NRS-493 Professional Capstone and Practicum Reflective Journal – Topic 4

Students are required to submit weekly journal entries throughout the course. These reflective narratives help students identify important learning events that happen throughout the course and the practicum. In each week’s entry, students should reflect on the personal knowledge and skills gained.

Write a reflection journal (250-300 words) to outline what has been discovered about your professional practice, personal strengths and weaknesses, and additional resources that could be introduced in a given situation to influence optimal outcomes. Each week there will be a specific focus to use in your reflection. Integrate leadership and inquiry into the current practice. Please make sure to address all areas in your writing.

Topic Focus: Ethical Considerations in Health Care

While APA style is not required for the body of this assignment, solid academic writing is expected.

This assignment uses a rubric. Please review the rubric prior to beginning the assignment to become familiar with the expectations for successful completion.

You are required to submit this assignment to LopesWrite. A link to the LopesWrite technical support articles is located in Class Resources if you need assistance.

Sample Answer for NRS-493 Professional Capstone and Practicum Reflective Journal – Topic 4

Reflective Journal: Ethical Considerations in Health Care

In the fourth week, the focus of the practicum practice was on ethical considerations in health care. The health care delivery system is highly characterized by widespread clinical decision-making and judgment. Nonetheless, clinical decision-making and judgment are often marred by controversies. Therefore, it is necessary to have ethical standards to guide health care delivery and clinical judgment, and decision-making. The predominant ethical principles in the health care system include autonomy, justice, beneficence, and non-maleficence. These principles are crucial in dealing with ethical dilemmas that are widespread in nursing practice and also enable nurses to provide patient-centered care (Haahr et al., 2020). This practicum exposed the reality that the current health care provision is characterized by myriad ethical challenges. One of the outstanding ethical challenges is patient privacy and confidentiality. Clinicians are obligated to ensure patent privacy and confidentiality and contravening them is associated with serious legal and ethical implications. Also, orders such as do-not-resuscitate characterize ethical implications since nurses are ordered to stop cardiopulmonary resuscitation immediately after the heart of a patient ceases beating (Curtis et al., 2020). Other ethical challenges include physician-assisted suicide, access to care, professional negligence, and malpractice incidences.

Ethical considerations are also critical considerations in health care research.  Health care researchers have a responsibility to take into consideration ethical needs when conducting research. The common ethical considerations in nursing research include ensuring the safety of patients, obtaining informed consent from the participants, ensuring voluntary participation in the study, and upholding privacy and confidentiality (Zolkefli, 2021). Taken together, clinical judgment and decision-making require ethical considerations. Therefore, nurses and other clinicians should always strive to adhere to ethical needs. Ethical practice is necessary for guiding clinical practice and in the efforts to transform the health care delivery system.

References

Curtis, J. R., Kross, E. K., & Stapleton, R. D. (2020). The importance of addressing advance care planning and decisions about do-not-resuscitate orders during novel coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19). Jama, 323(18), 1771-1772. doi:10.1001/jama.2020.4894

Haahr, A., Norlyk, A., Martinsen, B., & Dreyer, P. (2020). Nurses’ experiences of ethical dilemmas: A review. Nursing Ethics, 27(1), 258-272. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0969733019832941

Zolkefli, Y. (2021). Ethical Considerations in Nursing Research. International Journal of Care Scholars, 4(Supplementary 1), 101-102. https://doi.org/10.31436/ijcs.v4iSupplementary%201.198

Sample Answer 2 for NRS-493 Professional Capstone and Practicum Reflective Journal – Topic 4

As a student in Master of Science in nursing program, I have learned that there is always room for growth and development in my professional practice. Through the studies, I have gained knowledge on the new practice approaches that could positively impact patient treatment outcomes. The above approaches involves incorporating leadership and inquiry into my current practice, application of evidence-based practices, as well as seeking out further resources (Moore et al., 2020).

Regarding my personal attributes, I think that my capacity for multidisciplinary teamwork and my effective communication abilities have served me well in my work. I am aware, though, that I can still do better when it comes to problem-solving and critical thinking. I want to look for chances for continuous education and engage in reflective practices that push me to think creatively in order to overcome this deficit (Slightam et al., 2020).

Promoting the best patient outcomes requires integrating leadership and investigation into my work (Stadick, 2020). I can promote change and progress as a nurse leader by searching out evidence-based practices and actively learning new things. I can influence favorable outcomes for my patients and the healthcare system as a whole by putting these principles to use and incorporating the findings into my everyday work.

