Personal Narrative: A Personal Experience As A Psychiatric Nurse

My mother has been receiving treatment for diabetes for many years now. A few years ago, my mother called me while I was away at school. She told me she was excited because she had been referred to a new endocrinologist who had taken the time to help her understand what was going on with her body in her language. He outlined a plan of care with her that would take her through the next few years. Step by step, he would work with her to manage the effects that diabetes had already caused and would try to prevent any further exacerbations of the disease. This stuck with me from that moment on.
During my tour as a psychiatric nurse, I had the opportunity to be a change agent. Dealing with the mentally unstable population requires one to always …show more content…
Nurse practitioners need to be have compassion, possess great listening skills, pay attention to details, be great communicators, be able to solve problems and possess leadership skills. In my practice as a nurse thus far, these are the tools I use on a regular basis to effectively provide care for my patients. I do feel that paying attention to detail will need to be further developed as this skill is very important in order to correctly assess, diagnose, and treat various conditions. Possessing leadership skills is important as well for a nurse practitioner because your work as a nurse practitioner relies on this heavily. Time management, delegation, and critical thinking are all leadership skills that need to be applied day to day in order to complete work assignments correctly and …show more content…
Ethical sensitivity is putting self aside and considering the patient as a whole, which may sometimes include family members. It encompasses our duty to streamline their healthcare process. It also includes our duty to maintain the integrity of nursing by being professional at all times. We have to always remember that at the end of the day we are the representatives of the organizations that we work for.
Another aspect that is very important is life long learning. Nursing evolves day by day. We practice on an evidence based practice model and this means that what we did years ago may have been changed and made void. It is our responsibility, to our patients, to stay up to date. As nurse practitioners, we must provide the most up to date care and that means that we must stay abreast of the ever changing aspects of nursing and in healthcare as a whole. Being a part of nursing governing bodies, attending nursing seminars and reading nursing journals are all ways that we can stay on top of the changes that