Morgan Cole

Nursing in the Community

Dr. Weaver

28 October 2021

Patient Advocacy, Ambulatory, and Infection Control

On Thursday, October 28th, I had the opportunity to shadow three health care employees

at Trumbull Regional Medical Center. The first person I got to shadow was the patient advocacy

nurse. This job title at the hospital had the role of handling patient complaints and making sure

that all the patients at the hospital were being treated with respect and kindness. I got to sit in on

a conference call with her and then we rounded on some patients to ask how their stay at the

hospital has been. Next, I got to shadow the employee health nurse. During this time I observed

her make calls to employees that were at home with covid to check on their condition.

Additionally, she kept records of who tested positive and who the positive tests were exposed to.

Another role that she had was performing blood transfusions, but sadly there were none that

needed to be done the day that I was there. Finally, I got to shadow the infectious control nurse..

The Joint Commission's inspection was coming up, so we made rounds looking into rooms and

noting anything that did not fit within the specifications. We did rounds on all patients with IV’s

and foley catheters to ensure that they were labeled, clean, and that the foley bag was off of the

floor and secured to the inner thigh.

Objective: Examines health related issues that impact the individual client and his

family and reflect in weekly journals.

This objective was met by the patient advocacy nurse. Her entire job seems to revolve

around the patient and their family. For example, she told me a story about how a small child
needed staples in the back of his head and asked the doctor to wait a couple minutes so she could

hold him as he did it. However the doctor did not wait and just stapled the boy's head in a hurry.

She was the one that was responsible for handling that situation and showing empathy for the

mother. This is a perfect example about how a situation not only affected the patient, but a

member of the family.

Objective: Demonstrate communication, research, critical thinking and teaching

skills and reflect in weekly journals.

This objective was met by the infection control nurse as she was doing her rounding.

Whenever she found something that could potentially cause an infection, she would inform both

the nurse, and the nurse manager about what her findings were. She used teaching skills and

good communication to ensure that her and the health care team were on the same page and that

they understood the proper precautions.

Overall, I learned a lot today and really enjoyed learning about three new jobs in health

care that I did not know much about. It was very clear that all the nurses that I shadowed had a

heart for the community and passion for taking excellent care of patients.