The Emergency Department is a place where critical patient assessment is heavily emphasized. I work as a 4th year nursing clinical extern in the emergency department at my local hospital and there are various factors that can contribute to comprehensive assessments utilized on the floor.

In our ER, the HEWS (Hamilton Early Warning Score) is one assessment that utilizes risk reduction and can prevent further decline in a patient's condition if their vitals are unstable. The HEWS is located on electronic medical records/charts that signal to healthcare providers if there are any issues with a patient's vitals. The scale ranges from a low of 1-4, a medium of 5-6, and a high risk of 7 and above. If a patient has a score of 7, there is an increased likelihood of a transfer to more intensive care, whereas if the patient scores 4 or lower, there is a decreased clinical…

As a level 4 student preparing to begin my journey as a registered nurse, I have been encouraged to reflect on the opportunities available to me in the clinical setting. My work this semester involves providing care to patients on the burn unit at the Hamilton General Hospital. This is a specialized unit with 12 beds, 2 of which remain reserved for critical care patients. Critical areas have always interested me as a student. It is inspiring to see how nurses can evolve into such skilful clinicians, using their critical thinking to produce positive patient outcomes. My current preceptor has been working on same the clinical setting for 30 years and reflects the image of an expert nurse as described by Benner in her article about the different levels of nursing performance. To Benner, an expert nurse is one who does not depend on rigid structures or guidelines to inform practice,…

In reflecting as a student in the BSN program not long ago, there are wishes and hopes to be assigned to an effective nurse educator who is passionate and loves to teach with a positive personality, preparing students for success and using excellent strategies to motivate and provide a meaningful learning experience to students. Nurse educators have a critical role in a student's success and can tremendously impact the nursing career of students. They are crucial in advancing nursing students to achieve the program objectives (Soroush et al., 2021). In addition, the effective nurse educator can assist the student nurse in integrating and applying the theory learned in clinical practice and improve clinical decision-making skills and critical thinking. Sadeghi et al. (2019) pointed out that nurse educators are paramount in improving nursing students' clinical competence.

There are nurse educators who play a significant role in a student's life and a…

            As I am approaching my final year of nursing school, I have begun to reflect on the past three years I have spent as a student nurse. To compare my first-year self to the present, I have grown vastly as a learner within a classroom and clinical setting. Most of the challenges I have faced throughout nursing school have involved my ability to efficiently preform skills and patient care as a student nurse. However, I would also largely attribute the aspect of self-validation to the challenges I have faced as a student nurse. As someone who is always seeking to set high expectations, it can be disappointing when they are not fully met. As a first- and second-year nursing student, I noticed that I set these high expectations of myself that sometimes were not obtainable, which led to disappointment as well as questioning my worth as a future nurse. As…