this assessment of the program

7/31/2019 This Assessment of the Program

1/6

This program assessment is a portfol io of illus trations via the evidence and thway in which I facilitate my learning and assessment for Learner in mypractice setting. It portrays as an educational portfolio; where record or datathat provides evidence of a person during the process of learning experiencein a field to enhance their knowledge (Harris et al, 2001).

As author of this portfolio, let me tell a bit about my background career. Iqualified as a staff nurse in January 2005 in one of the most famous private

hospital in the city of Kuala Lumpur. I was based in outpatient clinic with morethan 20 clinics made up of all experts, including two medical doctors, and Iserved as officer in charge of the clinic here.

The staf f nurses task here is to administer the injection for the patient asprescribed by the doctor, give Nebulizer as prescribed, make daily dressing tooutpatient, do Stitch to Open (STO), iv line set if the patient is admitted to thehospital clinic, and etc., in accordance with procedure scope set by thehospital. Outpatient unit consists of a nurse manager, a supervisor nurse anda nurse coordinator to manage the clinic, which operates during office hours.While staff nurses consists of 5 persons, assisted by eight assistant nurses an

also student nurses who come for their practical department.

Coincidentally, our department recently received a junior nurse who has noworking experience as a staff nurse. He is known as Miss CT (pseudonym),aged 23 years and studying in one of Kuala Lumpurs private college. I haveattached the junior nurse information at the back of the assessment (appendix1). Naturally, I was assigned as mentor to Miss CT and train him under mysupervision.

Our hospital organization uses mentoring as a basis for educating junior nursewhich became the hospitals compulsory routine, as alleged by Gopee (2008);

currently the use of a mentor is the best facility widely practiced by studentsto ensureand provide appropriate knowledge base for nursing interventionand competencies in learners.

As nurse coordinator or mentor in this department, I am responsible forensuring student nurse and my learners can gain valuable practical experiencin this department, especially the dressing procedure for outpatient clinic, asmost of them are confused by the steps and ways to maintain Sterility untilthe end of procedure. As mention by Ogier (1981), the ward sister isresponsible in providing the best learning environment in their department inits own manner. Through this I feel the responsibility in ensuring that theylearn well in the method that i s easy to understand.

Therefore, I am interes ted in training my Learner on the dressing procedure.Firstly, meeting face to face with Miss CT in a discussion room and getacquainted with each other. This is known as the Initiation Phase, where thegood relationship between mentors and learners begin in influencing andraising the learning quality.

At this stage, pressure should be avoided and commitment to furtherstrengthens the relationship through this Mentorship program (Cahill 1996,Morton-Cooper and Palmer 2000). I gave Miss CT the overview of this


2/6

Mentorship program and explained its goal. Upon agreement, Miss CT will signthe learning contract between Miss CT and me (appendix 2). After obtainingconsent, I will make a strategic learning plan (appendix 3) for 21 days startingJanuary 2nd, 2012 to January 20th, 2012 to ensure that the Mentorshipprogram goal is implemented successfully.

During this stage, I will observe Miss CT level of knowledge on the dressingprocedure through the interview and try to uncover Miss CT pattern of learnin

through learning style created by Honey and Mumford (2000) to identify fourlearning style that is activist, reflectors, theorist and pragmatists with using80 questionnaire version (appendix 4); and the result shows that he has apragmatist learning approach. Pragmatist is an initiative to find new ideas andto review and practice. I was excited to know that Miss CT is in the pragmatistlearning style category, as this will facilitate my mentorship works and believethis program goals will be achieved with hard work from me and Miss CT.

Before moving to the next plan, I need to educate my learners with adequateknowledge to provide policy and guideline in maintaining Sterility procedure tMiss CT (appendix 5); for preparation of sufficient knowledge to Miss CT is

important in applying critical thinking and rational thinking in teaching himeach step of doing the dressing procedure. By encouraging critical thinkingand rationale thinking for each step can facilitate miss ct to understand theprocedure easier. The use of critical thinking and rational thinking is my mainstrategy in teaching all learners under my supervision. They need to knowwho, why, when, where and how on everything about the dressing procedure. always encourage Miss CT to ask questions on what he doesnt understand oruncertain about information explained to him.

