Contemporary healthcare models are associated with a large variety of techniques, strategies, and frameworks, indicating the increasing need for education and training programs. Nurses should be knowledgeable in diverse aspects of the industry and understand both theoretical and practical methods. Therefore, it is essential to reflect on the discussed topics and provide an overview of healthcare’s major objectives and outcomes. Ultimately, the current narrative analysis examines the primary MSN program outcomes from the perspective of submitted artifacts during the course.
High-Quality Care
The first MSN program outcome concerns high-quality patient care based on holistic health principles. NR501 Week 3, NR501 Week 5, NR503 Week 2, and NR505 Week 4 transparently describe that healthcare professionals should continually educate the patients about health risks. In other words, the experts should focus on person-centered or patient-centered models that have a prolonged effect on the individual’s health. In this sense, a holistic approach – complementary therapy that emphasizes alternative treatments – should be used to improve the quality of healthcare (Juanamasta et al., 2021). This perspective also helps people acknowledge the importance of healthy routines and increases their awareness concerning potential health risks (Juanamasta et al., 2021). For instance, NR501 Week 3 examines how patient empowerment can enhance the overall quality of healthcare and why holistic care is essential for contemporary medicine.
Consequently, high-quality patient care is directly related to the competencies of the physicians. NR503 Week 5, NR503 Week 6, and NR505 Week 5 showcase some of the prominent diseases and how experts should approach such situations. As a result, the professional should be knowledgeable about the sickness, external factors, patient-related risks, and other aspects to provide appropriate treatment. The mentioned artifacts also demonstrate the importance of the expert’s involvement in the community and patient health. A competent practitioner should be able to thoroughly evaluate the patient’s living conditions and threats to mitigate environmental and health risks. Ultimately, high-quality care is only possible when the expert is concerned about the patient’s health and utilizes their best knowledge to make a positive change.
Caring Environment
The following MSN program outcome concerns the establishment of a healthy and caring environment. NR503 Week 2, NR505 Week 4, NR505 Week 5, and NR506 Week 3 reveal that influencing the patients to change their habits and routines might result in better public health. In turn, these changes would establish proper communication between patients and physicians. Furthermore, NR599 Week 3, NR599 Week 5, and NR599 Week 6 reveal that technological advancement might significantly improve the quality of healthcare and create a more caring environment. According to the artifacts, similar approaches improve the quality of feedback, consistency of care, and lower the chances of medical mistakes (Belard et al., 2017). As a result, in most cases, the digitalization of the facility also establishes a caring environment and achieves better health outcomes.
Impact of Reflective Practice and Cultural Diversity on Personal and Professional Growth
Most submitted artifacts concern reflective practice and cultural diversity to a certain extent. Ultimately, these factors are crucial to patient-centered care since the expert should be knowledgeable in the medical field and have good communication competencies. From these considerations, NR503 Week 2, NR503 Week 5, and NR503 Week 6 demonstrate the importance of understanding various demographic groups and their impact on the treatment. Furthermore, cultural diversity is a significant social determinant of health, and people of different demographic groups might have inadequate access to healthcare (Nair & Adetayo, 2019). In this sense, it is essential for experts to continually develop additional methods that allow for better healthcare accessibility for everyone regardless of race, gender, and age. In turn, the reflective practice on these issues would result in personal and professional growth.
Professional Values
As mentioned briefly before, contemporary healthcare requires the practitioners to be proficient in various aspects, including patient-expert communication. Ultimately, the professional values of the physician directly affect the quality of healthcare and the message to the patient. The case studies in NR602 Week 3, Week 4, and Week 5 demonstrate how the expert’s positive reinforcement and good communication competencies affect the psychological well-being of the patient. Consequently, NR506 Week 7 shows how the application of transformational leadership positively affects the quality of healthcare. Therefore, professional values are essential to ethical communication, support, and positive interaction, necessary for both scholarship and service in healthcare.
Advanced Nursing Practice
Lastly, evidence-based and collaborative advanced nursing practices are effective methods for achieving positive health outcomes. A large number of submitted artifacts, including NR500, NR509 Weeks 3-5, NR601 Week 1, 3, 5, NR603 Week 5-7, and NR501 Week 7, demonstrate the productivity of the methods. For instance, besides traditional healthcare values, evidence-based practice takes patient preferences and research into consideration. This approach allows to establish better patient-expert communication and reduce the number of medical errors. Furthermore, the collaborative practice also implies the close cooperation of patients, healthcare professionals, and even experts in other fields to achieve the highest quality of provided services (Fleming & Willgerodt, 2017). Ultimately, evidence-based and collaborative advanced nursing practices are highly effective methods of healthcare, and the submitted artifacts transparently reflect this perspective.
