Musculoskeletal Self- Reflection PDF

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Musculoskeletal Self-Reflection...

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Module 6: Critical Analysis and Self Reflection University of North Alabama

In this essay, I will be self-reflecting on an advanced health assessment assignment. For this assignment, we had to complete an online, virtual patient experience through Shadow Health. The patient was a 28-year-old obese, African American, single, female (Tina Jones). She presented to the clinic complaining of lower back pain that began three days ago after she “tweaked it” while lifting a heavy box while helping a friend move. She states that she lifter several boxes before this event without incident and does not know the weight of the box that cause her pain. She describes the pain as a constant aching with stiffness, and does not radiate. Ms. Jones has taken over the counter ibuprofen tablets every 5-6 hours. Otherwise, Ms. Jones has not attempted in other treatment for her symptoms. She presents to the clinic as the pain has continued and has started interfering with her activities of daily living. As a healthcare provider, it was my job to educate and empathize with the patient. Additionally, I was to perform a thorough Musculoskeletal assessment on the patient and gather past medical history that was pertinent to the situation. During this assignment, I found it hard to remember everything that needs to be asked in order to obtain full background and medical history. Additionally, I also found it difficult to remember all the parts that go with a Musculoskeletal assessment. As a critical nurse, our assessment and interview that can be performed is very limited. Additionally, my patient population is critically ill. Majority of the time, the patient is intubated and sedated so communication with them is limited. Also, the types of assessments we are able to perform are usually very focused and limited due to the condition of the patient. Completing this assignment helped me realize just how much communication I lack from taking care of this population, and how necessary it is to possess good communication skills when working in other areas of the hospital or clinic setting. Only being allowed to attempt this assignment one time, I really had to slow down and think about each and every little detail that needed to be covered. For me personally, it was very easy to miss small steps. I found that once I would ask a certain question and was given a response by the patient, I did not follow up to dig deeper into that first question and find out all the details. As the weeks have passed and I have completed several of these assignments, I found that this was much clearer and I performed a lot better. Additionally, remember all of the assessment tools and how they are performed was a bit challenging. Assessments are a lot more in depth than what one would realize. It was very easy to skip an assessment piece or skip a step within a certain assessment. Overall, I think this assignment taught me a lot about communication skills and how important they are. For each patient population, the way you communicate and the style of communication changes. This assignment definitely made that clearer for me. Additionally, it taught me how important a thorough assessment/exam is and how important it is not to miss or leave any steps out. All in all, I found this assignment to be very helpful and beneficial. Not

only do I hope to improve going forward on future assignments, I also hope to improve my communication and assessment skills in the real clinical setting....