Professional Capstone and Practicum Reflective Journal

Professional Capstone and Practicum Reflective Journal
Student's Name
Institution
Professional Capstone and Practicum Reflective Journal
My experience with this program has been nothing but exciting. I have worked with my mentor to ensure that I achieve my individual goals in the course through my individual success plan. My mentor has also been so insightful in helping me choose a topic for my capstone project and understand the nursing practice better. In my journey, I have learned that nursing practice requires constant evidence-based interventions to help improve patient care and outcomes. As a result, my problem-solving, analytical, and critical thinking skills have improved because I have had to figure out how to improve patient care in perioperative settings. Also, I have understood clearly the importance of professional values in the nursing practice, something that I did not understand earlier. Professional values that guide the nursing practice include integrity, human dignity, honesty, autonomy, and social justice (Poorchangizi et al., 2019). While working in the perioperative department, it became evident that nurse handoff communications are poor, and my focus has been on how to improve nurse handoff communications
New practice approaches
The high level of skills required for competent patient care necessitates the need to change nursing practice by introducing new approaches (Nestler, 2019). As part of my practice in the perioperative department, I discussed with my mentor the challenges among perioperative nurses in our organization. We agreed that pushing for a new protocol for nurse handoff communication was crucial. I was excited to search through the databases to establish the best protocol that can be introduced into nursing practice to improve handoff communication.
Inter-professional collaboration
Inter-professional collaboration helps improve patient care and outcomes in an otherwise overwhelmed industry where nursing staff is few (Nestler, 2019). Thus, I got exposed to inter-professional collaborations and how such collaborations promote patient safety and outcomes. My practical experience as a collaborator happened not only with my mentor but also with my preceptor, both of whom helped me become competent and achieve my goals.
Health care delivery and clinical systems
The value of effective and high-performing health care delivery and clinical systems became evident in one of my discussions with my mentor. One of my weekly goals was to understand how health care systems influence nursing practice and the delivery of care. I learned that high performance had been narrowly focused on clinical areas such as surgery (Ahluwalia et al., 2017). Yet, the system is wide and encompasses overall quality, access, and cost of care.
Ethical considerations in health care
One of the significant elements of nursing practice is ethics. Ethics and ethical values, postulated through the code of ethics, guide ethical decision-making and help nurses navigate through ethical dilemmas (Nestler, 2019). I learned how autonomy, beneficence, nonmaleficence, and justice apply to patients and influence the nursing practice. What stood out for me is my role as a patient advocate. My mentor says that I am my...