This portfol io is not simply a random col lection of information, but rather avery systematic, in which, I explain and direct Miss CT to make learning diarie

in accordance with the program time course (appendix 6). Reflective diariesare important in building positive professional attitudes, knowledge and skillsin providing benefits to learners (Harris et al, 2001). As his mentor, Iencourage him to write about the experiences and feelings he gets every dayfrom each plan provided to him. Through these learning diaries, I will know hislevel of understanding and able to see the effectiveness of my teaching. I willmonitor every three days to ensure that he always update his learning diaries

Presentation on the dressing procedure for Sterility among staff is also givento refresh their memory on the procedure, and highlights the new principlesissued by the Malaysia Government Ministry. I am responsible in giving thispresentation to all staff nurse with Miss CT as an observer because he will alsbe given the responsibility to give presentation to the student nurse on thethird week under my supervision. Through this way, he would be moreprepared to give his presentation to the student nurse after seeing mypresentation, and that he can hear and understand the discussion between thestaff nurse and I inside the room. I also do dressing demonstrations in front ofthem to see details of each step that they dont understand; because eachstep has its own rationale and reason.


3/6

As each plan is arranged every week, this would display learners weaknessesso every week I will motivate Miss CT based on his weakness to provide MissCT the necessary support. This is because; the additional mentor support isthe keyin providing and maintaining effective communication and facilitationassessment of Mentorship Programs (WAG, 2002).

As the facilitator, I see that Miss CT is someone who can easily understandevery theory taught, but a little confuse with every step of the dressing

procedure. I advised him that, all this confusion will be solved during thesecond week in session with theory and practical along with the rational andcritical thinking in the dressing procedure on a mannequin first. Whenconfidence is gained, he will do the real dressing to patients under mysupervision. He is happy because I understand and always give him the spiritto learn more about this procedure. His worries have lessened now and cannotwait to go into the next session.

On January 9th, 2012 the second week session begins, and is known as thesecond phase or the working phase. This stage is a very active phase becauselearners can carry themselves better and start taking more responsibility as a

nurse. Their level of confident increased, and the relationship betweenlearners and facilitator closer compared with the initial phase (Morton-Cooperand Palmer, 2000). This stage will start by giving orientation to learners onunit and department, routine clinic progress, the introduction of the log bookin practical area, and the equipment for dressing procedure in thisdepartment.

I also do a staff meeting to introduce Miss CT to all the staff in order to helpreduce Miss CT anxiety to enter the clinical area, and provide him comfort tostart his learning sess ion and to promote the learning environment in thisdepartment (Wallace, 2003). Provide briefings on the job description and to

give each a copy (appendix 7) in order to remember their responsibilities, viewnurses code of conduct and I try to emphasize on the principles of effectivecommunication and relationship among staff as important in learning andworking, with hope all staff to work together in helping Miss CT to learn all theprocedure in this department.

I admit there is some staff that doesnt offer much tutoring and even scold ifMiss CT asks questions. The majority of senior staff has their egos inexchanging greetings with thejun ior nurse. Any little mistake made by thejunior nurse wi ll eventually be scolded, thus make them afraid to ask anyth ingto the senior nurse. Junior nurse can only rely on their mentors. However, Itried solving this problem together with the sister department and the nursemanager to have the counseling sessions with all senior nurse. They admittedtheir mistake, everything is better solved and Miss CT wont have to be upsetabout it anymore.

Recommendation from Hyatt, Brown and Lipp (2008), mentor should workclosely with junior nurse and ensure they are always together in the clinicalarea to identify any learners weaknesses to enhance their learningopportunities and understanding the procedure. Therefore, Im always withhim on a daily basis to guide Miss CT on the wound dressing so he can do the


4/6

dressing on his own. Everything should be under my observation or senior stafonly.

By using critical and rational thinking I taught him on nursing care basics likethe dressing procedure, he quickly learns each step of doing the dressing tothe patient. In nursing, the nurse is also responsible for providing healtheducation to patients, for example in terms of wound care, nutritional aspects

to promote wound healing, and so forth. I encourage Miss CT to do a lot ofreading in providing health education to patients for a variety of questions tobe asked by patients about the health education.

Having finished the dressing procedure and health education to patient, MissCT is required to do some documentation about the patient, especially on thepatient's wound. First, I teach Miss CT how to assess the patient's woundcondition, if there are wounds that he is not sure how to do the assessment,he would ask me and I will answer by linking a couple of questions to himabout the wound. I first asked the patient's permission for me to teach Miss CTon the wound. Even patients are willing to participate in the study.

I have taught him all theories on wound assessment model (appendix 8) durinthe first week to identify the types of wounds, such as signs of woundinfection, beautiful wounds, wounds that requires disloughing, the type withdead tissue in the wound, wounds that require specialists treatment andothers. This will make iteasy for him to identify which type of wounds andcreate documentation in patient files. I remind Miss CT that all this needs tobe done in an orderly and structured manner for all this documentation is thepatient's black and white, and is valid for court if necessary. This reminds MisCT to be more careful in making any documentation.

Facilitating learning and assessment is ongoing as planned, the next my planis to facilitate learners to prepare their power point slides in power pointpresentation as an effective and popular way to provide education to audience(Gopee, 2008). This is proven through my practice setting, continuous nursingeducation (CNE), held every Wednesday for an hour through power pointpresentation.

