As Gerontology comes to an end, I find myself reflecting on the new things I have learned this semester regarding the older population. One of the first things I remember realizing in this course was society’s negative views of the older population and how it can sometimes impact how we treat them without us being aware. Things like holding doors or helping someone older can be seen as giving into learned helplessness in which I had never stepped back to…
nursing career? After interviewing my mother, who has been a Labor and Delivery nurse for over 20 years, I feel that I have more insight into the importance and stress that comes along with a leadership position. What started off as a conversation regarding her leadership roles and resources quickly turned into the struggles of being a charge nurse and how to deal with such. She mentioned how even if she is assigned as charge nurse, she is not necessarily…
Throughout one’s life, we encounter multiple leaders whether they be formal or informal. For some it may be a teacher, manager, or a coworker, in which they have a way of influencing decisions and providing guidance that carries with us throughout our lives. For me, one of the biggest leaders in nursing school has been my mother. My mom has been a Labor and Delivery Nurse for over 20 years and even periodically has been the charge nurse at some…
The nurse plays a significant role in the event of a disaster. Whether this be a storm or a pandemic, as health care workers we play an important role in maintaining the health and safety of our patients and community. First off, if the nurse is on call or currently at work then it is a priority for them to keep their patient’s safe as well as themselves. They can do this by following disaster protocols set in place by the…
Throughout clinical, I had many patient encounters that made me think about community and public health systems. However, one specific encounter I had with a patient in the previous spring semester came to mind when reflecting on health disparities in the community. They were an IV drug user with a diagnosis of discitis which involves inflammation of a portion of the spine. This tends to be a common with IV drug users in which an infected needle can cause inflammation…
There comes a time in a patient with a chronic disease’s life where each day brings new pain and new struggles to the point where they barely feel like themselves. Though there is always the option for comfort measures or hospice care, there is another approach in some states that patients can take. Death with dignity allows patients with a limited prognosis to make the option to cut their suffering short in which the patient can take a medication that…
During this podcast, Elizabeth Walsh and I discuss the oppression of the older generation and some of the health issues and ethical dilemmas this generation faces. Click below to hear about what we discovered regarding this topic: The Elderly Population and Health Care: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1884868/episodes/9514467
The stigma around mental illness is primarily rooted in the views of society. Public stigma focuses on the stereotype that anyone with a mental illness is incompetent, weak, or simply crazy. Though this is not true about individuals with mental illness it does cause people to often be dishonest about their feelings or thoughts in which they are afraid of facing this public stigma and the label of being mentally ill within society. The reason I believe there is so…