Summative Evaluation
Meeting Each MSN/FNP Program Outcome
All the artifacts submitted meet the first MAN/FTP Program Outcome. For example, after passing the artifact NR667 Week 5, I learned to provide high quality, safe, patient, centered care grounded in holistic health principles on the example of a patient with rosea. I have found out that patient safety consists of several elements. During the course I studied basic things, such as the importance of cleanliness of the hands of medical personnel and sterilization of instruments. I also studied the basics of pharmacotherapy safety and theoretical material that allows providing high-quality medical interventions.
Also, the tasks completed during the course taught me how to create a favorable environment for achieving high-quality results in the field of healthcare. For example, the NR603 Week 5 artifact was dedicated to working with a patient who had been diagnosed with prostatitis and prostate cancer. In the course of my work, I mastered the skills of developing an algorithm for creating an environment conducive to the implementation of a system for continuous improvement of the quality of medical care for that patient.
Also, the tasks performed during the training provided me with motivation for personal and professional growth throughout my life through reflexive practice and understanding of cultural diversity. For example, in NR602 Week 5 I worked with a child who had trouble sleeping. In order to identify the causes of the medical situation and ways to solve them, I had to take into account the cultural and ethnic affiliation of the mother. Thus, I found out that it is permanent for me to work on increasing the understanding of the cultural diversity of patients.
I have also managed to integrate professional values through healthcare services. For example, in NR602 week 3 I was working on an Immunization Case Study. Vaccination against diseases is one of my professional values. By providing healthcare services, I can apply the knowledge gained during the course to integrate this value. All the artifacts submitted also meet the fifth MAN/FTP Program Outcome. For example, when performing the task NR601 Week 3, I needed to screen a patient with psychiatric disorders. In this case, it was appropriate to apply compassionate, evidence-based, collaborative practice nursing (Juanamasta et al., 2021). Since the patient with depression and anxiety was a patient with special needs, it was possible to achieve a positive result only with a special approach to them.
My Own Professional Growth
Cognitive, Psychomotor, and Affective Domains
Passing this program has contributed to my cognitive development. For example, in the task NR601 Week 1, I needed to prepare a comprehensive geriatric assessment for the discussion board. This form of work refers to the modern approach to the organization of training. It allows me, as a future doctor, to form clinical thinking already in the learning process. Teaching in this course contributed to the formation of elements of a doctor’s professional thinking. The use of a special approach to teaching on the course contributed to the development of metacognitive activity and the formation of meta-knowledge in me as a student. Applying modeling methods based on active mental activity, I learned to identify the main elements of the structure of medical knowledge (Nair & Adetayo, 2019). Also, during the course, I mastered the skills of determining the presence of missing information and qualified formulation of a research question. With such a view of the educational material, on the constancy of its semantic structures, I formed as a result of professional and scientific activities during the course.
One of the main activities of the future medical specialist on the course is the development of psychomotor skills necessary for successful professional activity. For example, NR06 Week 5 task was dedicated to primary care of the measuring and ages family. These are areas of medicine that require special psychomotor skills, which the passage of this course helped me to acquire. Despite the variety of approaches to solving the problems of assessing the health of a young child and an elderly person, the attractiveness of freedom in choosing methods, spontaneity and rashness in psychomotor actions are unacceptable. To work with different groups of patients, the doctor needs to use the correct psychomotor skills that I acquired as part of the course assignments.
As for affective domains, they were also given close attention on the course. For example, the NRR599 Week 6 task involved working with a medical application. When working remotely with a patient, it is most difficult to show affective competence, but during the course I managed to acquire skills that are applicable even in this format of interpersonal communication. The formation of affective competence was an integral part of the training of specialists during the training. For me as a doctor, affective competence is not only a necessary professional quality. This is also a possible form of individual psychological protection, which I managed to master perfectly by performing the artifacts of the course.
AACN’s MSN Essentials for Graduate Education
Taking into account AACN’s MSN Essential, during the course of this course I received the development of psychological and pedagogical competence of a postgraduate student of a medical university. It is more reflected in the motivational, operational-activity and reflexive-evaluative aspects of my medical practice. First of all, during my studies, I acquired the technological component of the postgraduate’s skills, which is based on the ability to make responsible decisions. I have the skills to make independent responsible choices in a complex professional context. For example, when performing the NR599 Week 5 task, I needed to compile a clinical decision support system. This assignment helped me develop the ability to quickly find new technological knowledge and acquire new competencies. In particular, these are skills of working with technical means and communication skills. These skills are useful to me as a graduate student to achieve learning objectives in accordance with the requirements of the time, based on a high level of development of self-regulation and self-determination mechanisms.
An important role for the scientific and practical activities of a graduate student is played by the cognitive component, which I managed to strengthen within the framework of this course. So, when performing the NR599 Week 6 task to highlight EHRs benefits and drawbacks, I needed to use medical erudition and special knowledge. All the tasks of the course helped to develop such important competencies for a graduate student as the skills and abilities of planning and implementing the learning process (Belard et al., 2017). In addition, the teachers of the course managed to instill in me the need for constant updating of knowledge in the field of professional activity. In addition, the course assignments gave me the opportunity to prove myself in the effective application of mental actions (judgment, inference). Also, as a graduate student, it was important for me to regularly carry out various mental operations (analysis, synthesis, generalization, abstraction, classification) in the learning process. The course also gave me the opportunity to learn how to rearrange mental activity in accordance with the situation.
