Those six months (April-September 2015) were the busiest of my life. April 1st I started working on my Master's degree. The first class I did turned out to be my favorite--Professional Presence and Influence. It was all about mindfulness, consciousness, Noetics, holistic health, wholeness, and Eastern and Western medicine. It was a good set-up for the rest of the program that included making personal goals of being well-rounded and more mindful. It helped me re-realize a few things that kept me more aware of myself, time, and surroundings as I worked through the next few months.
1--It felt good to be doing something that felt all for me. I love being a mom and wife and nurse, but most of what I do is for other people. Stretching my mind and working towards something I was good at was so rewarding. I know I was excited when I finished my time at BYU and move on, but I really had forgotten how much I loved school and the learning that comes with it.
2--From #1--I really do love school! I have a talent for school, and it feels good to do something that you are really good at and get recognition for it.
3--I'm a decent writer. I was surprised at some of the high marks and comments I received on my papers from the start. Most of the classes required a paper as the final, and by the end of July, I was turning out a 20-30 page paper every two days in order to finish school in the six months.
4--Mornings are my most productive hours. Honestly, one of the best things that came from doing my Master's degree was getting my mornings back. Most of my life I considered myself a morning person. However, being pregnant is enough to wipe me out--and being pregnant and nursing and/or doing night feedings for baby concurrently totally drained any desire to get up early. It sometimes felt barely possible to get up WITH my kids, let alone BEFORE them. And then, as soon as I started to space out my children a little bit more, I went back to work, working nights. Talk about a major change of circadian rhythm! So I hadn't really done mornings for a while.
I knew, though, that if I was going to get this done, I had to get up early. It really helped that I was motivated and kind of excited to get working on things. I'd get out of bed between 5-5:30 every single day that I hadn't worked the night before (because in that case, I'd still be UP!). As soon as I rolled out of bed and said my prayers I marched over to the computer, read scriptures online for a few minutes, and got right down to writing. Those first two hours before my kids got up were always so productive, and it felt SO GOOD to have accomplished something right out of the gates of day. I learned that even though I was still pregnant and working nights, I could do it.
Since my masters, I'm still trying to keep the early morning habit. Having a baby two weeks later and all the midnight feedings knocked my habit a bit off kilter. I have several projects I'd like to work on and planned on doing in my re-discovered early morning hours, but I've learned that I'm not as motivated to do projects as I was my master's. My new realization is I'm most motivated to get up when I plan to invest my morning time in ME, not my projects. Once I realized that, I gave myself permission to actually spend the time exercising in the early mornings. It's a little hard, because I like to have something concrete that I can actually show for my time (such as--I can check such and such off my list FOREVER) but exercising is the most motivating thing for me right now, and I'm worth the investment.
5--It's amazing what can be accomplished with focused intensity. My original plan was to take a year to do my master's, and I thought in order to do so, it would take every.single.second. of my day. I made my plan:
- Zero extra-curricular (AKA my mental-junk-food) books.
- Absolutely no movies.
- Limited outings (I don't think I went to the farmer's market once all summer until I was done--and I didn't buy our usual tickets to plays and performances at the University).
- If I needed to visit with a friend, I usually saved it for Sunday, since Sundays I never did any school work.
- No cooking fun recipes--every dinner I cooked was something quick that I knew from heart (shepherd's pie, spaghetti, eggs and hashbrowns, tacos, etc.). Minimal housework--zero deep cleaning/organizing.
- Very limited involvement on our house remodel--I usually only spent an hour or two a week going over decisions with Tyson that I needed to be involved in. Sometimes extra time was used during my week to find something since our house was in such chaos and at one point everything in our master bedroom (including our bed) had to be moved to the front living room. But I made that time minimal.
This is a brief overview of my classes, to remember what they were about and what I liked about them (please skip to the pictures unless you are super into nursing and/or looking into the program. It's pretty detailed. This is mostly just for me):
Professional Presence and Influence: This was my first class and by far my favorite. I learned more about the field of Noetics, which is absolutely fascinating to me. The field of Noetics is basically a new science field that studies how intention/prayer/energy actually affects life using rigorous studies. Based on a quantum physics model, “consciousness is seen as nonlocal and not bound to one individual body. In this world, the minds of humankind are spread throughout space and time. They are infinite, immortal, omnipresent, and ultimately, one” (Koerner, 2011, p.134).
The class also taught about how to be more present, and how presence effects medical practice. Another focus of the class was holistic medicine and how to appropriately incorporate holistic practice (and when it's inappropriate). Combining Eastern and Western medicine was also discussed. Included in the course was an analysis of select hospitals and health care models that seek to heal the whole of a person.
