While watching the movie I noticed skills that many of the nurses have that I also need and will need to develop. One of those skills is caring for patients that I do like and those that I don’t like with the same amount of care and understanding. Not everyone has a great day when we see them, so I need to take that into account and understand they are going through a lot and give them the benefit of the doubt. 

One population that I have not served would be the pediatric population, as of right now I have not had the pleasure of working with them, but we will be doing a pediatric rotation soon. One group that we won’t work with, and I think is a great population would have to be either those that are in the military or once were or even those that live on reservations. These two populations are two different groups, but they are both groups we won’t interact with while in the UNE Student Nursing program and I think that are interesting. 

Barriers of care for either group would be the location. For those that live on a reservation, many of their houses are spread out and all over the place in hard-to-reach areas. This group of people also believe in a more holistic and herbal way of medicine rather than the Western type of medicine that many Americans are used to, so getting them to understand why they may need an antibiotic for an infection can be hard. Another barrier of care with those that live on a reservation is that sometimes they don’t want outsiders or new people to come onto their land and would rather stay there and got to a medicine man and stay with what their ancestors have always done. The practice of cultural humility has helped nurses care for these patients because more people have learned and been taught the whys and how those on reservations have gone about healing. Learning about medicine men and natural ways of healing and learning how to communicate with this group has improved so much. 

There are areas of my own knowledge that I would like to improve that include connecting to certain populations more, I can connect with certain groups because I’ve worked with them but there are still certain times that I either try to disconnect from them or just don’t understand what has led them to the situation that they are in. I think as I work with more people and get to learn from others, I’ll be able to understand how to connect better. I would also like to improve upon include being straight with patients, not going around a diagnosis or being nervous about talking to patients. I also need to improve upon my communication skills, I can go into a room and get what I need to do done but I will talk with the patient very minimally when I should include the patient in what I am doing so they feel included. 

The career services video we watch help me to know how I should prepare for an interview. To prepare for an interview and set myself apart I will ask them questions, like what is the nurse-to-patient ratio, what is the turnaround like, how is the communication and work environment. I will also share my goals and what I want to get out of my time at the job and where I want to end up, whether that be on a different floor or just a higher up position within the system. While in the interview I will describe my strengths by giving example and in my resume having references that have seen me in a working environment or those who know the type of person that I am. I will also talk about my experiences that I have done, whether it be in the clinical setting or extracurriculars that I have done. I will also include my weaknesses but describe them as challenges or areas that I need to improve upon.