ADULT HEALTH II

Evidence-based Practice Paper

One of the assignments we had in Adult Health II was writing a pathophysiology and EBP paper with focus on critical care. I had a patient with ARDS on day 1 of my ICU rotation and given the commonness of this condition in the ICU, I decided to write my paper about it. The assignment reinforced and added to my prior knowledge on respiratory diseases, particularly ARDS, as well as validated the care my nurse and I provided to the patient. Having a solid understanding of clinical concepts such as P/F ratio, PEEP and other mechanical ventilation settings are necessary to provide care to an ARDS patient. My paper also discussed the nursing-managed care of a patient with ARDS in the critical care environment, and used recent evidence-based references to support what’s proven to be effective interventions so far.

MATERNAL & NEWBORN HEALTH

Fetal Heart Rate Monitoring & Newborn Care

As part of our learning on maternity health, we had a comprehensive online training that covered a lot of material and which include maternal changes and what becomes the baseline for pregnant women so that we know which what abnormal signs, symptoms, lab values and other data to look out for; extrinsic and intrinsic factors that places a fetus at risk; assessment of the newborn, the placenta, and the mother after delivery, etc. The biggest bulk of that training was dedicated to learning how to read and interpret fetal heart rate (FHR) strips. In the 3 days that I rotated in the L&D, I would constantly look at the FHR monitor of my patients from the nurse station and watch for deviations, absence of variabilities, and decelerations. Early interventions to events cannot happen without the knowledge on abnormalities to look for and their early detection and reporting. The training covered newborn care as well, including assessment (APGAR, what’s normal and abnormal based on their age),and interventions and resuscitation for neonates with life-threatening complications.