Coronary Care Unit Lasting For Six Weeks †Myassignmenthelp.Com

Question: Discuss About The Coronary Care Unit Lasting For Six Weeks? Answer: Introduction As a student nurse, during my third year of study, I attended a placement at Sutherland hospital of Sydney, in the coronary care unit lasting for six weeks. It was my first placement in the coronary unit and therefore I had a mixture of reactions ranging from fear, anxiety, and happiness. During this period, I worked under the supervision of my personal mentor, Mr. Ben. More specifically, I was assigned to take care of an elderly man, Mr. Y, aged 83 years, suffering from embolic thrombosis and had undergone angioplasty. Mr. Y is a widower and has seven children to take care of, while he is employed in an unstable job. He lives with his children who are studying in boarding schools and for the past two years, he has been struggling with payment of school fees. On assessment, Mr. Y has a high fever, general body weakness, dizziness, High blood pressure (135/90), and the heart beat is high. As a student nurse, economy instructed to ensure that the patient took his medication correctly, took appropriate meals well and observed top level hygiene. In the initial days of my placement, the medications were given under close supervision from my supervisor. In most cases, a medication chart is provided in the patient's file and this is used for guiding in the doses and the frequency of drug administration (Winsett et al., 2016). In this reflection in action essay, the specific incident highlighted below was chosen because as a student nurse, I was able to determine my individual inadequacies as well as those of the registered nurses and other members of staff at the coronary care unit for the period of placement. Reflection in action One day, as we were taking care of Mr. Y, my mentor was called to assist another patient in the same coronary care unit. He thus asked me to continue giving care to Mr. Y as I waited for the registered nurse to come and see him for the first time that day. After about forty minutes, the registered nurse came from attending to another patient and asked me to feed Mr. Y. At this point, I was so confused and wondered how the feeding pattern and food composition of angioplasty patients should look like. At this time, the patient was complaining of lack of appetite, body weakness, and dizziness. Although I very well knew that the manner of handling such patients was dangerous, I remained silent. I decided to engage the patient to understand what he actually felt to eat so that we could make a special meal request from the hospital kitchen. Being a student nurse, I lacked enough courage and experience to seek guidance from the registered nurse. Moreover, I considered it already too late to raise an issue concerning the assigned task. This incident was so disturbing to me because when dealing with postoperative patients of the likes of Mr. Y, some food types can worsen their already weak immune system, such as those who have undergone angioplasty (Elbadawi et al., 2017). I was so intimidated by this occurrence business I expected that a registered nurse needed to tell me the exact nature of food as well as the frequency of feeding Mr. Y. I decided to engage the patient again by asking the patient to note the exact food that he wanted to eat. Still given this freedom, the patient insisted that he did not want to eat anything. I then asked him whether he would accept that I come up with a feeding or eating pattern which would be more appropriate for his condition, and he accepted. I proposed that the patient takes a certain amount of food, rests by taking a nap for twenty minutes and wakes up to resume eating and so on and so forth for one hour. When these approaches were suggested without success, I the registered nurse old Mr. Y that I would have to consult the registered nurse concerning the feeding pattern of the patients who have undergone angioplasty. The patient gladly accepted my proposal to talk to the registered nurse. At this point, I remained silent as and my mentor engaged in a lengthy discussion with the registered nurse. The registered nurse also said that if possible, Mr. Y would be fed using pipes into the nostrils (Rudd et al., 2013). This reflection in action made me as a student nurse to reflect critically on this situation and get the lessons that I need to learn as a professional. This will enable me to make informed decisions and avoid similar mistakes in future. Since I learned my weaknesses, I have also learned on how to convert them into strengths so that I may grow my confidence and communication in solving problems. Conclusion By taking active participation in the provision of care to Mr. Y in the coronary care unit during my placement, I have been able to learn how to offer care to coronary care patients. Moreover, the proper relationship between registered nurses and student nurses, and offering of selfless care to the patients has been emphasized. This is in terms of providing their views and feelings concerning patient care without any fear or intimidation and letting them express their opinions. Reference List Elbadawi, A., Ha, L.D., Abuzaid, A.S., Crimi, G., Azzouz, M.S., Lu, D.Y., Huang, C.C., Huang, P.H., Chen, J.W., Chen, T.J. and Lin, S.J., 2017. Coronary Artery management. Rudd, S., Demetriou, J.L. and Langley-Hobbs, S.J., 2013. Postoperative nursing care. Feline Soft Tissue and General Surgery E-Book, p.39. Winsett, R.P., Rottet, K., Schmitt, A., Wathen, E., Wilson, D. and Group, M.N.C.C., 2016. Medical surgical nurses describe missed nursing care tasksEvaluating our work environment. Applied Nursing Research, 32, pp.128-133.