While at the University of New England we get to have the experience of doing clinical rotations at hospitals and other health care settings, while doing these rotations we get to meet many different people from all different backgrounds. Some of these people we’ll only be with for a few short hours but others we could be with for our whole clinical rotations. No matter the amount of time spent with these patients, some of people have a greater impact than others. 

During one clinical rotation I was able to go to Maine Medical Center and I was able to be on one of the medical surgical floors, I was able to meet many different people on this floor but one patient that I met really stood out to me and will probably stay with me for my nursing career. I was only with this patient for maybe two days in total and even then, those two days were a week apart, but it still left an impact. This patient had a diagnosis of pericarditis but there were other problems that were going on, they were an avid IV drug user so they their veins weren’t the best to use, they were in pain, so they were on a ketamine drip which I had never seen before, and they were a smoker as well. When I first met them, they were on antibiotics for the pericarditis and on the ketamine drip for the pain they were having going through a peripherally inserted central catheter line. 

Thinking back to this patient and where they would fit into the health system, I would say that they would fit into the role of the patient, trying to restore their health. The social determinants that contributed to their care during their stay include education level, employment, income, housing, age, and race. I would say that education level, housing and income were factors that contributed the most to this person’s care. Housing had an impact on this person because they even though they had somewhere to go once they were done with treatment; they didn’t have a support system to go back to. Their daughter was mad at them and wasn’t allowing them to see their grandchildren, their son wasn’t in the picture either and I don’t believe they had a significant other so their support of getting better while out of the hospital was little to none which makes staying on track hard. Education is also another thing that affects their health because knowing about why some of the extracurricular activities that they partake in are harmful to their health. Also knowing about resources that they can use to help them get better once they’re out of the hospital and other resources to help them either with housing or income is also something that needs to be addressed. 

Reflecting on this patient makes me realize that the health care team could have done more for this patient. There were times when this patient said that they were in pain and even though the patient was on a high dose of a ketamine drip and it may have looked to some people like they were drug seeking, we can’t tell someone that they aren’t in pain. I think that the health care system could maybe do a better job, there is a big drug problem going on in this country and I believe that there is more that we can do, especially to help these people that are going through a tough time with drug problems. I think that the health care system could be better with a lot of things, but I also think that they were getting the help they needed to the first problem at hand and being about to get that help is very important, going from there I think a public health and social worker helping this person could definitely help. I think that my time I spent with them was good, we were able to have a nice conversation and I was able to help them. I would’ve like to have done more but the small amount of time that I spent with them I think that I did enough.

Overall, I think that this patient got the care that they needed during their stay at the hospital while I saw them, I think they could have been treated more for their pain as some people have a judgment for those who have done drugs and then say they are in pain and looking for more medication. I think this person got the care they needed, I helped in the way that I could even though I wish I could’ve done more simply like talking for another hour or so. I do think that some people get better care for hospitals and are higher within the health system or have better social determinants towards their health than other which contribute to their health outcome. I think for this patient in particular the health policies that were used were helpful and good for the patient, I also think that the staff could’ve done better but did enough where the patient was getting care. I think overall there are problems with policies that could be changed and that there are some staff that could always do better.