This week at the Methodist Hospital, I was assigned to the geriatric floor. I had heard good things about this floor from peers, so I was excited to go to this floor. We have worked a lot with geriatric patients in the nursing home at Remarkable, but never with any that had any mental disorders aside from perhaps depression, anxiety, and dementia. However, Today my knowledge about growth & development helped me when speaking to and taking care of the patient’s on this floor. I knew from previous knowledge about growth and development that these patients would perhaps have other and/or multiple health problems (thus polypharmacy may be common), they may be fall risks patients, may have trouble ambulating/ transferring, may be on oxygen, may sleep a lot throughout the day, may be hard of hearing, and may suffer from urinary incontinence. Once hearing report from the night shift to day nurse, I immediately realized that they focused a lot on things I previously mentioned such as: whether the patient was a fall risks, what other medical problems the patient had, whether they were hard of hearing, incontinent, on oxygen, etc. It was nice to be able to hear report from these nurses, because it helped put my prior knowledge of growth and development more into perspective. However, I still feel like a lot of these nurses forget that these patients are people with families who deserve respect and to be treated and advocated for accordingly. For example, the nurse passing medications would often neglect the concerns of the elderly patient just because she thought he was “complaining” and that it wasn’t anything to be concerned about. Even though older patients are more prone to have stomach pains due to age, other medical conditions, etc., their complaint of pain should still be taken seriously and not be neglected. Their denial of medications and request for a different medication that doesn’t make them sick, should also be considered important and should not be neglected. Unfortunately, I think that the neglect of older adults is something that is becoming more common. I’m glad that the Methodist hospital is implementing measures to ensure the safety of the older adult that may be neglected with their new fall risk protocol. These patient’s may not always be in their state of mind, so implementing something like this is highly important. However, I think the implementing of this new protocol goes to show how something had to be implemented perhaps due to previous neglect of fall risk patients. The entire day, I could just hear the nurses and techs complaining about this new bed and chair alarms implemented within the new protocol, but not once did I hear them mention how beneficial this would be for the patient. As a nursing student who always keeps what they’ve learned in lecture in mind, I could only see how beneficial this new protocol was for the safety of the patient. I wish that these nurses and techs would view this new protocol the same way, because their negative mindset may lead further neglect of the elderly due to perhaps eventually just neglecting this new important protocol.
Hearing the nurses and techs complain about the patient and neglect their concerns for pain and different medication needs, made me feel sad and concerned for the patient’s health. At the time, I was even thinking about how I should perhaps eventually work with geriatric or mental health patients so that I can be the nurse that these patients’ need that actually treats and advocates for this vulnerable population using proper evidenced base practice. Moreover, I handled these negative comments made by the nurses and techs as a way to just reflect on ways that I would not want to treat or talk about my patient. Through this experience, I learned that not all nurses or health care personnel may use evidence based practice or advocate for the patient, but that, that doesn’t mean you have to start using practices that aren’t correct just because others are using malpractice. I think this is a hard thing to realize for many new grads because they may feel obligated to change their practice techniques to the norm of the facility they may be placed in. However, using my prior knowledge about growth and development and learning about proper nursing practices throughout the nursing program, has allowed me to see that this vulnerable population should be treated and advocated for regardless of what other nurses are doing. In a way, this experience has highlighted what I have heard previously about how mental health nurses “don’t do anything” or often “neglect their patient” or use “malpractice”. I’m hoping that not all nurses are like this, but from what I have been seeing in clinical recently, it seems that in this facility the nurses are not any different from the assumptions that I have heard.
When looking back at this experience, I realize even more now that nursing is the profession I truly want to be in. I want to be the type of nurse that those nurses are not- an advocate, someone who will genuinely care and listen to the patient’s needs, and not ever neglect them. This experience has taught me to not fall into the stereotypes of nurses who use malpractice or feel pressured to use malpractice techniques just because other nurses may be doing so. I am glad that we are learning about growth and development and ways to use this knowledge into our practices, because this will help me be able to take care of multiple types of patient’s across the age-span by knowing how their specific needs may differ. Regardless of the different needs they may require, I will always remember that all patients, no matter what developmental level or age they may be, deserve respect and deserve to be advocated for.
I will use this knowledge that I have gained while in nursing school and throughout this clinical experience, to ensure that I provide appropriate care based on evidenced based practice. I will not neglect my patient’s needs or think that new hospital protocol’s aren’t being implementing without a bigger purpose for the patient’s safety. I will take my future job seriously as well as any protocol that’s implemented in order to ensure safe, respectful, and caring patient care. When a circumstance like this occurs again, I will try using this experience as a way to learn what not to do, and simply inform my clinical instructor about these malpractices. I wish that I could do more to advocate for these patients, but all I can do is make comments about the importance of listening to the patient and their safety to these nurses and techs and hope that they take what I say into consideration, without thinking that I’m stepping on their toes. This experience will definitely alter my future career practice by reminding me of the nurse and patient advocate I wish to be.