The Challenges That You Anticipate During Nursing School

The Nursing Outlook is the official journal of the American Academy of Nursing. This journal helps to provide nurses with current information through education, research, and practice guidelines. As nurses, it is important to stay up to date with relevant information to provide the best patient care. The more educated nurses are, the better they are at relaying information and working this information into their practices.

A recent research article titled, benefits and adverse effects of cannabis use among adults with persistent pain, dives in to the effects of cannabis use for pain management now that more states are legalizing it. Pain management is relevant to most patients in the healthcare setting, which is typically treated with opioid analgesics. While patients are able to rate their pain on a numeric scale, health care professionals do not truly know what kind of pain a patient is experiencing. This study was composed of 150 people over the age of 18 who were taking opioids for pain management. Participants were encouraged to share both their negative and positive feedback in relation to using cannabis. There were positive reports stating that cannabis helped participants fall asleep and stay asleep and not experience muscle spasms throughout the day. On the other hand, participants negatively reported fatigue carried in to the following day or weight gain. This study reported while there are benefits to cannabis use for pain, there are also a few downfalls (Bigand, Volume 67, Issue 3, p 223-231). It is important that nurses are aware of the effects of cannabis use, it is helpful in providing better patient education.

While doing clinical, or even working in a nursing home, it is clear to see that a lot of the patients are very dependent on the help of others for their care. Sometimes the care of the older demographic can be overlooked. While all ages are at risk during the even of a natural disaster, the elderly is the most vulnerable. Facilities may think they are prepared for a natural disaster, until it really comes down to it. In the article, disaster preparedness for older adults, they discuss policies for improving disaster preparation and response. Within the article, it is recommended that assisted living and nursing home facilities should have uniform preparedness plans and oversight, mandatory back up generation, and high priority for power restoration by local companies (Spurlock, Volume 67, Issue 1, p 118-121) Having policies as such will make employees and residents more aware during disasters, hopefully leading to better outcomes. Articles as such can be used as reference for facilities to model their practices and policies after. No matter where you work, it is important to have full understanding of policies in place and to ask questions when necessary. Acquiring this knowledge, though it hopefully will never have to be used, will be helpful in reducing risks and maintaining patient safety.

Throughout nursing school and beyond nurses are overwhelmed with the idea that practice makes perfect. In the educational article, practice makes perfect (or does it), they talk about clinical skills in relation to nursing school and actual nursing practice. While schools do have a clinical aspect and push the idea of patient centered care programs, but what truly counts as practice? During nursing school students learn plenty of skills that they are able to practice on mannequins and real patients in the clinical setting, but how much practice is enough (Broome, Volume 67, Issue 3, p 207-208)? This article has the reader wondering, do schools allow for enough time to learn skills? Are skills taught effectively? Are skills practices properly? During my personal experiences during school clinicals, we were unable to do tasks unless an instructor was present, otherwise we were watching nurses do the tasks. Many times I would hear nurses say, you don't learn until you're on the job and doing it or you won’t feel ready right out of nursing school. Patient care and safety are the most important, nurses should have more than a general idea on how to do a skill, instead of making mistakes on patients. While all the book work during nursing school is important, a lot of students will take away more lessons when learning hands on and doing the task.

The health care field is ever growing and changing, it is important that nurses continue to grow their education and knowledge when out in the field. Having the mindset of when school stops education stops, will not provide patients with up to date care. We see nurses who have been practicing for decades sticking to doing things the way they first learned them because that is how they were originally taught, but what if that’s not the best for the patient? Nurses, and all health care professionals for that matter should be open to continually learning new things for the benefit of their patients, whether it be education, skills, or policy changes.

Reference

1. Bigand, T. L. (2019). Cannabis Use and Cognition in Adults Prescribed Opioids for Persistent Pain. Pain Management Nursing, 223–231. doi: 10.1016/j.pmn.2019.06.014
2. Broome, M. E. (2019). Practice Makes Perfect (or Does It). Nursing Outlook, 67(3), 207–208. doi: 10.1016/j.outlook.2019.04.003
3. National League for Nursing, & American Academy of Nursing. (1953). Nursing outlook. (1953). Retrieved September 21, 2019
4. Spurlock, W. R., Rose, K., Veenema, T. G., Sinha, S. K., Gray-Miceli, D., Hitchman, S., … Miller, E. T. (2019). American Academy of Nursing on Policy position statement: Disaster preparedness for older adults. Nursing Outlook, 67(1), 118–121. doi: 10.1016/j.outlook.2018.12.002