This week at the Methodist Hospital I went to ECT and was then placed on the geriatric floor. At first, I did not believe in patient’s receiving ECT and was unsure how watching this treatment would make me feel. Thus, it was astonishing for me to hear from the Tech’s about how often ECT is used in this hospital as a method of treatment. I thought of it as a treatment that looked as if it harmed patient’s more than helped them just because of my previous bias from watching them being done in movies. However, today I felt my greatest accomplishment was keeping an open mind regarding treatments and other non-pharmaceutical interventions used to help treat patients.
After seeing the ECT treatment being done, I felt a lot better about the process that goes into conducting this type of treatment. Now I understand why some patient’s I had spoken to before looked forward to their ECT treatments. I have learned throughout nursing school that this treatment is very helpful and effective in treating depression. Although I did not believe in using this method of treatment prior to seeing them being done, I now know that I should keep an open mind about different methods of treatments or interventions used within the health care field. For example, some people may not think meditating and yoga are helpful forms of therapy/interventions, especially those in a medical field which are adamant believers in drug therapy as being more beneficial. I am glad that I have learned in class that non-pharmaceutical interventions may also be effective in treating patients. When my peers and I heard that the patient’s in the geriatric floor would be doing chair yoga today, it made me intrigued at how this intervention could help patients. However, it made my peers laugh at the thought of this treatment and initially ignore the instructor and rudely play games while she was teaching. This situation made me feel rather disappointed in my peers for rudely undermining this form of therapy and disrespecting the instructor by loudly playing board games while she tried getting everyone else to actively participate. Although I wanted to just go tell my peers to stop playing and to take this therapy session seriously, I decided to just ignore them and hope that the instructor would tell them something so that I did not bring attention to myself or distract the other participants. Luckily, the instructor finally told my peers to please encourage others to participate and to join the rest of the group, so they stopped playing. I was glad that the instructor brought their disrespect to attention. Unfortunately, this situation made me quite frustrated because although my peers initially did not see this form of therapy as beneficial, they could have actively participated from the beginning so that they could set a good example to other group members. I am glad that I have learned in class that all forms of treatments and therapies should be taken seriously and that one must keep an open mind to different interventions that could potentially work for patients. Thus, one should keep an open mind to a patient wanting ECT or a patient wanting to participate in meditating or doing yoga, because this treatment may work for them even if you personally may have negative biases towards them.
This event has impacted me by showing me that one must keep an open mind in the nursing field. Not all patients are the same and thus not all patients will want the same treatment or care. Thus, knowing and keeping a nonjudgmental mindset about the different types of treatments and interventions such as ECT and non-pharmaceutical interventions is helpful. This event has taught me that although I may not believe in some interventions that patients may like or want to use, that I need to stick to put my biases away and focus on providing the patient with only facts and patient centered care.
I will use the knowledge gained in this clinical in the future as a reminder to myself to be the type of nurse that advocates for the patients wants and needs and implements patient centered care, even if the care/interventions are ones I don’t entirely believe in myself. When a circumstance like this occurs again, I will go into viewing the treatment/intervention with an open-mind that will allow me to see why some patient’s may resort to the benefits that these treatments/interventions may provide. This experience will alter my future nursing career by encouraging me to keep myself up to date with new treatments and interventions patients can use in order to inform them of all of their options and provide nonjudgmental patient centered care.