Clinical Experience Review
My clinical experience includes diverse patient encounters. While practicing family medicine, I had an opportunity to observe some cases of hypertension, hyperlipidemia, diabetes, ADHD, COPD, STD’s, skin diseases, depression, anxiety, and chronic back pain among adult patients aged from 23 to 92. Moreover, I encountered children aged 4-12 with cases of allergy, cough, and some with otitis media. The office is also contracted by a high school located in the neighborhood and provides sports physical examinations for the students. Consequently, there are many adolescents aged 15-17 who come to the office for sports physical. I have experience of several pap smears, wound care, and cerumen removal. Also, I provided much counseling about smoking, alcohol, and illegal drugs as well as health education interventions regarding weight loss, diabetic diet, cardiac diet, exercise, and blood pressure monitoring. We also provided education interventions about the significance of vaccinations and self-breast and prostate examination.
Still, I believe I have certain gaps in pediatric care on the whole and children under the age of 5 in particular as well as women’s health. Thus, I am planning to find another site for my practice to gain more experience in women’s health and pediatric primary care. After that, I am planning to have two more rotations within family medicine, which will allow me to excel in my practical skills (“Excelling during your nursing clinical rotations,” 2017).
I suppose I have progressed significantly throughout the practicum. One of my goals was to be able to complete patient history and conduct a physical examination within 30 minutes or less. Due to the improvement of practical skills obtained during my practicum, this goal was achieved. Also, I aimed to be able to explain the patient with multiple chief complains the necessity to prioritize the complaints. Initially, I had problems with telling the patient that I can address one important complaint per visit to provide high-quality care and less significant problems can be addressed during the following appointments. Currently, I have improved my communicative skills, but the final goal is not achieved yet. In my future practicums, I am planning to eliminate this problem through continuous practicing.
Finally, I suppose I have some weaknesses in the areas of my practice. Thus, I am not enough experienced in the identification of skin rashes, and this part of medical practice is very difficult for me. To address this weakness, I will use the following plan. First of all, I need to improve my theoretical knowledge about rashes, which can be achieved by reading research literature and appropriate textbooks. Secondly, I need more practical application of theoretical knowledge about rashes. To complete this step of my plan, I will find a site for my practice in the area of dermatology. Another professional weakness that I have is completing patient history for small children because they cannot explain their symptoms and mothers frequently misinterpret information. To address this weakness, I need to practice more in pediatric primary care. One more area of weakness is completing histories on the whole because it takes much time. My plan is to practice in different clinical settings and shorten the time of completing the necessary documentation, which will increase my efficiency.
NONPF Core Competencies
I have already practiced in many clinical areas, but there is still much space for improvement. Speaking about the Population-focused nurse practitioner competencies (Thomas, 2013), I believe that I need more practice in pediatric primary care and women’s health. The course of family medicine allowed me to get acquainted with both of the identified competencies. Although I worked with adolescents aged 15-17 for their sports physical examinations and few children about four years old, it is an insufficient experience. Consequently, I would like to have a rotation at pediatrics site to work with all age groups of children and discover diverse health conditions. As for the women’s health, I practiced on some cases of the pap smear, STD’s, and heavy vaginal bleeding. To improve my practical skills and competence in this area, I would like to work with pregnant women.
References
Excelling during your nursing clinical rotations. (2017). Web.
Thomas, A. (2013). Population-focused nurse practitioner competencies. Web.