Thinking About the Journey

After the first semester of nursing school, I can tentatively say that I am interested in critical/intensive care nursing. My previous experiences as both a phlebotomist at Maine Med and a nursing student at Mercy have lead me to consider units like NICU, SCU, CTICU, and CICU. I am someone who likes a more intense, involved, high acuity environment. I am also attracted to the unpredictable nature of intensive care, as well as the more intimate patient-to-nurse ratio. Additionally, I have a solid background in pharmacy, which would most likely come in handy, as intensive care patients are often on a lot of life-sustaining medications. I would like to learn more about the specific responsibilities nurses have in the clinical care setting, and how those differ from what I’ve seen in my clinical rotations on the medical/surgical floors.

At this point, my assumptions about EBP are that it is a system that works toward implementing the best methods of patient care based on observed outcomes. Last semester, we learned about the importance of paying close attention to outcomes, or how patients respond to treatments and interventions. I think this class will help inform us about the best methods for identifying a need for improvement, as well as the best ways to communicate that need to our coworkers. I’m sure that as we learn more about different nursing interventions and therapies in other classes, we will be able to apply what we learn in EBP. In the clinical setting, we can more directly see how evidence-based improvements are implemented in the field, and we will have the ability to ask our instructors more about how research is done at a specific site. While this knowledge be useful in communication with fellow nurses, it is also vital that we use EBP interprofessionally, as healthcare is a co-dependent system that relies on all levels of staff keeping each other in check. I would guess that it helps to get an outsider’s perspective, as an unbiased eye may see room for improvement where others can’t. Additionally, research done by one department may identify a need for adjustment in another department.