Introduction
The nursing practice experience is a crucial ground for personal development as a professional. In other words, the goal was to establish nursing competency, that is, the ability to perform tasks in real practice and maintain the critical judgment and desire for continual education (Fukada, 2018). The experience of practicum helped me to understand that my clinical skills are quite good but there are some aspects that should be fixed. Although there was considerable progress in understanding how to communicate and provide care for patients, cultural competencies seemed to be quite a sensitive reason to change my mind about clinical treatment.
Nursing Training
Modeling the behavior and practical style is an effective way to construct nurse identity. For example, Dorothea Orem’s Self-Care Deficit Nursing theory is an instructive guideline for nurses (Ali, 2018). It says that “self-care agency and self-care demand are interrelated to each other” (Ali, 2018, p. 2). Therefore, a self-care agency (nurse) cannot be weak because this scenario will cause more discomfort for the patient. In this regard, the practical work happened in full accordance with this model, so the goal of satisfying patients’ needs was accomplished. The goal to elaborate close intimate links with patients was fulfilled and helped me to understand their concerns better. The second issue that bothered me was the need to elaborate cultural competencies to a greater extent. Knowing that patients’ physical and mental health are interconnected (Mendes, 2019), it was hard to avoid some misunderstandings. For example, Muslim women can have stress because of cultural barriers between patients and nurses. Thus, the aim of becoming the specialist of competence to work with patients of any culture was quite challenging to accomplish through the practicum.
Conclusion
To sum up, training is always related to further need to achieve advancements in clinical skills. It was evident that cultural competencies may interfere in nurse practice, so some additional training in this direction is essential. There are a lot of research articles and handbooks about it, so it will not be hard to gain new knowledge about other cultures and identities. Thus, the practicum was very instructive for finding personal weaknesses and strengths in the field.
References
Ali, B. H. I. (2018). Application of Orem self-care deficit theory on psychiatric patient. Annals of Nursing and Practice, 5(1), 1-3. Web.
Fukada, M. (2018). Nursing competency: Definition, structure and development. Yonago acta medica, 61(1), 1-7. Web.
Mendes, A. (2019). Depression in residential care. Nursing and Residential Care, 21(11), 616-617. Web.