We started off first semester with classes called Professional Communications and Professional Practice. You don’t realize how important these classes are, or why on earth you actually need them until you are on practicum and interacting with people. In my life I’ve never had a professional job. Sure getting dressed up nice for work may seem professional to my previous employers, but actually taking classes on these and finding out what it really means to be professional is sure important, especially in the medical field.
Professional communications was all about, well, communication. We learned the basis of how and why we need to create relationships with our patients, what the importance of having good rapport with them meant, and how to communicate professionally within the multidisciplinary team. Being out on practicum and having to talk to so many different patients, workers, Doctors and talking with patients families it was extremely helpful that we had learned a basic foundation on how to do that. In nursing, you will remember your first everything you do and how you reacted then. On the first practicum we are providing AM care to the residents and obviously have to deal with feces and urine. Controlling your facial expressions and remaining calm and helping to ease the patients stress was all so new to me, but you learn and adapt quickly. This class was one of the shorter classes we had and was taught by a teacher who kept us all so engaged with her stories of her nursing career. She told us stories where communication is the biggest impact on patient’s lives and the care that they receive. Everyday we as nurses are going to be communicating with people and we have to make sure we know how to communicate professionally with everyone everyday on the job, because if you miss communicate something, someone’s life may be on the line.
Professional Practice was about how to act professional and how to become a professional. This class, just like Professional communications, is taught to us over all 4 semesters of school. This class in the first semester was a lot about the history of nursing, and how nursing came about in Canada. We learned how to integrate the things we say and how we act on practicum. This class was a very basic stepping stone about the professionalism of a health care provider and learning more in second semester and applying it to real life will be exciting.
These classes are a very important part of nursing and we will use them in our careers for the rest of our lives. I’m curious to take the next classes and see what more there is to learn and apply it to our careers. We go on our second practicum in a few weeks and this time there will be a whole other level of communication as we will be in a hospital with more health care professionals than the nursing home.
Check out this video of our Practical Nursing Program.
