Module 4 Teaching in Nursing

Teaching is a major part of nursing no matter where you work. Everyday nurses are asked a myriad of questions (that often don't have anything to do with the current situation).  I worked as a labor and delivery nurse for many years and most of the day was spent teaching about plan of care, fetal monitoring, pushing, vital signs, medications, breastfeeding, infant bathing, use of bulb syringe, diet, exercise, etc...  I believe that nurses are teachers because we have to be, and also because we want to share out knowledge to help our patients fully understand and make better informed decisions.  With more knowledge, our patients are encouraged to be more involved in their own health care.  We are at the bedside and are available literally at the push of a button, so we are asked all of the questions that the doctor may not have time to answer.  We must be approachable to our patients and co-workers so that they will feel comfortable coming to us with various questions.    

In my current job as a legal nurse consultant I teach everyday.  My job entails researching specific medical issues and then educating the attorneys and legal secretaries and clients regarding those issues.  It has been an interesting and educating good job for me also as I learn a lot during the research phase to add to my bank of knowledge.  There are many new medications and  diagnoses I am not familiar with and, when I am finished with my research, I know much more than I did in the beginning.  I am also asked advice on a daily basis to evaluate something (suspicious mole?) or to discuss possible causes of certain symptoms.

 No matter where you work, as a nurse you are also a teacher, whether you are interacting with patients, staff, colleagues, or administration. Or even if you don't work as a nurse, your neighbors, family and friends (and often strangers, once they find out you are a nurse) will ask for your advice on a wide range of topics. 

Module 3 Searching for Information

For this module I searched in CINAHL, PubMed, National Guideline Clearinghouse and Google.   My search objective was to compare the use of heparin and aspirin versus IVIG in the treatment of recurrent miscarriage associated with antiphospholipid antibody syndrome.  Both CINAHL and PubMed returned many favorable results.  I had used PubMed before but not with the added controlled vocabulary of MeSH and using it made the search much more focused and more relevant.  CINAHL is a great resource with an easy way to export to EndNote.  I had not used the NGC webiste and found it to be useful and one that I will use with future research.  With NGC I didn't get nearly as many articles with my search, however, those that I did get were relevant to my research topic.

For my web search I used Google and, as I have experienced before, found many articles that were completely irrelevant to my research.  While Google is a good way to access general information about a topic, it does not allow for accessing many scholarly articles or full text articles as most require payment.  Being a student at the University of Utah, I am able to access full text articles in CINAHL easily as a link automatically comes up to do so.

This was a great research experience for me and will assist me with my future research strategies.