The paper I wrote for my final in the class included all those elements, and was also about how to personally integrate the things I learned into my own practice, goals for becoming a more balanced and whole person.
Total paper pages: 21
Organizational Leadership and Interprofessional Team Development: This class focused on initiating change in an organization by first analyzing patient and family centered care, financial viability, and so on. In order to recognize the need for change, one must first notice things going on around them by being present (basically building on the first class). There were several resources on good business practices, patient satisfaction, and why it matters in healthcare today. The class was also focused on group dynamics, stages groups go through before things start to sync, and how to initiate changes when most of the time people are resistant to change.
For my paper I had to analyze the hospital I work in with an Organizational Self-Assessment tool with several different measures that focused on family- and patient-centered care. I described the area I work in, and then went into detail about every measure, where the hospital was doing well and where there were gaps for improvement. I then described why regulatory agencies now have an effect on consumer choices and how it affects financial viability of hospitals. I then had to make a recommendation of a change the hospital could make based on a gap in patient-centered care from the assessment tool. I made the recommendation of a Rapid Response Team (RRT), how to create this team, who would be on it, etc., what tools to use to analyze team dynamics forming a multidisciplinary team, and then how to measure the effectiveness of the team. A lot of the information was interesting to me, but the actual paper wasn't my favorite.
Total paper pages: 27
Pathopharmacological Foundations for Advanced Nursing Practice: For this class I had to pick one of four widespread chronic health conditions and write a very in-depth paper on that condition. I think there was heart disease, stroke, depression, and obesity. I picked obesity. For some parts of the paper I felt like I was kind of re-stating the same thing over and over again, but every paper had parts A, B, C, D, and then each of those parts were further broken down into 1, 2, 3, 4, etc and there was a rubric describing what was needed in each section, and sometimes it felt like it was repeated.
I actually learned a lot of interesting things about obesity--one of the most interesting class resources on it was links to seven you tube videos that documented a study in England where some normal-weight people had to overeat for the study and what happened to them as they gained weight, and how some of them physiologically almost couldn't gain weight. The biological vs. environmental factors were fascinating.
I had to write why obesity was a problem in our population, what obesity does to a person physiologically down to the cellular level, health problems associated with obesity, standard pharmacological treatments for obesity, and how each drug or treatment worked to address obesity.
I also went through how obesity is diagnosed in the health care setting, what labs are usually significant, and how prevalent it is in my community, state, country, etc. I described what obese patients do that manage their health condition well.
I then went on to describe groups where there exists health disparities, and specifically focused on Mexico which has the highest obesity rate of any country (over 70% is overweight or obese). I talked about why that was cultural factors, environmental factors (unsafe places for physical activity, economic (part of it is the low price of sodas--mothers will start putting soda into their baby's bottles as young as 2 months), what lawmakers have tried to do and why it didn't work due to powerful food lobby groups dismantling the most crucial parts of legislation. Why a lack of access to healthcare is also a barrier in attacking obesity.
I addressed financial costs associated for patients with obesity, how it affects them as individuals, families, and how it affects our population as a whole. I wrote about best practices for treating obesity, and then what I could personally do in my practice to help combat this problem. I wrote that I could encourage breastfeeding for my patients, ways to increase activity levels for moms that just had babies, and how to get more exercise and eat healthy myself while I'm at work (trying to overcome the 2 AM munchies :). It was pretty in-depth, and probably the paper, other than my capstone, that took the longest.
Total paper pages: 32
Contemporary Pharmacotherapeutics: This was just a multiple choice test. Part of the student materials included is a web cam that I hooked to my computer. It was nice that I didn't have to go to a testing center or anything. For WGU you have to pass a pretest before the actual test, so you have a pretty good idea that you are going to pass. I think this class took me two or three days, I looked at some material, passed the pretest, then took and passed the test. It was awesome.
Advanced Information Management and the Application of Technology: This class was all about the federal regulations that mandate computer charting, physician ordering, what information management is and how it is applied to nursing, etc. For my paper I had to pretend that our hospital was going from paper charting to computer charting, design a team from different areas of the hospital to implement the new computer system, pick two computerized management systems to compare, and then pick one to recommend and describe how it fit all the government requirements. I'm more technologically disinclined, so it wasn't what I would normally learn about, but it was really interesting and writing the paper helped me envision myself doing things that I would normally feel uncomfortable with, which is what I think getting a Master's is mostly about.
