Reflecting on learning is an important task to track one’s progress and understand the difficulties and gaps that need to be overcome. However, some weeks or topics are not complicated, indicating either significant progress or insufficient understanding of the topic. I had such a week this time because I hardly faced any problems, and I hope this fact speaks about my preparedness for the future role of a DNP-prepared nurse. This week, we explored practical gaps in healthcare and the role of a DNP-prepared nurse in selecting and delivering an intervention. Through previous experience and research on diabetes prevention, I understood approaches to identifying gaps as well as identifying steps for their elimination.
Finding the scientific literature from which I highlighted some of the steps used to prevent diabetes was also not difficult as I continued studying the physical activity level of people with diabetes. For this reason, it was easy for me to understand the article by Ford et al. (2021) about an educational program aimed at increasing the activity of people and highlighting the main points. In addition, I had no difficulty understanding the needs of stakeholders and taking them into account in the intervention process. However, it seems to me that, in practice, engaging all the stakeholders can be difficult for a variety of reasons.
First, I will need to mobilize resources to develop the program. Secondly, I will have to convince employees of the need to implement the selected steps. Finally, patients require strong motivation to continue using preventive measures. Nevertheless, I believe that further training will help me find suitable methods to overcome these barriers. As such, I feel prepared enough for the role of a DNP-trained nurse this week, but I understand that I have more things to learn.
References
Ford, C. N., Do, W. L., Weber, M. B., Narayan, K., Ranjani, H., & Anjana, R. M. (2021). Moderate-to-vigorous physical activity changes in a diabetes prevention intervention randomized trial among South Asians with prediabetes – The D-CLIP trial. Diabetes Research and Clinical Practice, 174. Web.