Reflection Video

Reflection

I had the opportunity to work at the Gainesville office all year long. [Image Citation: www.gic30.com]

This year, I had the opportunity to work with the nurses and other staff members at Guilford Immediate Care in Gainesville, GA. It has been a fabulous experience and I have learned so much! I have gained many skills and experiences from my time here, one of them being the ability to assess/triage patients when they arrive in the office. This is one of my favorite parts because I get to not only assess their issue but also talk about their day and how they are doing in general. It was interesting to hear different peoples’ stories.

One step that I took that I think help me to maximize my time and learning was to ask lots of questions and to try to forge professional relationships with the staff members. I learned a ton from their personal experiences and also about different paths that I can take to reach my goals. This mentorship has prepared me for the future because it has introduced me to one aspect of the Nursing field and it has helped me to learn what I do and do not like about the career.  This mentorship has changed my view of the career because I have seen that there are many hierarchy problems that exist in the field. It does not deter me from wanting to continue pursuing this career.

My advice to future students is to make the most of your experience and ask lots of questions. Don’t be afraid of your mentor or your co workers because they truly care about helping you learn about the career and all that you can learn from the experience. These people have volunteered their time out of their work day to teach you all that they know about your career of choice. Make to always make them feel appreciated and know that you are truly enjoying the experience that they are giving you. These little things will allow you to hopefully form a long-lasting relationship with your mentor and give you someone to lean on when you enter the workforce.

My Presentation

As a recap, I am researching the question: How can I modify my eating habits and exercise habits to prevent future health problems? As I prepare to present all of my research to my relevant group, I have to think about how I will go about preparing myself to present. In an informational video I viewed on Youtube (Be a More Confident Public Speaker by Watchwellcast), I learned about different tactics to prepare for a public speaking event or assignment. When I have to public speak, I typically feel very comfortable and well-prepared in front of the group and with the topic I am speaking about. This video, though, gave me some helpful tips that I can use to improve my speeches and how I go about preparing for them.

Preparing for a speech can go a long way, especially when you are nervous or are not comfortable with the subject you are speaking about. Writing out your speech in bullet points and underlining or circling transitions is one way that I found to be most helpful when preparing because it gathers all of my thoughts in one place and helps me to stay on track when I deliver the speech. One area where I feel like I need a little improvement is appearance. While I do “dress for success” in these situations, I typically have a hard time with my posture. When I get in tense or nerve-wracking situations, I tend to close myself off from the group or audience that I am speaking to. My body language quickly goes from open and relaxed to closed and tense. This is not something that is favorable when speaking in front of a large group and can affect the perceptions that people have about you. By using the previous tip of preparing, though, I think that I can break that habit and improve my public speaking image, especially by the time I have to present my information to my relevant group.

Career Path

Throughout this year, I have gotten the opportunity to observe many different medical professionals and learned about how they got where they are today. One person in particular that I learned from is Megan Norris. While I want to be a surgical nurse, I can learn from the path that she took to see whether or not I would like to follow that. She went to school and obtained a degree in Medical Assisting. She then joined the Navy and worked her way through the ranks to become the Hospital Corpsman for her unit. Since completing many deployments, she has found herself at Guilford working as a Nurse. She is currently going back to school to become an Emergency Medical Technician. I spoke with her about this before she left for her most recent deployment to Bahrain. She suggested that when I go off to college to go ahead and obtain a Bachelor of Science in Nursing, which is something she wished she had done.

At my mentorship, I get to perform many tasks for the patients that come in. Some of them are more fulfilling than others but I love that I get to have experience in this field regardless of the task. I find that I love to triage patients, take their vitals, and perform different tests on/for them. Some of these tests include flu, strep, and urine tests. Some tasks though are not as fun, though. I oftentimes am assigned to unpack boxes of supplies and organize them in the supply closet. Even though it might not be my favorite activity, I have seen that it is definitely helpful to the nurses, who have to stay after hours to do these tasks if there is not enough time during the day.