The third critical component required for a graduate student is the motivational skill. For example, when performing the NR509 Week 5 task, I needed to conduct a shadow health assessment. For the successful completion of the task, I used such invariants of medical activity as selfless interest in the patient. Completing tasks on the course prompted me to have a desire to help people and the ability to get moral satisfaction from it. It was also important for me as a graduate student to develop a willingness to make responsible decisions, comply with medical duty, follow medical ethics and support patient autonomy. All these qualities obtained during the course formed the humanistic orientation of the graduate student, manifested in responsibility for his work and in high demands on oneself.
NONPF Competencies
Participation in this course allowed me as a graduate student to successfully develop 9 core NONPF competencies. First of all, I acquired the skill of mandatory scientific foundations of my practical activity. Also, taking the course helped develop my leadership skills. The thinking of a leading specialist, formed during the course, helps me formulate my social position in each specific medical case. Assessment of the quality of my services is one of the most important parameters that should be taken into account when practicing medicine. In the course of completing the course tasks, I learned to flexibly respond to the opinion of patients and evaluate it by collecting opinions. I have also mastered the practice inquiry, which is an important NONPF competence and will help me provide patients with better medical care. In addition, completing the course assignments helped me become more technology and information literal. Various levels of medical literacy, in particular technological and informational, were mandatory tools for working on artifacts.
Also, taking the course gave me deep knowledge in the field of medical policy. I have mastered the basics of health policy and the skills of establishing the right relationship between medical specialist and patient. A related area in which I have gained knowledge is medical ethics. The course helped me to learn a highly humane attitude towards the patient as a necessary condition for the treatment and strengthening of human health. It was also useful for me as a graduate student to master the competence of the health delivery system. In particular, I was able to consider in practice a three-level system of medical care.
Cultural Competence
During the course, I realized that the culturally conditioned perception of the disease affects the patient’s lifestyle, attitude to treatment, the relationship between the patient and the doctor, the outcome of treatment. Positive changes in the demographic situation, as well as the multinational composition of the population, cause particular concern about cultural issues in medicine. Performing the NR505 Week 5 task, I needed to analyze infectious disease management. One of the conclusions obtained during the assignment was that society is becoming more multinational, doctors are increasingly accepting patients from various socio-cultural environments (Fleming & Willgerodt, 2017). Effective interaction between the doctor and the patient is associated with an increase in the degree of patient satisfaction, compliance with recommendations and outcomes, improvement of health. I realized that before the training, the socio-cultural differences between the patient and me as a doctor had not been studied and brought to practice. This could lead to patient dissatisfaction, non-compliance with recommendations and bad health consequences.
During the course, cultural competence became an important goal for me for practical reasons. As a medical specialist of a multinational country, I have come across a wide range of patients’ points of view regarding health. Many patients could present their symptoms in a completely different way than one would expect with their disease. They could have different expectations or thresholds for seeking medical help, and their beliefs influenced whether they would follow the doctor’s recommendations. After completing the course, the term “cultural competence” began to cause me not complete disregard, as before, but on the contrary, full acceptance.
The lack of awareness of cross-cultural communication has become more obvious to me. Completing this course compensated for my knowledge gaps with two strategies. First of all, it is a program of cultural immersion (immersion) and the inclusion in the curriculum of subjects aimed at the development of cultural competence. The first approach included clinical rotation and experience working with different ethnic groups. An example of the implementation of the second approach is educational tasks that provide opportunities for studying key cultural issues. Currently, I have a great interest in developing my own cultural competence. I believe that this is an indicator of my high socio-cultural competence and ability to provide highly qualified care to patients belonging to different national cultures.
References
Belard, A., Buchman, T., Forsberg, J., Potter, B. K., Dente, C. J., Kirk, A., & Elster, E. (2017). Precision diagnosis: a view of the clinical decision support systems (CDSS) landscape through the lens of critical care. Journal of Clinical Monitoring and Computing, 31(2), 261-271.
Fleming, R., & Willgerodt, M. A. (2017). Interprofessional collaborative practice and school nursing: A model for improved health outcomes. OJIN: The Online Journal of Issues in Nursing, 22(3), 2.
Juanamasta, I. G., Aungsuroch, Y., Gunawan, J., Suniyadewi, N. W., & Wati, N. M. N. (2021). Holistic care management of diabetes mellitus: An integrative review. International Journal of Preventive Medicine, 12.
Nair, L., & Adetayo, O. A. (2019). Cultural competence and ethnic diversity in healthcare. Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery Global Open, 7(5).