Please respond to two peers by offering suggestions or resources to help your colleagues in addressing their professional strengths, challenges, or career goals and objectives. Use your research to support your suggestions. Provide at least 3 credible and current scholarly sources. Apa format
Please respond to two peers by offering suggestions or resources to help your colleagues in addressing their professional strengths, challenges, or career goals and objectives. Use your research to support your suggestions. Provide at least 3 credible and current scholarly sources. Apa format
Peer 1
Hello, my name is Courtney Newsom and I have been a nurse for 13 years. My primary focus for the last 8 years has been within cardiology departments. I have held multiple positions in areas ranging from Med Surg to Cardiac Cath Lab. I am currently in a Day Surgery/ PACU unit at a heart hospital in the DFW metroplex. I have never worked with children other than while participating in clinicals while attending nursing school. I have two children, ages 9 and 4, so I do enter this clinical with knowledge on handling children. My youngest child was hospitalized twice with RSV and had surgery at 4 months old to repair his cleft lip, so I have a very strong understanding of the importance of providing empathy to the parents while treating their child. I know that in pediatrics you have two patients, the child and the primary care giver who is there with that child. Mutuality between the FNP, families and patients help reduce the family’s anxiety and helps them feel vested in their child’s care (Bissonette, Tyerman & Chartrand, 2023). First time parents will have lots of questions and more experienced parents won’t have as many questions when it comes to the more basic of illnesses. Pediatric nursing is teaching the parents helpful tactics for helping to care for their children (Christian, 2023). I can also imagine that vaccinations may be a hot topic regarding pediatrics. Parental concerns regarding vaccinations come from the lack of certainty on safety of vaccinations as well as misrepresentation in the media (Del Duca, Chini, Graziani et al., 2021). I chose the FNP route not only have my options limited to adults, but to take care of a wide variety of patients. As of right now, my end goal is not to go into pediatrics as a NP, but my mind is open and that could change this semester. I am looking forward to focusing on the pediatric population during this clinical and learning something new daily.
Peer 2
First, I would like to say I am very excited to be working with all of you throughout this course. I graduated from by Bachelor of Science in Nursing program in 2011 in Ontario, Canada. I have had the opportunity to work in a diverse field since that time which included in hospital bedside nursing, in the long-term care setting, in the acute care setting at the University of Maryland’s Shock Trauma Center, as well as in the pharmaceutic industry. One thing I have not had the opportunity to do, aside from in the educational setting, has been to provide direct care to pediatric patients as a nurse. That said, I am coming into this course with excitement and enthusiasm.
“Children have distinct healthcare needs in regard to their anatomic, physiologic, developmental, and psychological characteristics” (Krug, 2014). This simple statement has brought many thoughts to my mind when it comes to this population regarding the vast and unique needs of pediatric patients from newborns to adolescents. This leaves for a lot of specialized knowledge to cover in this course. The following is an explanation of some of my strengths and challenges as they apply to pediatrics, some of my career goals and objectives, and how this course will help me obtain those goals and objectives as a Family Nurse Practitioner (FNP).
Personal Strengths
The strengths that I bring to this course come from my history of working with children from the ages of newborn through adolescence. While I was completing my Bachelor of Science in Nursing, I worked for the children’s aid society where I used to have to assess and document the daily activities, and physical, mental, and emotional status of children. In this role, I worked closely with child psychiatrists, social workers, and primary care providers to establish a health baseline and ensure that these children were receiving adequate care. I feel this exposure has helped me become comfortable working with children in a professional setting.
Research has shown that fewer than 33% of FNP graduates have completed two or more pediatric mental health assessments throughout their education (McKague et al., 2021). I feel that my past opportunities have provided me with a solid foundation for capitalizing on these types of unique learning experiences that I may encounter throughout this course. I also had the opportunity to work with family and caregivers when I worked as a community health consultant for rural Native American Communities as a registered nurse in Canada. Unfortunately, beyond that work experience, I have not had much opportunity to work with the pediatric population directly.
Another strength that I am bringing into this course is my patient interview and assessment skills which I have developed over my academic and professional career. Although adolescent and child health is unique many of the skills involved to assess the patients are the same or at least in part transferable. I feel that these skills are invaluable and have provided me with a foundation of knowledge to build upon.
Personal Challenges
Almost all my direct patient care experiences as a nurse involved adult patients aside from the community health setting. This course is only 11 weeks long and covers a large amount of information that is needed to pass the course, pass the certification exam, and gain pertinent experiences for practice. I feel the biggest challenge I will face in this program is being able to adequately master the course load.
Pediatric patients consist of individuals from birth to age 21 and their families (Heuer et al., 2019). This age group has been further divided by developmental age groups all unique health care needs and includes "newborns, infants, children, adolescents, and young adults." Furthermore, the age groups of young people aged 10-24, who exceed those traditionally considered pediatric patients, are also often under the care of Pediatric Nurse Practitioners (PNPs) due to issues with insurance and transference of care to adult providers (Heuer et al., 2019). Essentially the age range of patients suitable for PNPs does not end at a definite age and PNPs need to be considerate of these milestones but also treat all patients individualistically based on their unique needs and situations (Heuer et al., 2019).
FNPs providing care to these patients set the trajectory of health for years to come and can determine the patient’s perceptions of healthcare providers and the healthcare system. I feel that there is a lot more pressure to "get it right" with pediatric patients than with the general public and it comes with greater difficulty due to the unique conditions and presentation of illnesses in children. I feel learning or relearning the pathophysiological presentations in children will be my greatest difficulty in this course but is one I am most certainly looking to address.
Personal Career Goals and Objectives
FNPs can care for pediatric patients and are often their sole care provider. This course will help me become familiar and confident working with pediatric patients which will help me obtain my goal of working in rural and underserved areas as an FNP. It has been shown that FNP students with limited interactions with pediatric patients fail to meaningfully engage these patients in practice which leads to discomfort with practice and a lack of proficiency when providing care (Gedney-Lose et al., 2023). Having standardized patients, such as in i-Human, and discussions allows for the administering of assessment techniques that student FNPs often do not get a chance to master due to lack of time or exposure. The use of standardized patients has shown an overwhelmingly positive learning experience showing an increase in both confidence and skills in the assessment of pediatric patients. Furthermore, discussions in controlled environments regarding physical examination techniques have also been shown to improve student knowledge (Gedney-Lose et al., 2023). I hope to finish this course with a solid foundation of knowledge and experience to provide primary care to pediatric patients. I feel the standardized patients in this course and the group learning activities will help me accomplish this goal.
Furthermore, FNP students are expected to be proficient in caring for pediatric patients to pass the certification exam where over 30% of questions involve pediatric and adolescent care (McKague et al., 2021). One major aspect of pediatric and adolescent primary care is assessing and treating mental health conditions that account for 5.2% of office visits with over 34% receiving their care with their primary care providers which are often FNPs. This course itself is one of the highest-yield courses in this program when it comes to testable knowledge on certification exams and is a major opportunity to put that knowledge into practice. I feel that engaging in and completing this course will significantly help me be successful on the certification exam and in practice.
Conclusion
I am looking forward to learning about pediatric primary care in this course. I feel my experience working with children and families will aid me in becoming a proficient pediatric care provider. That said I acknowledge that pediatric care is distinct and there is much information to master in this course. Although we only have 11 weeks to go through this high-yield material I am excited to get started as everything observed, discussed, and learned here will aid in my excelling as an FNP who wants to work in the rural setting where access to all the specialties and resources available in urban areas may not be as easily accessible.