During this consolidation period, working under my preceptor and alongside other nurses I have learnt a lot on important skills needed in the mental health field. Looking back on my first day I felt very nervous, I wanted to make sure to do the right thing and at the right time and found myself being unsure of what steps I needed to take. My preceptor ensured to let me know areas I could improve on and work on and reassured me letting me know with time things will come to me and that I should not be nervous around me. I learnt to work on my initiative skills and wrote down tips and tricks to help me with that and I also learned the importance of asking questions even when it may feel like I don’t have any. As days went on I begun interacting with other staff as well and also learnt how important communication is, and started working on that as well. As I moved forward into the semester, I became more and more involved with things like medication administration, patient assessments and change of shift report. I observed nurses more and more and learned tips and tricks from them to help me improve in all areas. This experience has helped me Identify some learning needs like that of taking more initiative, which have allowed me to create personal learning objectives. Some of the things I learnt from other nurses are the importance of asking patients their last BM date as antipsychotic can have a strong effect on the body and cause constipation. I also learned that even while giving medication a small conversation can be enough to do a full mental status exam on a patient and that with time, I can learn to do it even without thinking. Another thing I learnt is that looking at the notes of admission and the latest note in a patient chart can give you helpful information as to how much a patient as improved or worsened as it will give you an idea of they where when they came and how they are now. This has been a good experience for me due to all the feedback I have received from my preceptor or other nurses and the things I’ve learned and keep learning. This semester has thought me a lot of things professionally and personally as well. This consolidation period has reinforced my desire to work in this field in the future and showed me areas I can improve on to make this easier. Even though I learnt a lot there have also been some things that have acted to reinforce learning such as that of the importance of good documentation and that of knowing what the medication that is being provided to a patient is for. Overall, this semester keeps being a good experience not just for everything I have been learning but also for the people that I have been surrounded with, who have been doing everything to ensure my learning is successful.
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