In conclusion, my journey as a Master of Science in nursing student has taught me the importance of seeking out new and innovative approaches to improve my professional practice. I recognize that there is always room for growth and improvement, and I am committed to utilizing my strengths and seeking out additional resources to drive optimal patient outcomes. Through leadership and inquiry, I am confident that I can make a positive impact in my practice and the lives of my patients.

References

Moore, S., Roche, J., Bell, L., & Neenan, E. E. (2020). Supporting facilitators of maker activities through reflective practice. Journal of Museum Education, 45(1), 99-107. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10598650.2019.1710688

Slightam, C., Gregory, A. J., Hu, J., Jacobs, J., Gurmessa, T., Kimerling, R., … & Zulman, D. M. (2020). Patient perceptions of video visits using veterans affairs telehealth tablets: survey study. Journal of medical Internet research, 22(4), e15682. https://www.jmir.org/2020/4/e15682/

Stadick, J. L. (2020). Understanding health care professionals’ attitudes towards working in teams and interprofessional collaborative competencies: A mixed methods analysis. Journal of Interprofessional Education & Practice, 21, 100370. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2405452620300501

Sample Answer 3 for NRS-493 Professional Capstone and Practicum Reflective Journal – Topic 4

The health care provision highly depends on clinical judgment and decision, which are often marred with controversies. As such, the practicum experience this week on ethical considerations in health care was critical in creating awareness that a nurse must always be guided by ethical standards when providing care. The fundamental ethical principles in health care include justice, autonomy, non-maleficence, and beneficence (Haddad & Geiger, 2018). These principles are critical in dealing with rampant ethical challenges in health care system and allowing nurses to involve their patients in their care process. I have realized that nurses often faced with different ethical barriers when making clinical judgment and decisions (Clark, 2017). For instance, nurses sometimes struggle with situations where they either need to be honest or withhold medical information from the ailing patient and their families to protect their emotions. Moreover, do-not-resuscitate order poses great ethical challenges to nurses where they face dilemma on whether or not they should stop carrying out cardiopulmonary resuscitation once the heart of a patient stops beating. Other widespread ethical challenges in nursing include malpractice incidences, physician-assisted suicide, privacy and confidentiality breach, access to care, and negligence (LoBiondo-Wood & Haber, 2021).

Ethical considerations also heavily apply in nursing research. Therefore, it is important for nursing researchers to consider ethical needs when carrying out research. The common ethical considerations in nursing research include causing no harm to participants, ensuring confidentiality and privacy of participants, seeking informed consent, and ensuring voluntary participation. Taken together, nursing clinical judgments and decisions heavily depend on ethics (LoBiondo-Wood & Haber, 2021). Therefore, it is proper for nursing staff and other health care workforce to ensure greater adherence to ethical needs. Ensuring ethical requirements in clinical practice is crucial in directing the clinical practice and also having greater influence in wider health care transformation.

References

Clark, C. M. (2017). An evidence-based approach to integrate civility, professionalism, and ethical practice into nursing curricula. Nurse Educator, 42(3), 120-126. doi: 10.1097/NNE.0000000000000331

Haddad, L. M., & Geiger, R. A. (2018). Nursing ethical considerations. In: StatPearls

LoBiondo-Wood, G., & Haber, J. (2021). Nursing Research E-Book: Methods and Critical Appraisal for Evidence-Based Practice. Elsevier Health Sciences.

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The university’s policy on late assignments is 10% penalty PER DAY LATE. This also applies to late DQ replies.

Please communicate with me if you anticipate having to submit an assignment late. I am happy to be flexible, with advance notice. We may be able to work out an extension based on extenuating circumstances.

If you do not communicate with me before submitting an assignment late, the GCU late policy will be in effect.

I do not accept assignments that are two or more weeks late unless we have worked out an extension.

As per policy, no assignments are accepted after the last day of class. Any assignment submitted after midnight on the last day of class will not be accepted for grading.

Communication

Communication is so very important. There are multiple ways to communicate with me:

Questions to Instructor Forum: This is a great place to ask course content or assignment questions. If you have a question, there is a good chance one of your peers does as well. This is a public forum for the class.

Individual Forum: This is a private forum to ask me questions or send me messages. This will be checked at least once every 24 hours.