Total paper pages: 19
Policy, Politics, and Global Health Trends: I did the most reading for this class out of all of them--I took my laptop to Europe, and while I didn't type any papers while I was on my trip, I did read a ton. It turned out all that reading didn't help me write my paper at all, but it was super interesting!
For my paper I had to come up with some policy change, and then how I would present it from both a top-down approach and a bottom-up approach. My policy change dealt with medication errors. For the top-down approach, I had to pick an actual, real person from Congress that I would present it to and why that person would be a suitable pick. I picked a Senator from Wyoming (Senator Enzi) that is on the committee for Health in the Senate. I then explained why this policy would be important, the challenges the policy would face and which groups may be resistant, the financial implications of this policy, etc. I talked about what Senator Enzi might do with my policy (basically either endorse it or do nothing), how it would eventually pass into law if it did get support, and how I would measure the policy's effectiveness after it became a law.
For the bottom-up approach I needed to find a group that would support the tenets of my policy, so I chose the American Nurses' Association, or ANA, how I would work with them. I discussed how to use Community-based participatory research for making policy changes from the bottom-up. I wrote how to do a pilot program, different roles members from the ANA would take during this, and how to evaluate success from this bottom-up approach. I then compared which would be better of these two different approaches. Again, this paper put me in a position where I very realistically had to envision myself doing things I would not normally do, but made me confident if I ever wanted to do something like this and work towards policy change, I could.
Total paper pages: 17
Comprehensive Health Assessment for Patients and Populations: This class consisted of a multiple choice test (a little harder than the first one) and then I had to do a video of me doing a full history and head to toe assessment, and then what labs and such I would recommend for that person. So of course I chose Tyson :) It was a fun little 40 minute video of me doing an assessment and talking about what I was doing the whole time, haha!
Essentials of Advanced Nursing Practice Field Experience: For this class I had to fill out this HCAHPS form for the hospital. HCAHPS is a government survey that goes out to a sample of patients after they are discharged from the hospital, and the government measures the quality based on the answers the patient gives on the survey. Just FYI, even though there are multiple answers (Never, Sometimes, Most Times, Always) the hospital gets ZERO credit unless the answer to the questions are ALWAYS. If the hospital doesn't get scored well, they can lose reimbursement for medicare and medicaid services.
Then I had to go around to the hospital quality improvement people at the hospital and ask about some quality measure they had done recently and if I could analyze how much change it had done. Our hospital had just recently done trainings and in-services to several staff members about the HCAHPS survey and what specific questions were on there to see if we could boost our scores. In my paper I talked about all the changes, our baseline HCAHPS score and how it had improved the next quarter after all the in-services. I analyzed what could have done better. I described my involvement (basically meeting with certain people who had initiated the trainings). Pretty basic. This may have been my shortest paper.
Total paper pages: 12
Translational Research for Practice and Populations: This paper was kind of the jumping-off point for my capstone. I decided, again, to focus on medication errors and the workarounds nurses use that makes their system for dispensing medication unsafe or increase the potential for errors (such as using a barcode sticker from the chart instead of the patient's actual armband. No one does that, right?) I had to find five sources and then rate them on their strength of research they used using a hierarchy table (meta-analysis being the top). I summarized the evidence and then recommended a best-practice approach, basically to not use the workarounds and how to convince nurses to not do that. I talked about a change model I would use to instigate the change (the Iowa Model), and how the model would guide the change.
Total Paper Pages: 15
Foundations of Nursing Education: In this paper, I had to pretend that I was part of the faculty for a program that was switching from an Associate program to a Bachelor's program. I had to explain why this change was important, chose an organization on which to model its quality and safety (QSEN), why it was appropriate, challenges that would be encountered, which learning theory would be employed to develop critical thinking skills (constructivist), and which educational philosophy to use (adult theory). Advantages and disadvantages to using all of these were discussed. I chose two current modalities (online and simulation) to enhance the nursing program, and justification and barriers to using these modalities. Summative and formative assessments were to be used; I wrote about the pros and cons of both. I also wrote about how the curriculum would all be connected to the ANA code of ethics, and how FERPA, HIPPA, ADA, and copyright laws would all be protected. The paper ended with a description of how the program would gain accreditation.
