Comportment

A: Accountability: One of the basics of nursing principles that I’ve learned is accountability. I have demonstrated accountability when making clinical judgements and taking responsibility for my actions. While I am prepared and able to display clinical competence by preparing and completing brain sheets for each of clients, I still have much more improvements to make. One of the objectives for accountability is to demonstrate emotional well-being for self so I was able to do that. I believe by choosing to be sent home, I was also demonstrating accountability because I do not want to put any clients in an unsafe situation that could have possibly happened if I stayed. In turn, I diligently spent around 8 hours doing the ATI makeup assignment. In order to prevent future absences or tardiness, I will make sure to both take care of my emotional well-being so that I can be mentally prepared for clinical as well as time management. I hope to excel in this area by the final evaluation. 

B: Professional Identity: As a nursing student, I am continually learning to conduct myself in a professional manner. This is by wearing appropriate attire and by carrying myself with dignity, being compassionate and sensitive to other people’s situations, advocating for clients, teaching accurate material to the client, being able to delegate tasks, etc. Having professional integrity is important to me, meaning that as a student nurse, I will act with the basic nursing principles in mind both at work and outside of work. As students and future nurses, we are continuously learning and developing skills. I personally believe that self-reflection is crucial in improving myself as a person. Something that I want to improve is to become more confident and to speak louder, not just in clinicals but in general as well. While this is something that I am trying to work on, I have seen an improvement since the first semester. During my first semester, I was afraid to ask questions to my CI and I always kept to myself. Although I have a long way to go until my confidence goal, I feel more comfortable asking questions as well as doing skills, such as administering medications during clinicals. 

C. Advocacy: As a nurse, I should be continuously advocating for my clients because care should be client centered. Expressing humility and truthfulness are essential characteristics of a good nurse. One quote I have in my room is “Humility is not thinking less of yourself, but instead thinking of yourself less.” I want to demonstrate this behavior by constantly putting the clients before myself and being able to advocate for my clients no matter the situation. During clinicals, I have demonstrated advocacy by reviewing the medications, finding a mistake in a K-rider administration and notifying the doctor and nurse. I also make sure to review all the medication information on Micromedex as well as other reliable sources for dosage information, administration information, side effects, and any other pertinent information. I believe that I can work on my approach by seeing myself from the patient’s angle. I have also demonstrated patient advocacy by doing patient hand-offs/ SBAR to my peers and the nurses. I will also try to check on my clients once every half an hour to make sure they need something & offer myself to the client if they need assistance (ordering food, finding out when they will be discharged, etc.)

D. Legal-ethical:  As nurses we must always be on top of the standards of healthcare. For example, we must perform proper hygiene, promote a safe environment, maintain confidentiality of the client, and much more. Humility is what makes a person authentic and caring. We must be able to admit our mistakes at times and act with integrity by upholding the facility’s protocol and standards of care. I am maintaining the legal-ethical standards by performing the 5 Rights when administering medications and performing the “First 5” when entering a room. 

E. Leadership-management:  During this semester, I have seen an improvement in my leadership-management skills from the previous semesters as well as improvement as the weeks progress. Before clinicals begin, I make sure to have a general plan of action for client care. For example, I will go find my assigned nurse, receive a report, do assessments on my clients, look at their upcoming medications, then review the client’s chart. Sometimes my plan varies depending on the amount of medications, client necessities, and other factors. I have also demonstrated leadership-management by being a team leader. Some of the duties that come along with being a team leader include knowing the clients that my team have, being able to support my team when they need it, making a schedule of each team member’s medication administration time and making sure that they are efficiently time managing.