First assessment out of the way - only 8 to go

This week as well as being on clinical for 5 days straight, which made me very tired indeed by the end of the week, I've been focused on preparing for my first assessment task for the semester, an online multiple choice quiz made up of 30 questions based on a set of journal articles that we were given. It's worth 10% of the total mark for the Managing Chronic Conditions subject. Some of the readings I mentioned in my previous post, and these were the rest of them:

• The emotional context of self-management in chronic illness: A qualitative study of the role of health professional support in the self-management of type 2 diabetes
• Evaluation of a primary care nurse case management intervention for chronically ill community dwelling older people
• The patient’s vulnerability, dependence and exposed situation in the discharge process: experiences of district nurses, geriatric nurses and social workers
• Prioritizing Illness: Lessons in Self-Management Multiple Chronic Diseases
• From the sidelines: Coaching as a nurse practitioner strategy for improving health outcomes
• Motivational interviewing-based health coaching as a chronic care interventions
• Nurse Coach: Healthcare Resource for this millenium
• Patient empowerment: reflections on the challenge of fostering the adoption of a new paradigm
• What skills do primary health care professionals need to provide effective self-management support? Seeking consumer perspectives
• Chronic illness self-management: taking action to create order
• Nursing Science and Chronic Illness: Articulating suffering and possibility in family life
• Youth Health - sex, drugs and chronic illness: health behaviours among chronically ill youth

I didn't actually read every word of all the articles because I ran out of time. I read about half of them trying to understand the main gist of them. But the some of the questions in the quiz were quite detailed so for those ones I had to go back and find the answer. Some questions could just be answered by common sense and elimination. Anyway, I just completed the quiz and got 9.67 which means I got 29/30 right! Woo hoo!

One down, eight to go.

Other things I've got done this week:

Lectures
• Communicating around dying and grief
• Advance care planning

Also this week, I attended a 2 hour workshop for Communications in Nursing subject, then met with group to plan our topic and division of work the Managing Chronic Conditions nursing care plan assignment. There are 8 people in the group and we each have to write one nursing diagnoses and interventions. Because there are so many of us we only have to write about 300 words each. We decided to do it on Chronic heart failure, and my nursing diagnosis is activity intolerance.

Next week I need to start and complete a 2000 word essay worth 50%. I've decided to do it on schizophrenia so I can learn more about it in preparation for working as a psychiatric nurse next year. I've already done a bit of research and found some interesting articles. That will be my focus this week along with 3 more grad program interviews. Another very busy week ahead! Need to make sure I get at least 8 hours sleep as many nights as possible.