trough each paper and label them with the patients adressograph (sticker w patient info).  I also would walk around to the east and west wings of the hospital.  Go into rooms and ask if the patients are okay or need of help, sometimes I would make sure that the glove compartment in each room is full with each hand size (small, medium, and large). I would call the patient's nurse and help them if they need extra help.

Blog 11: Holiday Project Update

1.  It is important to consistently work on your senior project, whether it is break or we are in school.  What did you do over the break with your senior project?

• I think working on senior project consistently during break or went we are in school is important because the knowledge you gain from your senior project will help you explain the key points about your project. during break I've went to Casa Colina at least 2-3 times a week to gain more knowledge to answer my EQ and went to visit my mentor to see how she can help me find possible answers to my EQ. 

2.  What was the most important thing you learned from what you did, and why?  What was the source of what you learned?

• The most important thing I've learned is that nurses have to always make sure they properly put on their PPE (Personal Protective Equipment) on and always use hand hygiene as a daily routine when entering and leaving a room. 

3.  If you were going to do a 10 question interview on questions related to answers for your EQ, who would you talk to and why?

• If I had to do a 10 question interview that relates to the answers of my EQ, I would talk to my mentor Gloria because she has been working in the hospital for many years now and dealt with other nurses who also have encountered with patients with infectious diseases.