NRS 465 Benchmark – Professional Capstone and Practicum Reflective Journal – Topic 3
Students are required to submit reflective journal entries at specific points throughout the course. These reflective narratives help students identify important learning events that happen throughout the course and the practicum.
Write a reflective journal (250-500 words) to outline how your experience at your practicum site related to the following reflective questions:
- Reflect on your personal and professional values and your conscious and unconscious biases as they relate to your practicum site. Explain what steps you have taken, or will need to take, to become more aware of how these values and biases influence your interactions. How will values and biases impact your practice?
- Based on your own implicit biases, discuss the relationship that one’s culture and environment have on these biases. How has the environment you live and work in shaped your own implicit biases? Is the environment of your practicum site impacting your biases?
- How can self-reflection be used to help us exhibit ethical comportment and moral courage in decision making in our practice?
While APA style is not required for the body of this assignment, solid academic writing is expected. Read NRS 465 PICOT Question Development here.
This assignment uses a rubric. Please review the rubric prior to beginning the assignment to become familiar with the expectations for successful completion.
You are required to submit this assignment to LopesWrite. A link to the LopesWrite technical support articles is located in Class Resources if you need assistance.
Benchmark Information
This benchmark assignment assesses the following programmatic competencies:
RN-BSN
9.6: Integrate diversity, equity, and inclusion as core to one’s professional identity.
American Association of Colleges of Nursing Core Competencies for Professional Nursing Education This assignment aligns to AACN Core Competencies 9.5, 9.6, and 10.3
Professional Capstone and Practicum Reflective Journal – Topic 3 Example
Professional Practice
This week I met with my preceptor to create a PICOT question incorporating an evidence-based
nursing practice intervention with my preceptor. We discussed the issue of nurse turnover rates
and shortage and how we could apply nursing interventions. My plan promotes both patient and
nurse satisfaction since nurses working in good conditions will provide good patient centered
care.
Professional strengths and/or weaknesses
This week I realized that one of my weaknesses is understanding some of the center’s policies. I
have written a list of questions to ask my preceptor for when we review these guidelines
together. I hope this will help me with my career as a nurse in the future.
Inquiry into Current Practices
The PICOT question paper developed this week was a plan to improve the issues in the setting.
Nurse turnover is a significant problem in healthcare and can have many negative effects on
patient care. The three main reasons that contribute to the high nurse turnover experienced by
many organizations are work atmosphere, staffing challenges, or higher returns at another
hospital (Shaffer & Curtin, 2020).
Leadership
This week I demonstrated leadership by developing interventions based on feedback provided by
the nurses in the nursing center. I found this slightly challenging as I did not know the staff and
working conditions well, but my preceptor guided me through any questions I had. The objective
of nursing interventions is to improve nurses’ working conditions, prevent burnout and job
dissatisfaction, and ultimately improve patient care and increase nurses’ job satisfaction (Shaffer
& Curtin, 2020).
Additional Resources
Multiple resources and skills are required to influence outcomes in clinical situations.
Information resources such as journal articles and publications can be used to support evidencebased care and update my professional skills. I am confident in my abilities, skills, and
experience in using these resources and personal strengths to achieve optimal results in clinical
situations.
Health care delivery and clinical systems
Healthcare and clinical systems are composed of individuals and organizations that collaborate to
ensure the best care rendered to patients. It concentrates on patient flows as well as the
organization and delivery of all services dealing with the diagnosis and treatment of disease, or
the promotion, maintenance and restoration of health (Institute of Medicine, 2002). Many
patients need support in many ways to access healthcare in the clinical setting. As such, I have
had many opportunities to provide patients with access to multiple healthcare services.
References
Institute of Medicine (US) Committee on Assuring the Health of the Public in the 21st
Century. The Future of the Public’s Health in the 21st Century. Washington (DC): National
Academies Press (US); 2002. 5, The Health Care Delivery System. Available from:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK221227/
Shaffer, F. A., & Curtin, L. (2020). Nurse turnover: Understand it, reduce it. My
American Nurse, 15(8), 57-59.