Module 1
For this discussion, complete the following:
- Describe your interests and expertise in the nursing field, along with your chosen specialization.
My interests and expertise in the nursing field are varied. The building block of my career as a nurse stems from a thirst for knowledge. I am currently a supervisor in critical care at Scripps Green. I work with patients that cause me to know how to manage several types of diseases at any given time. My current specialty is not narrowly focused but overlapping into multiple body systems that promote health, cure illness, and allow natural death.
- Choose the age range that you are most interested in research throughout the course. Post your first and second choice for age range, or indicate if you are open to any age range. The age ranges are listed below:
- Birth–12 years.
- 12–18 years.
- 18–65 years.
- Over 65 years.
My heart, since I was a young girl, loves the older population. The elderly provided the path that allows me, a woman, to be successful and make a powerful impact on my community. I feel it is my responsibility to honor those that have come before me and I do this to assist the elderly with their health. This brings in the conversation of integrative health. There is a certain time in everyone’s life when a person must decide to continue with traditional treatment and living a quality of life. The book authored by Atul Gawande, Being Mortal, touched on the topic of providing medical care for a disease at the sacrifice of the patient. The author wrote about his own father’s struggle with a debilitating cancer of the spine. He had the option to treat or watch and wait. The author felt because they chose to watch and wait, his father had a longer better quality of life.
- Choose the disease process, clinical problem or condition that you are most interested in focusing on for this course, and post it in this discussion.
This summer visiting my 88-year-old grandfather in rural Texas, I had a discussion with him about his health care. He told me he was feeling overly tired, and unable to get off the couch. He went to see the NP and his labs were drawn that should a very low Hemoglobin and hematocrit and wanted to refer him for an endoscopy and a colonoscopy. She did refer him. I asked him if he would be willing to do a stool sample to verify the presence of blood in his stool. Which he reported he would ask his NP to do. I spoke with his daughter and suggested she go with him to his next appointment to see if she would be willing to do a less invasive investigation. He had already started to feel better and his appetite was robust. He reported that he was not super exhausted anymore and was building his walk back up to the mile a day with the dogs.
I am really interested in the rural geriatric population. There are different risks being 2 hours from the major hospital. I would like to use my grandfather as the topic of my paper.