Progress

Just to recap, the essential question that I have been researching is: How can I modify my eating habits and exercise habits to prevent future health problems? As I have continued to think about how I should inform others about this problem, I decided that I would make a pamphlet to hand out when I speak to my informed group. This pamphlet will include information about healthy eating, problems that can result if you don’t eat healthy, and how to go about preventing/treating these diseases. I will also be preparing a prezi with a lot of the same information to share with my relative group. Throughout the next week I will be doing additional research and add more information to both the pamphlet and the prezi. I hope that both of these formats are informative for everyone that has the opportunity to view them.

Interview

As I continue to research my question of “How can I modify my eating habits and exercise habits to prevent future health problems,” I am finding that this is a really big problem in our society. So I decided to interview my IB Biology teacher, Brett Farkas, who delved deeply into this topic while he was in college. Instead of trying to reach an answer to my problem with the interview, I decided to gain some preliminary information from him to guide my research as I continue this project. Here are the questions I asked him, his response, and my reflection on the question (interview was conducted after school):

1. What does healthy eating mean?

Mr. Farkas: Healthy eating deals with eating the correct amount of calories, vitamins, minerals, and macromolecules.

My response: I had never really thought about balancing all of those different things out. I thought you if you just had some of each then you would be on the right track.

2. What are added sugars?

Mr. Farkas: Added sugars are those sugars that are added or injected after the food has been harvested.

My response: I always thought that added sugars had something to do with the packaging of the food, like the juice that comes in mandarin oranges, and not necessarily in the food itself.

3. What are DRI’s, RDA’s, and DV’s?

Mr. Farkas: The dietary reference intakes (DRIs) and the recommended dietary allowances (RDAs) are the amounts of selected nutrients that are considered adequate to meet the nutrient needs of most healthy people. The DRI/RDA for any nutrient may vary by age and sex. The daily value (DV) helps you understand the nutrient content of food by providing you with the percent of the daily value found in one serving of the food.

My response: I have seen these come up in my research but had not idea what they meant. I wish things like these would be readily available and taught to our society so we can learn more about healthy eating and how to do it.

4. What are the dietary guidelines for Americans?

Mr. Farkas: It all depends on the height, gender, and age of the person because all people have different needs.

My response: I have always thought that the dietary guidelines were very strict and were only applicable to adults.

5. How are nutrition needs different for younger and older adults?

Mr. Farkas: Younger adults need more calories, vitamins, etc. because they have more cells to feed and they do more physical activity than older adults do typically.

My response: I figured as long as you were eating your fruits and veggies that you didn’t really have to worry about nutrition needs as you got older but it turns out you have to pay attention to your changing body and its needs.

6. What are some key things in leading a healthy lifestyle?

Mr. Farkas: Regularly exercising is a large part of a healthy lifestyle. Also, not eating too many calories but definitely getting the correct amount of vitamins and minerals.

My response: I try to exercise regularly and plan my food intake by how much I exercise but it can be difficult to keep up with. I never really take into account the vitamins and minerals, though.

7. How does healthy living affect your budget? Is it more expensive?

Mr. Farkas: Not necessarily. For instance, tea is cheaper than coke and grilled onions are cheaper than chips. On the other hand though, carrots or pickles as snacks are more expensive than chips, but they are more filling. Overall, if you choose the healthier option you will have less cravings.

My response: I have always thought that healthier food was more expensive which is why more people didn’t commit to living a healthy lifestyle.

8. How do healthy eating and exercise work together?

Mr. Farkas: While they are separate, they can affect one another. If you exercise but don’t eat healthy then you’re exercising for no reason.

My response: I always knew that they went hand in hand but not necessarily how they affected each other. You really have to be conscience about your lifestyle choices.

9. Is there a certain method to keeping up with these healthy habits?

Mr. Farkas: I run two miles every day. I started this habit during my teenage years and so I think this has helped me to maintain it through my adult years.

My response: I have recently started running and it is definitely a task at first but once you get into a routine it’s not so bad. I can see how it would help to start early in your teenage years to maintain these habits.

10. What barriers exist when trying to eat healthy?

Mr. Farkas: One barrier is fast food. Because it is cheap and fast, people find it more convenient than having to cook a meal at home. When you cook a meal at home, though, you are more likely to cook things that are healthier.

My response: I think that is definitely true. On the other hand, though, if you were truly committed to eating healthier, you could find healthy options wherever you went.

I think that this information is going to help me to jump start any further research that I conduct for my project and how to help others!