Total paper pages: 21
Facilitating Nursing in the 21st Century: I actually had to write two papers for this class. The first paper was basically describing curriculum for a Fundamentals of Nursing course (ironically enough, that is the class which labs I currently teach at BYU-Idaho). I came up with four competency statements and explanations of each. I then came up with three objectives that was connected to one of the competency statements, and criterion that would be used in evaluating appropriate student resources. I chose to have a blended approach, and then discussed strategies to evaluate learning outcome (papers instead of tests, and video recordings of skill demonstrations). Again, advantages and disadvantages were discussed, blah blah blah. I also wrote about criterion referenced tests, norm-referenced tests, and advantages and disadvantages to true/false questions, multiple choice questions, key considerations of stem-construction and response options. I wrote how posttest reviews increases learning, then went in depth on cultural considerations and students' backgrounds and how it could affect their learning. I then came up in detail about a learning activity that connected to one of the learning objectives, how students would be divided into groups based on learning styles, and the importance of learning critical thinking skills, and a critical thinking strategy (reflection). Also an example of best practice in learning.
Total pages: 21
Second paper comprised of how I would keep students informed of the transition to the BSN program (see previous class), how to inform healthcare agencies the school worked with, challenges for faculty, new interdisciplinary partners, and the evaluation of the new curriculum using different data sets.
Total pages: 7
Future Directions in Contemporary Learning and Education: In this paper we had to pick an innovative method in education (either MOOCs, adaptive learning technologies, flipped classroom, or inquiry based learning) and discuss, again, advantages and disadvantages and such. I picked the flipped classroom, which was probably good because it's widely used at BYU-Idaho. I again created a course (this time, it was "The care of a newborn"), created competencies, how this teaching method would impact faculty, and then came up with specific ways that this learning method would be implemented into my class. Lastly, I was describe how I would get feedback for my teaching method and how I would know it was effective. This was my favorite education class--I really loved learning the different methods and planned on taking some MOOC's after I finished :) (it hasn't happened yet--but it will!)
Total pages: 14
Nursing Education Field Experience: There were two projects for this class. First, I had to find, review, and categorize 30 sources that related to my project. It. . .took. . .forever!!! I remember doing this while Tyson was in Europe, and I was struggling keep the momentum going until the end. I finally got my 30 sources needed and categorized in their format, while I made a separate, annotated bibliography for myself so I could remember which information was in which article that I might possibly use. I remember one time I could remember reading something but couldn't remember which article it had been in, and I hadn't planned on using that piece of information initially. It took me probably two hours of combing through articles multiple times until I found it. So if you are taking this class--write down EVERYTHING you might possibly use and where it came from!
For the final capstone project you basically write 5 chapters about your actual project, two chapters before doing it, and 3 after. These two classes were probably the only two that felt like it had a little bit of busy work because you were re-stating the same thing over and over again. Again, my Capstone focused on decreasing medication errors through barcode technology.
Chapter one was the background of the problem and the reason there needed to be a change. Chapter 2 was all about my literature review, how I found credible sources and then identified best practices. I then went in depth on the evidence summary, and really how proper Barcode Medication Administration (BCMA) prevents errors when properly used and no workarounds are present. I then went into recommendations.
Nursing Educator Capstone: So then, I actually implemented my project. Ironically, there is no check off or really course credit for doing it, just writing about it. For my project I presented an in-service to staff members at my hospital about best practices for medication administration and using barcode technology. Chapter 3 comprised of a summary of exactly what I did in implementing it, changes that happened as I worked on my project, barriers I experienced as I prepared, and on and on. Chapter 4 was on successful aspects of the project and challenges I faced, and how, if I could do it over, I would prevent those challenges. Chapter 5 I reviewed the Master's Program outcomes and how I incorporated all of them into my project. I had my bibliography and my chart with all my analyzed sources included.
Total project pages: 40
HA! That was a project in and of itself writing about what I did! But it's been fun to go through all my papers again and remember. Those that made it through, congrats and an honorary degree to you!
Although I finished last September, the Commencement ceremony was this last July 16. I really appreciated the family that came out to support me for graduation, and for the family that helped support me while I did it--especially Tyson, who put up with the most minimal meals and pretty much did all the laundry the whole six months, my brothers, who encouraged me all along, and my mom and Tyson's mom for watching kids while he went to Europe so I could finish. I would thank my kids, but they basically thanked me that they got to watch movies and hung out with Grandmas the whole month of July and August while I did my school.
 |
| The awesome supporters. It was super nice for my family, Tyson's parents and grandparents, and my best friend Tiffany and her fiance to come. |
 |
| Best Clan Ever!!! |
 |
| I love my family! |
1 comment:
Congratulations once again! I am glad that you learned so much and enjoyed the journey!
Post a Comment