Palliative Care
As you have learned from this week’s reading and video, palliative care requires the nurse practitioner to help patients with serious or chronic illness from diagnosis through end of life. Could you be a palliative care nurse practitioner? (The answer is yes I can be a palliative care nurse practitioner). Why or why not?
https://youtu.be/x0dC97fHa_I (this is web address for this assignment)
Example of this assignment
Could you be a palliative care nurse practitioner? Why or why not?
According to Griffith and Hansen (2019), palliative care helps improve patients and their family’s quality of life during a life-threatening illness. The goal is to prevent and relieve patients suffering through early identification, assessment, and treatment of their pain, physical, psychosocial, and spiritual problems. A team approach is used to address the patients and family needs (including bereavement). The family is provided with a support system to help them cope with the patient’s illness and their grief.
No, I cannot be a palliative care nurse practitioner. Although nurses provide necessary skills (e.g., pain and symptom management) of palliative care daily, I cannot deal with the constant death’s emotional toll. I have such a soft heart for patients, and I feel I will become attached and take their deaths hard. I believe it is essential to provide patients and families with palliative care and commend the health care workers in that field.
Sample Answer
Palliative Care
Palliative care is integral to improving end-of-life health outcomes. It addresses physical needs, such as pain, but is also crucial to providing patients with the best mental, emotional, and spiritual experience. Hence, being a palliative nurse practitioner requires dedication, mental resilience, and a healthy relationship with patients and their families. I believe I have these qualities and can be a successful palliative care nurse practitioner.
One of the greatest challenges in end-of-life scenarios is the denial of the eventuality of death (Central East CCAC, 2015). As a palliative caregiver, I would assist patients and their loved ones in accepting this grim reality. I would use my cultural competence and knowledge of patient psychology to coach them through the process and enable them to become objective in setting care goals. Success in this endeavor would require establishing a functional relationship with the family, which I can.
Next, I engage in routine self-care practices. Therefore, I have the mental fortitude to deal with the emotional burden that palliative care presents. Meditation routines and physical exercise enhance emotional stability and resilience (Kester & Wei, 2018), allowing a caregiver to be compassionate towards patients’ pain and families’ agony. Hence, I can appreciate their concerns better and address them accordingly.
Finally, I am dedicated to quality health service. Palliative care is one of the health delivery settings that are yet to receive sufficient quality enhancement due to the various personal and cultural dynamics involved. Hence, my need to excel and improve nursing would be a great motivator for becoming a palliative care nurse practitioner. I would be glad to cope with or overcome the challenges and provide patients with enhanced overall care outcomes.
References
- Central East CCAC. (2015). Palliative Care Nurse Practitioners provide support to the dying in their homes [Video File]. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0dC97fHa_I&ab_channel=CentralEastCCAC
- Kester, K., & Wei, H. (2018). Building nurse resilience. Nursing Management, 49(6), 42-45. DOI: 10.1097/01.NUMA.0000533768.28005.36
