Essay Sample on Nurse Practitioner Semester Goals: Learnings, Clinicals & Ethical Dilemmas

Introduction

This paper is going to give invaluable insights with respect to my nurse practitioner semester goals. My learning and clinical goals and how I am looking to realize them will be mentioned. The moral and ethical dilemmas that I have or may encounter this semester as I pursue my academic goals will also be highlighted.

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Learning Goals

Psychiatric nursing or mental health nursing refers to the appointed position of a nurse that specializes in according to mental health care and cares for individuals of all ages going through the distress of mental illnesses. As such, my learning experience this semester will revolve around acquiring both textbook and practical knowledge on the best way to attend to the wants and needs of mentally ill patients. If I were to summarize all of my learning goals this semester, then, I would say that they are three-pronged. The first primary goal resonates with gaining the capacity to manage myself as an individual and in relation to the patients I will be dealing with in the future (Barker, 2017). A second major goal will resonate with understanding the world in which I live in: the world of psychiatry. Finally, it is worth mentioning that my goal is to garner the capacity to effectively act in the world of psychiatry.

Clinical Goals

My clinical goals will revolve around modeling responsible and ethical professional conduct while offering mental treatment to a culturally diverse population of patients whenever an opportunity arises. This way I will gain enough competence to be able to attend to the needs of patients whenever the situation arises. More specifically, a majority of my clinical goals are as shown below:

• To be capable of talking to patients regarding patient care prices in accordance with mental health practice
• To be capable of establishing and maintaining professional and mutually satisfying relationships with patients whenever the chance arises
• To be capable of informing patients of their healthcare needs and treatment options
• To be capable of constantly showing a commitment to progressively enhance my knowledge, judgment, and skill (Keltner & Steele, 2018).
• To be capable of delivering specialized care in a timely manner and within the constraints of an academic environment
• To be capable of completing all planned treatment services as authorized by patients.
• To be capable of delivering high quality and appropriate care.

How I Plan to Achieve Them?

I plan to achieve my learning and clinical goals by being an all-round student. By being an all-round student, I mean that I will work hard in my class content and will also be hardworking in practical means. Hard work in this context revolves around grasping as much content as possible through reading, writing, and conducting experiments in class. It is also about adhering to all the requirements that my class instructor gives.

More specifically, I am looking to dedicate at least four hours of focused reading to my time table. Depending on the class units that I will have this semester, I will be reading class notes from a new unit the moment one-hour elapses. I would also split the reading sessions into two so as to ward off the possibility of boredom or lack of concentration. Second, it is worth mentioning that paying attention to the experiments that coursework would accord us is important (Laukkanen et al., 2019). Drawing diagrams and looking them up on the internet would help me to memorize them through photographic memory storage. The entirety of psychiatric nursing is concerned with human anatomy and physiology. As such, the need to read about and draw diagrams (especially of brain tissues) will be important and common. Third, there will be instances where I and my classmates will have an opportunity to attend to real-life patients. What such exercises will help me to do is sharpen my people skills and most importantly, my skills for conducting a diagnosis. To realize my goal of being a good determiner of mental patients' illnesses, I will be careful not to make diagnoses quickly without putting consideration into all possibilities (Davis, 2018).

Ethical and Moral Considerations

Ethical and moral dilemmas may also be a part of my experience this semester. My expectations revolve around the opportunity to cheat in examinations and that of lying to patients. First, I must say that no matter how hard the temptation to steal examinations comes to me, there is a need to be stronger than temptation and ward it off. What's more, there is a need to tell patients and their families the truth about their mental health conditions so that the healing process could begin as early as possible. In many instances, in an effort to be kind, there may be a temptation to tell patients half-truths so that they do not get scared of their condition. By and large, there is a need for me to be honest to myself and honest with the people that are around me.

How I am Feeling This Semester

This semester I am feeling lucky. I feel like I have an opportunity to make up for any shortcomings that I encountered last semester. My results last semester were not exceptional. Owing to that failure and realization of my mistakes, I must say that I will strive a little harder to be a better student and medical health caregiver. All the positive feelings that I am feeling this semester should be accompanied by hard work, failure to which they only remain to be feelings of good luck.

The positive feelings mentioned above are as a result of the opportunity I have to begin mending my GPA. It is a clean slate and my appreciation emanates from the fact that during the last semester I had a lot of personal problems that affected my concentration in class. Going forward, I have to learn to strike a balance between my personal life and my professional life.

Conclusion

There is no knowledge of what the future holds but that is no excuse for living a life that is devoid of goals be it personal or professional. It is upon me to work hard and create something meaningful from the education and class content (for instance, lectures and experiments conducted) to real-life experiences in the field through attending to the wants and needs of real-time people. By and large, I feel that the best way to achieve my goals this semester is to put more hours into them. Borrowing a leaf from the 10,000-hour rule would be a good place to start; note that the ten-thousand-hour rule affirms that the more you do something, the more you become an expert in it. Realistically speaking, 10,000 hours is not enough.

References

Barker, P. (2017). Psychiatric and mental health nursing: The craft of caring. CRC Press.

Davis, B. D. (2018). Culture and psychiatric nursing: Implications for training. In Transcultural Psychiatry (pp. 218-233). Routledge.

Keltner, N. L., & Steele, D. (2018). Psychiatric Nursing-eBook. Elsevier Health Sciences.

Laukkanen, E., VehvilainenJulkunen, K., Louheranta, O., & Kuosmanen, L. (2019). Psychiatric nursing staff' attitudes towards the use of containment methods in psychiatric inpatient care: an integrative review. International journal of mental health nursing, 28(2), 390-406.