RUNNING HEAD: PRE-REFLECTION 1

Pre-Reflection Paper

Alyssa Matulich

University of Tennessee Chattanooga

9/2/18
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Pre-Reflection Paper

As I prepare to begin clinicals for this Women’s Health class, I am very nervous about

my clinicals. Most of my experience as a nurse is in pediatrics which is where my heart truly lies,

so this semester will be completely different and outside of my comfort zone. While I was in the

NICU, I became familiar with some terms related to pregnancy and women’s health, but in

regard to the clinical aspect I have only ever done women’s health in nursing school which was

more focused on mother baby and labor and delivery.

The syllabus for this class lists many objectives for this course, but one I wish to focus on is

applying concepts necessary for the assessment, diagnosis, and therapeutic interventions of

common acute and chronic health problems in adults (Owsley & Simms-Roberson, 2018). As

stated above, my experience working with children is in the role of a nurse. Health assessment,

pharmacology and pathophysiology have provided me with the tools necessary to be a successful

nurse practitioner, but I am still not fully comfortable with using the advanced skills that I

learned in the clinical setting. I have honestly done a vaginal exam myself although I have seen

them done and I an anxious about my first one. I know that during clinicals I will get plenty of

experience with vaginal exams, pap smears, and bimanual exams, and I hope that once clinicals

are finished I am more comfortable doing these assessments. Knowing how to do something and

actually do it are to different things and until I get my feet wet with actual patients I am nervous.

I have found that I learn best in a hands-on experience, so I am hoping that I become comfortable

and accurate in my skills in order to provide my patients with the best and most complete care

possible.

Another objective for this course is integrating the principles of disease prevention in

caring for the patient in order to maintain health status of women (Owsley & Simms-Roberson,
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2018). Being a women’s health nurse practitioner is more than doing vaginal exams. I know that

as a women’s health nurse practitioner I will have to care for the whole patient and that means

making sure the patient is up to date on mammograms, DEXA scans, and annual exams. We

have been taught when all of these aspects of women’s health are due, but I hope to become

more comfortable discussing these important screenings for disease prevention and incorporating

them in every visit. Disease prevention is one of the most important aspects of healthcare and

making sure that all screenings are complete at every visit is the best way to prevent diseases

from progressing.

The National Organization of Nurse Practitioner Faculties has compiled a list of core

competencies for the nurse practitioner. One of those competencies is that the nurse practitioner

will Evaluates the relationships among access, cost, quality, and safety and their influence on

health care (Thomas et al., 2017). The patients that I see during my clinical experience will have

different economic classes and insurance plans. It will be important that as a nurse practitioner I

offer my patients treatment options that they can afford, so they are more likely to successfully

follow the treatment plan. At this point in my education I am aware of all of the different types of

birth control options for the patient, but I am not fully aware which ones are the most cost

effective. I hope that during my clinicals I learn how to choose which birth control option is best

for patients in order to prevent pregnancy but also in a cost-effective manner. I hope that this

semester I will learn to weigh the effectiveness of treatment options with the associated costs of

those options, so that I can recommend the best treatment for the patient. In order for the

treatment to be effective, the patient must have access to the treatment, with cost being one of the

biggest factors that limits access. Of course, it will be important that with I always consider the

safety of my recommendation along with the cost effectiveness.

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Like I have said before, women’s health is a whole new world for me and I am extremely

nervous. I hope that through my clinicals I become more proficient in my assessment skills and

more comfortable discussing all of the aspects of women’s health with my patients. I also hope

that I come to love this aspect of being a family nurse practitioner and can incorporate what I

learn this semester into my future practice as a nurse practitioner.

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References

Owsley, N., & Simms-Roberson, P. (2018). Primary care of women practicum. In Nursing 5570.

Chattanooga: University of Tennessee Chattanooga.

Thomas, A., Crabtree, M. K., Delaney, K., Dumas, M. A., Kleinpell, R., Marfell, J., ... Wolf, A.

(2017). Nurse practitioner core competencies content. Retrieved from

http://c.ymcdn.com/sites/www.nonpf.org/resource/resmgr/competencies/2017_NPCoreC

omps_with_Curric.pdf