My Research

For my research question, I am researching how changing my eating habits now would affect my life later on. I have been inspired to research this because at my mentorship, many people that come in struggle to maintain a healthy diet and lifestyle (exercise). My current is essential question is as follows: How can I modify my eating habits and exercise habits to prevent future health problems? In addition to many web sources, I plan to create a pamphlet that will highlight health problems that are a result of eating habits and how you can begin to change those habits so that those health problems do not occur. I also plan to include much of this information on my website so that it is easily accessible on the web. For my “real inquiry,” I plan to conduct a survey among students at my school to determine if they are developing healthy habits at this impressionable age. In my survey, I will ask questions like how many hours do they exercise a week, do they consider their eating habits to be healthy and what kinds of foods do they eat, and what is their average heart rate. I think that this will help me to see whether or not students at my school are developing healthy habits.

My Essential Question:

EQ: How can I modify my eating habits to prevent future health problems?

I chose this as my essential question because at my mentorship some of the people that come in struggle with their weight or have health problems that are a result of that. I am interested to see how modifying my eating habits while I am young will affect/prevent future health problems. One thing that excites me about this topic is how not only I could implement this into my life but also teach others about how to lead a healthy lifestyle. I can’t wait to see how foods that we eat actually effect our bodies and also how many are hurting us. I feel that this question is something that will be great for me to research because I do want to go into the medical field, specifically surgical nursing, where I might potentially see patients who are struggling with healthy habits and as a result of this may need surgery. With this question, I will be able to find out the necessary information to help others in the future and potentially in my career one day.

My Mentorship

For the past 3 months, I have been working at Guilford Immediate Care and I have been shadowing/following the nurses that work here. In the past month, I have learned so much from them and from the people that come in. Because it is flu season, I have learned how to test for it and also for strep and other problems that patients may have. I have also gotten to see multiple “mini surgeries” that are performed by the doctors and nurse practitioners that work there. I am so grateful for the opportunity to work here because not only have I developed a relationship with all of the nurses, they are all also so willing to teach me everything they can and make the most of my experience. Another perk of working here is that I also get to work with fellow HMP student, Josselyne. We come on many of the same days so we are able to learn together and bounce ideas off of each other along with the other nurses.

One class that has helped me tremendously in my mentorship is IB Biology. In this class we do many labs and simulations with the body and all of its’ cycles/processes. While we also do book work, we are always learning and doing something. My teacher is very engaging and provides us with many exercises to aid in our learning. In my mentorship, I am able to use what I have learned about the heart, respiratory system, and immune system to understand what exactly is happening in a patient’s body. I love knowing that my schooling and my mentorship are both allowing me to learn and put into practice the information that I will need to make this a career one day.

Challenges

This week, I read an article written by Tim Elmore entitled “The First Soft Skills to Develop in Students” (http://growingleaders.com/blog/first-soft-skill-develop-students/). In this article he discussed how many youth and young adults do not seem to have the necessary soft skills to make it in the working world. They come of as too loud and too self-absorbed, which he says is a result of the rise of technology to communicate. In the workplace though, I do think that youth face many challenges that youth of the past have not had to deal with. For example, in the workplace today, youth have to overcome the opinions that coworkers may have about youth because this generation is sometimes viewed in a negative light. Another challenge that might occur is connected with technology because so many of our youth are addicted to electronic devices and social media, it might be troublesome to break this habit when working somewhere that prohibits the use of cell phones and other devices for leisure. 

Something that I enjoyed reading about in this article was social intelligence. Elmore explains it as young people knowing how to make first, and lasting, impressions on those around us, especially in the working world. This is so important in our world because of the technological age that is upon us. Many young people now do not feel the need to learn these skills because much of what they do is through a computer with minimal contact with people. This is not a smart way of thinking because not only do you hurt your own social intelligence but you hurt those that you might come in contact with in the future because had you taken those skills more seriously, you could have been their next employee.

One thing that spoke to me in this article the writer Elmore references, Daniel Goleman, thinks that our social relationships have a direct effect on aspects of our physical health. I had never thought about this before. He also says that the deeper the relationship, the deeper the effects are. Because of how these relationships are formed, the way our brain develops is effected. I find it fascinating that social relationships can take a toll on our physical being and health.