NUR 601 Week 3 Blog Post 1: Autonomy and You
As a nurse in a pediatric Cardiac ICU, my role requires a great deal of autonomy. While there are always attending physicians and fellows on the floor, nurses are required to monitor patients and use critical thinking to care for patient in the immediate post-operative period. Any given day I have autonomy to order labs, x-rays, ekg’s, and titrate inotropic medications. As nurses, we would report changes in patient’s condition but the autonomy created an environment that fostered critical thinking predicated on deep understanding of congenital heart defects. This kind of responsibility motivated me to learn more about my patient population and grow and learn as a nurse every day.
Instructions
As a CNS, Dr. Matteis had to assert to a psychiatrist that a psychiatric patient needed to be hospitalized. Was there a time when your autonomy as a nurse was important? Why might autonomy be of interest to you in your current work? Please explain in a blog post that is three to five sentences long.
Please refer to this for details on how this activity will be graded.
To Create a blog entry:
- Select the Add a New Topic button.
- Create your blog entry
- Select Post to Blog.
With experience comes better instincts and critical thinking skills continue to grow. When I first started my nursing career, having autonomy once I was off orientation was intimidating. Now with two years of experience, I find that having more autonomy as a nurse is rewarding and often allows for better patient care. As nurses, we are on the very frontline and see any minor acute changes in patients’ conditions that alert us to proceed in a particular way. I often find myself thinking that if it was in my scope of practice to write certain orders, I could help the patient more. When I had hit that point, I determined that become a FNP was the right next step for me.
Important information for writing discussion questions and participation
Welcome to class
Hello class and welcome to the class and I will be your instructor for this course. This is a -week course and requires a lot of time commitment, organization, and a high level of dedication. Please use the class syllabus to guide you through all the assignments required for the course. I have also attached the classroom policies to this announcement to know your expectations for this course. Please review this document carefully and ask me any questions if you do. You could email me at any time or send me a message via the “message” icon in halo if you need to contact me. I check my email regularly, so you should get a response within 24 hours. If you have not heard from me within 24 hours and need to contact me urgently, please send a follow up text to
I strongly encourage that you do not wait until the very last minute to complete your assignments. Your assignments in weeks 4 and 5 require early planning as you would need to present a teaching plan and interview a community health provider. I advise you look at the requirements for these assignments at the beginning of the course and plan accordingly. I have posted the YouTube link that explains all the class assignments in detail. It is required that you watch this 32-minute video as the assignments from week 3 through 5 require that you follow the instructions to the letter to succeed. Failure to complete these assignments according to instructions might lead to a zero. After watching the video, please schedule a one-on-one with me to discuss your topic for your project by the second week of class. Use this link to schedule a 15-minute session. Please, call me at the time of your appointment on my number. Please note that I will NOT call you.
Please, be advised I do NOT accept any assignments by email. If you are having technical issues with uploading an assignment, contact the technical department and inform me of the issue. If you have any issues that would prevent you from getting your assignments to me by the deadline, please inform me to request a possible extension. Note that working fulltime or overtime is no excuse for late assignments. There is a 5%-point deduction for every day your assignment is late. This only applies to approved extensions. Late assignments will not be accepted.
If you think you would be needing accommodations due to any reasons, please contact the appropriate department to request accommodations.
Plagiarism is highly prohibited. Please ensure you are citing your sources correctly using APA 7th edition. All assignments including discussion posts should be formatted in APA with the appropriate spacing, font, margin, and indents. Any papers not well formatted would be returned back to you, hence, I advise you review APA formatting style. I have attached a sample paper in APA format and will also post sample discussion responses in subsequent announcements.
Your initial discussion post should be a minimum of 200 words and response posts should be a minimum of 150 words. Be advised that I grade based on quality and not necessarily the number of words you post. A minimum of TWO references should be used for your initial post. For your response post, you do not need references as personal experiences would count as response posts. If you however cite anything from the literature for your response post, it is required that you cite your reference. You should include a minimum of THREE references for papers in this course. Please note that references should be no more than 5 years old except recommended as a resource for the class. Furthermore, for each discussion board question, you need ONE initial substantive response and TWO substantive responses to either your classmates or your instructor for a total of THREE responses. There are TWO discussion questions each week, hence, you need a total minimum of SIX discussion posts for each week. I usually post a discussion question each week. You could also respond to these as it would count towards your required SIX discussion posts for the week.
I understand this is a lot of information to cover in 5 weeks, however, the Bible says in Philippians 4:13 that we can do all things through Christ that strengthens us. Even in times like this, we are encouraged by God’s word that we have that ability in us to succeed with His strength. I pray that each and every one of you receives strength for this course and life generally as we navigate through this pandemic that is shaking our world today. Relax and enjoy the course!
Hi Class,
Please read through the following information on writing a Discussion question response and participation posts.
Contact me if you have any questions.
Important information on Writing a Discussion Question
- Your response needs to be a minimum of 150 words (not including your list of references)
- There needs to be at least TWO references with ONE being a peer reviewed professional journal article.
- Include in-text citations in your response
- Do not include quotes—instead summarize and paraphrase the information
- Follow APA-7th edition
- Points will be deducted if the above is not followed
Participation –replies to your classmates or instructor
- A minimum of 6 responses per week, on at least 3 days of the week.
- Each response needs at least ONE reference with citations—best if it is a peer reviewed journal article
- Each response needs to be at least 75 words in length (does not include your list of references)
- Responses need to be substantive by bringing information to the discussion or further enhance the discussion. Responses of “I agree” or “great post” does not count for the word count.
- Follow APA 7th edition
- Points will be deducted if the above is not followed
- Remember to use and follow APA-7th edition for all weekly assignments, discussion questions, and participation points.
- Here are some helpful links
- The is a great resource
As a nurse, autonomy in our practice is one of our most prized qualities. Our ability to demonstrate autonomy is what differentiates us
from being non-critically thinking robots carrying out orders. Our ability to be autonomous and think critically is the reason we are sent to nursing school in the first place instead of just being trained on the job to carry out orders. Nursing judgement and assessment skills save lives daily.
One example of a time when my autonomy as a nurse was important to me was when a provider ordered an incorrect medication dose for a patient. After reviewing the order, a non-autonomous individual would have simply administered the medication as prescribed. However, because I am autonomous, I carefully review all orders before medication administration to prevent medical errors. This autonomy is what allowed me to call the provider and clarify the order before administration, which may have saved the patient’s life that day.