Reflective Clinical Journal

Reflective Clinical Journal

Clinical Objectives

1.      Examine the various roles and responsibilities of a nurse leader and manager.

            My clinical rotation took place at Utah Valley Medical Center in the Cardiac Cath Lab where I was able to see the many roles and responsibilities that a manager has to accomplish. For instance, he had a daily schedule: every hour was reserved for certain activities in the unit; he even had appointments to fulfill within the community, such as going to elementary schools and giving talks and presentations with different universities. Some hours in the week he dedicate to do budgets, balancing cost, staffing and attending different management meetings with his unit and the hospital, as well as going to Salt Lake City to attend and participate in regional meetings.

2.      Manage time in order to effectively complete the clinical hours and expectations.

            I was able to finish my 60 hours on time, even though I had to cut hours off of work and family matters. Nevertheless, I enjoyed every single hour at the clinical site. I learned valuable information that will stay with me forever.

3. Demonstrate responsible and professional communication in verbal, nonverbal and written interactions.

            I communicated verbally with the manager most of the time and used positive expressions; I always smiled and was thankful for all their help in my learning experience. In writing, I presented the outline of my project, which he approved, and gave some advice on how to apply it in the unit.

4. Organize and complete a project that utilizes the concepts of nursing management to solve a clinical problem.

            This was my favorite part of the clinical experience, because it gave me the opportunity to elaborate on a project that was going to benefit not only the cath lab unit, but also the Cardiac ICU and Telemetry unit, since they work together. My project was to identify any deficits in the communication between the cath lab and the other two units by administering a quiz of ten questions, identifying the problems and motivating the clarification of services in order to close these problematic gaps.

5.      Delegate appropriate tasks or activities to others and self evaluate delegation style.

            During my rotation, I was able to work with the secretaries of the unit, health team and other charge nurses in the ICU and Telemetry unit, and delegate the distribution of the quizzes and time guidelines. This health team was very supportive and willing to contribute with the project.

6.      Examine and evaluate records related to care monitoring, error prevention, incident reporting and quality improvement.

            Every Monday, all the managers of the Cardiac ICU, Cath lab and Telemetry meet with the main manager and discuss quality improvement and even see statistics from other hospital (called benchmarking) in order to see where they stand against other organizations. UVRMC always has the highest percentage in most areas.

Clinical Goals

1.      Improving the quality of patient care by applying leadership skills.

            I had the opportunity to be in the cardiac catherization of some of the patients who came to the unit. I decided to release the tension of the patient by establishing a therapeutic communication.

2.      Willing to learn a leadership role that enables me to better the quality of patient care.

            Knowing that this was going to be my last rotation in a clinical setting, I decided to learn and assimilate all I could during those sixty hours I had. I placed extra attention on the manager's activities, and he was very supportive and willing to provide as much information as I needed.

3.      Develop leadership skills through education and collaborating in research projects.

            I accomplished this goal by elaborating on a project that was going to benefit the unit in resolving some educational gaps the units were encountering at this time.

4.       Create a positive relationship within the organization.

            During the work on my project, I learned that by showing respect to each member on the health team, we are able to accomplish great things through cooperation and mutual involvement.

5.      Development of trust to establish and honest communication with the health team.

            I was only able to build my senior project in the unit I was assigned to because our communication established trust through the sharing of information and a mutual willingness to listen to some of the units' problems.