Important information for writing discussion questions and participation

Welcome to class

Hello class and welcome to the class and I will be your instructor for this course. This is a -week course and requires a lot of time commitment, organization, and a high level of dedication. Please use the class syllabus to guide you through all the assignments required for the course. I have also attached the classroom policies to this announcement to know your expectations for this course. Please review this document carefully and ask me any questions if you do. You could email me at any time or send me a message via the “message” icon in halo if you need to contact me. I check my email regularly, so you should get a response within 24 hours. If you have not heard from me within 24 hours and need to contact me urgently, please send a follow up text to

I strongly encourage that you do not wait until the very last minute to complete your assignments. Your assignments in weeks 4 and 5 require early planning as you would need to present a teaching plan and interview a community health provider. I advise you look at the requirements for these assignments at the beginning of the course and plan accordingly. I have posted the YouTube link that explains all the class assignments in detail. It is required that you watch this 32-minute video as the assignments from week 3 through 5 require that you follow the instructions to the letter to succeed. Failure to complete these assignments according to instructions might lead to a zero. After watching the video, please schedule a one-on-one with me to discuss your topic for your project by the second week of class. Use this link to schedule a 15-minute session. Please, call me at the time of your appointment on my number. Please note that I will NOT call you.

Please, be advised I do NOT accept any assignments by email. If you are having technical issues with uploading an assignment, contact the technical department and inform me of the issue. If you have any issues that would prevent you from getting your assignments to me by the deadline, please inform me to request a possible extension. Note that working fulltime or overtime is no excuse for late assignments. There is a 5%-point deduction for every day your assignment is late. This only applies to approved extensions. Late assignments will not be accepted.

If you think you would be needing accommodations due to any reasons, please contact the appropriate department to request accommodations.

Plagiarism is highly prohibited. Please ensure you are citing your sources correctly using APA 7th edition. All assignments including discussion posts should be formatted in APA with the appropriate spacing, font, margin, and indents. Any papers not well formatted would be returned back to you, hence, I advise you review APA formatting style. I have attached a sample paper in APA format and will also post sample discussion responses in subsequent announcements.

Your initial discussion post should be a minimum of 200 words and response posts should be a minimum of 150 words. Be advised that I grade based on quality and not necessarily the number of words you post. A minimum of TWO references should be used for your initial post. For your response post, you do not need references as personal experiences would count as response posts. If you however cite anything from the literature for your response post, it is required that you cite your reference. You should include a minimum of THREE references for papers in this course. Please note that references should be no more than 5 years old except recommended as a resource for the class. Furthermore, for each discussion board question, you need ONE initial substantive response and TWO substantive responses to either your classmates or your instructor for a total of THREE responses. There are TWO discussion questions each week, hence, you need a total minimum of SIX discussion posts for each week. I usually post a discussion question each week. You could also respond to these as it would count towards your required SIX discussion posts for the week.

I understand this is a lot of information to cover in 5 weeks, however, the Bible says in Philippians 4:13 that we can do all things through Christ that strengthens us. Even in times like this, we are encouraged by God’s word that we have that ability in us to succeed with His strength. I pray that each and every one of you receives strength for this course and life generally as we navigate through this pandemic that is shaking our world today. Relax and enjoy the course!

Hi Class,

Please read through the following information on writing a Discussion question response and participation posts.

Contact me if you have any questions.

Important information on Writing a Discussion Question

• Your response needs to be a minimum of 150 words (not including your list of references)
• There needs to be at least TWO references with ONE being a peer reviewed professional journal article.
• Include in-text citations in your response
• Do not include quotes—instead summarize and paraphrase the information
• Follow APA-7th edition
• Points will be deducted if the above is not followed

Participation –replies to your classmates or instructor

• A minimum of 6 responses per week, on at least 3 days of the week.
• Each response needs at least ONE reference with citations—best if it is a peer reviewed journal article
• Each response needs to be at least 75 words in length (does not include your list of references)
• Responses need to be substantive by bringing information to the discussion or further enhance the discussion. Responses of “I agree” or “great post” does not count for the word count.
• Follow APA 7th edition
• Points will be deducted if the above is not followed
• Remember to use and follow APA-7th edition for all weekly assignments, discussion questions, and participation points.
• Here are some helpful links
• Student paper example
• Citing Sources
• The Writing Center is a great resource