1991 Advanced Level as a Professional Nurse Experiential Learning
DePaul School for New Learning
Foundations of New Learning
Teacher: Catherine Marienau
Advanced Level as a Professional Nurse – Experiential Learning
QUARTER: Winter
YEAR: 1991
COMPETENCE STATEMENT:
PW-10 Capstone Can effectively administer health care at an advanced level as a professional nurse.
THE LEARNING EXPERIENCE:
My learning experience began as a nurse’s aide in 1966. After 3 years as an aide I went to school to become a practical nurse; I practiced as a licensed practical nurse off and on over a 15-year period. My experience varied greatly from a psychiatric unit, a recovery room, a coronary intensive care unit, a long-term care facility, an oncology unit, to opening a health office for a small manufacturing company when OSHA laws went into effect. Finally, in 1984, I graduated from Indiana University, passed the registered nurse state board exam, and began practicing nursing in various types of intensive care units.
REFLECTIONS:
I thought that I had learned a lot in nursing school until I went to work. Most of what I learned was, in reflection, dangerous. Some intensive care units have structured programs for teaching you what you need to know – some don’t. I recall my first day as a graduate nurse in an ICU. The head nurse said that I would work with another nurse by following her around all day. After 1 hour a man who was electrocuted came in and all I did was do chest compressions on him as his heart continually stopped all day. The second day I was told there are your 2 patients, you may not have time to eat lunch.
There were some formal classes, but by the time you had them, you could have hurt someone. So upon reflection, the learning was less than desirable, to say the least.
A vital part of the learning is the politics involved. I thought we were there because we really wanted to care for sick people. Instead, I learned about “game-playing”, and competition, and that it was a system that was very hard to survive in if you had any sense of fair play or altruism. I am surviving now by the skin of my teeth by not working for a hospital; I work for a nursing agency and go to a different hospital sometimes every day. This way I can just go in and just care for the patient. The system thank God, did force me to be confident and self-reliant because I saw that it was necessary for survival. This is why I can go work anywhere.
GENERALIZATIONS:
To sum up, the last 7 years spent working in intensive care units I can certainly think of many stories to tell, but the overwhelming thought that disturbs me is that I do not think that all patients have their civil rights. The most basic of rights, the right to our personhood and our bodies is frequently stripped away by a patriarchal medical system. There are times that I think that I will not be able to bear one more day being a part of this system. As with any system, all those involved must keep up their role in the system in order to keep it going. I no longer “fit” in the system because I do not see my role in keeping any type of oppressive system in operation.
I now see that the value system I began forming is being betrayed as I work in nursing every day. When elderly patients complain about inadequate care they are said to have “lost it” in their head, you know, they’re old and confused. Pay them no mind.
I must, however, stay in the system to pay the rent and the advanced education that will allow me to hopefully begin to tilt the power structure in favor of the patients.
APPLICATIONS:
I hope to take the negative aspects of what I learned through nursing experience and with specialized education make things better within the system for the patients who need us very much.
HOW IT FULFILLS THE COMPETENCE:
I am functioning in nursing’s most complex areas: intensive care units, coronary care units, and open heart units.
EVIDENCE:
-Resume
-Evaluations from previous supervisors and employers
-Certificates of advanced training in nursing
EVIDENCE DESCRIPTION:
-Resume of past experience
-Evaluations from:
Michael Reese Hospital, Coronary Surveillance Unit, by Nurse Manager Linda St. Julien R.N., M.A.
Pediatric Unit, by Nedra Skale R.N., M.S.N.
Olympia Fields Osteopathic Medical Center, Coronary Intensive Care/Open Heart Unit, by Helen Hallman R.N., & Maria Layman R.N., Nursing Administration Supervisor
Myerscough Medical Staffing that they received from LaGrange Hospital after I worked there through the agency off and on for about 1 and 1/2 years.
-Certificates of advanced technical nursing education (on-the-job training):
-Advanced Cardiac Life Support – 1988 (What medical personnel do beyond Cardio-pulmonary resuscitation).
-Certification in the Intraaortic Balloon Pump (Used on patients after other measures are not enough to sustain the heart after a heart attack.
-Class in how to read an electrocardiogram. A requirement in intensive care units.