Professional Capstone and Practicum Reflective Journal

NRS 490 Canyon Week 10 Assignment

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Learning the Professional Capstone and Practicum Course was an involving experience in an actual medical facility. It was an involvement that brought to the ground a way to learn new practice approaches, collaboration between different professions, measures of healthcare delivery, policies population concerns and more so, ethical considerationsinvolved. The National Cancer Registrars Association (NCRA), defines a practicum course as an all involving course that allows students to have contact with healthcare providers giving them a work experience (NCRA, 2013). A practicum course is therefore about understanding the requirements of practice as clinical doctors. Evaluating from self, one can be able to identify areas of strength and in the same measure, areas of weaknesses. The Professional Capstone and Practicum Course is a satisfactory factor that ensures the refinement of successful health practitioners.

From an experience-oriented location, new approaches were learnt from the Capstone and Practicum course. These approaches tend to have asimilar line of thought. Making a cultural shift is one of the very goals of the course. The course also inclines towards the development of another attitude which teaches the skill of lifelong learning. In a deeper exposition, the new approaches turn a person from the normal man that was culturally or cognitively biased, to a man that considers all patients equal (Crump & Sugarman, 2008). Since the basic goal is to improve standards of healthcare workers, the practice seeks to teach a number of skills. These skills range from technical approaches such as clinical examination, non-technical approaches such as team-working and also cognitive skills such as reasoning out lab results and judgement (Tucker, Nembhard & Edmondson, 2007). From this experience, these approaches are learnt giving one the skill of a health practitioner.

A health facility involves various kinds of professionals. Therefore, professional collaboration is one of the most considerable factors if the facility has to stand. The practicum course unveiled a way to ensure that one has the skill to engage these individuals in a manner that is professional and also ethical to avoid conflicts. The involved professionals range from nurses, clinical officers, doctors, pharmacists among others. Given that each of these professionals has a role in treating the patients, acollaboration of all of them has to be maintained (Spurgeon, Clark & Ham, 2011). This is through enhancement of communication channels, with mutual respect being the core idea. In addition, the communication channel has to be effective to ensure a smooth and quick collaboration in case of emergencies.

Ethical considerations in healthcare are also an important factor that determines how a health facility is run. Such considerations range from balancing the quality of patient care and the efficiency of the services, building and sustaining the healthcare workforce, addressing issues of death among many others. Every decision made in a healthcare facility has its ethical implications. The Practicum course, therefore, engages a high level of concern in teaching interns concerning the need to maintain and uphold such considerations. First, it stresses on the implications of unhealthy ethical practices (Crump & Sugarman, 2008). It then goes a notch higher and teaches on how to ensure that every decision made is ethical. The basic line of the practicum course in matters of ethics is ensuring that patients are served in the right manner, and sensitive matters are addressed to them in a humane way.

The case of health is however not purely about treating patients alone. It is about ensuring that there exists a stable leadership that can oversee all medical operations perform actively. The issue of medical leadership was, therefore, a core lesson learnt from the facility. Leaders ought to maintain respect for their juniors. The junior medical practitioners are also expected to run the facility as outlined by the management upon a collective agreement (Spurgeon, Clark & Ham, 2011). Basically, economic models do not extensively determine how a health facility is run given that professionalism is the commanding practice.

From the point ofself-evaluation, I was able to evaluate, my abilities, strengths, and weaknesses from experience. First, I have been able to instrumentally adapt to the clinical practices. Whereas I have not been able to wholesomely shift my mind from a cultural approach while viewing patients; I realize that I view all patients equally. With the approach, serving different patients was equally the same. My ability also extends to ethical decision making. The practicum course gave me a chance for self-evaluation concerning ethical decision making, whereby I realized that I am equally strong. For instance, I was able to effectively use the evidence based approach effectively and also contain sensitive patient information.

However, inasmuch strengths were noted, a few weaknesses also erupted. A dire need for improvement in non-technical skills such as communication with different specialists and patients is inevitable given the poor communication ability. The need to cope up with the leadership of the health facility is also essential given that I was at times resistant while assigned to specific areas. Having located these weaknesses was a milestone as it provides a chance to recover and improve instrumentally.

Conclusively, the Professional Capstone and Practicum course were an experience of its own kind. It allowed a smooth process of actively learning the skill at a health facility. New skills were learnt, and learnt skills were put into practice (NCRA, 2013). It was also a proper way to locate and evaluate points of weaknesses for the case of future improvement. It is, therefore, a generally good process for making active and all-around health practitioners.

References

Crump, J. A., & Sugarman, J. (2008). Ethical considerations for short-term experiences by trainees in global health. JAMA300(12), 1456-1458.

National Cancer Registrars Association (NCRA). (2013). Professional practicum/clinical Practicum requirement.

Spurgeon, P., Clark, J., & Ham, C. (2011). Medical leadership: from the dark side to centre stage. Radcliffe Publishing Ltd.

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