CORRECTIONComplete ONE reflective clinical journal entry for each clinical day and put in the designated drop box. Your journal article MUST be attached to your assignment. Not submitting your artic

Running head: CLINICAL JOURNAL

Reflective Clinical Journal- #1

In this reflective journal, this writer would reflect on her clinical experience by describing the events that was noted. During clinical rotation with the correctional nurse, this student observed certain role the nurses played while they cared for their patients. This journal would also reflect on certain positive areas, knowledge gained, and the areas that were concerning. Finally, this writer would reflect on the research article that evaluating the ways of controlling tuberculosis in prison.

Identify the clinical experience and describe the events noting the 4 areas of community Health Nursing: Intake, Chronic Care, Medication Administration, and Episodic Care/Sick Call.

This writer was able to observe the intake, chronic care, medication administration, and episodic care process. The intake process involves the processing of a new inmate by the correctional officer. The correctional officer would ask them some set of questions about their physical health, mental health, and history of drug usage and then send the information to the correctional nurses. The correctional nurse then do a quick triage to identify the high risk patient such as those with history of drug usage so that they would be able to closely monitor for withdrawal symptoms.

The correctional nurse obtains a health record from an inmate’s primary care provider in other to have access to the medication they are on and to ensure continuity of care. The inmate with history of chronic illness who requires chronic care are seen regularly by the correctional nurse and accessed based on their chronic disease. An example would be to ensure that those who have hypertension have their blood sugar monitored.

Medication administration occurs three times a day by the correctional nurse. The correctional nurse goes to administer the meds under a secured and monitored environment in other to ensure the safety of the nurses. The correctional nurse ensures the medication administered is swallowed prior to leaving.

This writer was fortunate to see a case of an acute asthmatic attack. The correctional nurse was promptly alerted to see this inmate. The inmate was accessed and then moved to the nursing unit for oxygen to be commenced as well as albuterol. The nurse monitored the inmate until he was stable enough with no difficulty breathing before discharging him back to the unit. This inmate was also educated on ways of avoiding predisposing factors.

What was Positive about this experience?

This writer learned a lot from observing the facility, the nurses, and the correctional officer. The correctional nurses treated the inmate who had the asthmatic attack with genuine care and kept observing him. The correctional nurse’s also responded promptly to an emergency case during this rotation.

What concerns can you identify about this experience?

This writer was concerned about the amount of time the correctional nurse had with each clients. The clients had little or no time to express themselves about their health issues making the quality of care delivered minimal. Another concern is the level of confidentiality. This writer felt like the inmates did not have their health information protected or private enough and seemed like the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) did not apply to the inmates.

How will today’s experience enhance your knowledge base?

This clinical rotation is the first time this writer was exposed to and learning about how health care is delivered in a correctional facility. The writer learned about ways to ensure and maintain safety in this environment and also learned about the management of an asthmatic attack. Finally, this writer gained knowledge about how the healthcare funding of inmate in a correctional facility.

Research Article

This writer’s research article is on healthy people 2020 and it’s effect on pediatric nurses (Meadows-Oliver & Allen, 2012). Healthy People 2020 are aimed at improving healthy living in the United State. Healthy people 2020 was released in December 2010 and focused on increasing the awareness of determinant of health and the improvement of research and the use of evidence based practices (Meadows-Oliver & Allen, 2012).

Several new topics were added to Healthy People 2020 to help achieve health equity and eliminate disparity among children and adolescent. Nurses should make it a goal to improve the health and safety of adolescent in other to prevent accidents and injury, which is known to be the highest killer of individual’s in this age group (Meadows-Oliver & Allen, 2012). According to the article, homicide, suicide, sexually transmitted infection, and unplanned pregnancy are health issues that are common in this group that should be addressed by a community health nurse.

While educating adolescent on healthier lifestyle it is important for a nurse to provide an environment of safety and trust in other for the adolescent to be comfortable and be able to open up to the nurse. The article by Meadows-Oliver and Allen (2012) showed a study on adolescents about what they felt about how to improve health and wellness in them and concluded that adolescent viewed attitude, confidentiality, and good communication skills as the key to reach out to adolescent.

In other for Healthy People 2020 to meet the objective the community must be involved. A nurse must be aware of this and thus encourage community involvement in other to achieve this goal. In addition to this, a nurse must also set a goal and objectives that must be followed and measured with a specific time frame for Healthy People 2020 to be a reality.

Conclusion

In summary, this writer did a reflection journal on her first clinical experience in public health. This writer was able to gain from this experience and believes that this would be useful during her nursing career. Finally, this writer is opened to learning more about public and community health nursing during the next clinical day.

References

Meadows-Oliver, M., & Allen, P. L. J. (2012). Healthy People 2020: Implications for Pediatric Nurses. Pediatric Nursing, 38(2), 101–105. Retrieved from http://ezproxy.rasmussen.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=rzh&AN=104551980&site=eds-live