#cp reflection

[nicustudent]

Reflect on how you would interpret lab values and point of care testing to influence prioritization of nursing care for a patient with type 1 diabetes.

I would always want to see a blood sugar first as it can tell you lots of information in a short amount of time (hyper vs hypoglycemia). In an emergent situation it would be difficult to thoroughly assess if the clients diabetes is well maintained so I would want blood tests in order to determine pH and ketones (risk of DKA), creatinine (kidney damage) and C-insulin to monitor how much insulin is being created.

[nicustudent]

Avoiding bias

As mentioned earlier FIcare is a large component of the NICU and is a standard that is to be maintained even if the nurse does not enjoy the principles. It was found there can be resistance to involve parents in care (Daneman, Macaluso, & Guzzetta, 2003). I have noticed this among the unit sometimes. An element of documentation is recording parent involvement Shield’s (2011) argues that family centered care is a great ideal but is difficult to truly obtain due to peoples understanding of it can vary. Sometimes during handover or just through casual conversation with colleagues an image, whether its accurate or not, can be drawn about the family and influence care even if that nurse has never been with them. To help me avoid bias found in the clinical setting I will try to be an objective practitioner and investigate these assumptions myself. We need to go beyond the surface level and discover why parents have been deemed as “difficult”. Perhaps there is anxiety that is being portrayed as overbearing.