In his slides, I encourage him to provide the pictures associated with dressingsuch as image equipment for dressing, a good wound, and infected wound,gangrene wound and so on to attract audience to see and hear thepresentation. As his facilitator I must ensure that each power point slides havsolid and clear content because mentor has to provide support to learners toproduce professional learners (Ali and Panther 2008), especially when dealingwith student nurse when giving the presentation later in the third week.

At the end of the second week, I distribute the assessment form to the staffnurse in outpatient clinic to carry out assessment and to evaluate during MissCTs working phase in this department. This is because, Neary (2001) says thaassessment process involving more than one will reduce biased decisions ordecisions that threaten them, thus I involve staff in this department to assesshim as well as they work together every day since the mentoring programbegins.


5/6

In addition, through this I can get a second opinion from the staff here abouthim while on duty. These are the steps in doing a fair assessment to a personin any aspect. All staff nurse in the department was informed that theassessment of this form would be collected at the end of week, which is thethird week so that they can fill the form before the assessment date forsubmission.

This mentorship process continues unti l the thi rd week which ends theMentorship program. This week, my presentation started with Miss CT becauseI am convince that he understands each learning process taught to him duringthe first and second week. I need to make sure that he really understandswhat is delivered to the student nurse through this presentation. Becausewhen they understand, it is easy for him to explain every step of the dressingprocedure to the student nurse. I hope he can deliver this presentation withconfident and enthusiasm, as this begins his first encounter with the public.

This presentation is ev idence in the portfol io and is important dur ing theassessment process because through this presentation, will indirectly be a

form of discussion (Harris et al, 2001) where the student nurse will askquestions to Miss CT if there is confusion. Miss CT will answer and I will assistif the answer is not clear, and at the same time, will also ask him questions.Through this, Ican assess Miss CTs level of understanding on the dressingprocedure clearly and accurately. On the day of the presentation, he did welldespite feeling nervous occasionally, but I am glad he is able to control it verywell and I believe he can. The student nurse presence post as evidence oftheir attendance. (appendix 9).

The evaluation process begins wi th the log book (appendix 10) in which MissCT must do a dressing procedure at least 5 times a day and take notes on the

condition of the wound. Log book was introduced to Miss CT in the secondweek beginning January 9th, 2012 to 20 January 20th, 2012. Each procedurewas done under my supervision or staff nurse involved. With this log book, Isee his effort in finding dressing cases to fill up the cross in the log book. MisCT did not have any problem in f inding a dressing procedure as many peoplecame to do the dressing every day with variety types of wound and conditions

The next evaluation is in Miss CT learning diaries , which shouldalways be upto date on every condition throughout the Mentorship program for the periodof 3 weeks (appendix 6). Notes made from his learning diaries shows that hesbeginning to have self-awareness of the importance of knowledge, attitude,and skills. Furthermore, evaluation are based on the assessment forms doneby the staff nurse at the outpatient clinic (appendix 11), and the results orfeedback from them shows that he is able to perform well in maintainingdressing Sterility procedure from beginning to end, but needs to do morepractice to become a norm. To further enhance my level of learning throughthe Mentorship program, I gave him the evaluation form from mentee tomentor (appendix 13). Through this I will know how effective my teachingmethod to my learners is.

On the last day of the Mentorship program, I called Miss CT into the roomprepared to provide him the evaluation result and feedback. Results showed


6/6

that Miss CT is always advancing day to day due of the effects and resultsfrom encouragement, motivation, support and advice f rom me and the staffaround him. I'm happy because this Mentorship program achieved itsobjectives and I give him advice and motivation to continue this excellence inthe future to becoming a more professional in all areas of nursing. He receiveit with joy and promise to be better. This program ended with a goodrelationship and positive impact on me and Miss CT in different situations, andis called the termination phase, also known as the final phase in the

Mentorship program (Morton-Cooper and Palmer, 2000).

Therefore cur rent or future, the Mentorship program is very ef fective increating a professional nursing staff in spite of the values instilled and taughtthrough this program. It is effective and relevant to the practice of nursing inthe world and also practiced in higher education institutions and the businessworld. Despite educational differences, it is unanimous agreed, in creating aprofessional staff with the concept of mentoring in the training of new staff attheir institution because it is a very effective concept. Principles and goals ofmentoring is to enhance leadership skills, advancing the vision protgs, andfor the future of nursing as a profession (Owen and Patton, 2003). This proves

that facilitating learning and assessment in practice will be more effective bycooperation between mentors, learners, environment, staff and management ithe key to sustained professionalism and to achieving job satisfaction.

this assessment of the program

Documents