Professional Capstone and Practicum Reflective Journal Medicine Essay

Professional Capstone and Practicum Reflective Journal
Name
Institution
Due Date
Reflective Journal
Week 1
The first week of capstone was orientation or alignment or what some may say to be figuring out the expectations of my new class. At this point, I was expected to familiarize myself with Long-term Care Facilities. CDC (2015) describes long-term facilities as “nursing homes, skilled nursing facilities, and assisted living facilities” providing “a variety of services, both medical and personal care, to people who are unable to manage independently in the community.” From the explanation above, it is quite easy to understand what a long-term care facility is and it did not take me long to understand what they are and what they do. Throughout this week, I was able to establish a great working relationship with my mentor and it was easy developing a plan and setting review dates for my research project.
Week 2
Week 2’s goal was to select my topics and seeking approval. Well, an in-depth research into LTCFs was required to help cement support for the topic I had selected. My LTCF topic was the causes of infection and cost of infection prevention practices in LTCFs. To amass the research materials, I decided to use the GCU library and upon collection of enough materials, I came up with a plan to write my proposal which I would review with my mentor. Upon meeting my mentor, it was agreed that I needed to research further and find more materials. However, my mentor was satisfied with my approach and topic but felt that I needed more support in terms of the peer-reviewed articles I was using.
Week 3
In this week, the goal was to discuss the supporting materials I had gathered and to develop a PICOT statement (Patient, Issue, Cause, Outcome, and Time). My PICOT statement is ways of determining the causes of infection among LTCF clients and the cost of prevention practices for the same. There was congruence in how we both viewed infections within LTCFs as well as the cost of preventing the same. In their article, Cohen et al. (2017) write that “within U.S. nursing homes alone, an estimated 1.6 to 3.8 million HAI occur annually.” HAI is Healthcare-associated infections. She continues to write saying that “these HAI cost $38-$137 million for antimicrobial therapy and $637 million to $2 billion for hospitalizations due to infections each year.” These are big numbers and my mentor and I agreed that there was a need for action and research into the causes of such infections which then created the need for research to help determine the cost of preventing such infections.
Week 4
This week was quite packed in that I was expected to do a lot of reading and review of literature resources relevant to my project. My mentor and I agreed to meet to review the resources which would make up my literature review. The goal here was to ensure that all the materials I end up with fit perfectly into my project. My mentor also brought to my attention the need to also include the role nurses play or need to play in the prevention of infections in LTCFs. Nurses, apparently, play a big role in the spread of the infections my mentor told me. Additionally, Peschin (2016) writes th...