Professional Meeting

Introduction

Professional meeting is a conversation that occurs within a group of professionals.

The professionals elaborate on important subject matters. I attended the Nursing Quality

Outcome Council (NQOC) on September 17th at Bon Secours St. Mary Hospital. The

purpose of the meeting is to identify problems that impact the nursing division and set

priorities that needed to be addressed.

Background

The individuals that attended the meeting are nursing leaders from every unit of

the hospital. The agenda of the meeting was to address fall injuries, beds, and the

understanding of informed consent. The meeting brought up several important topics.

The topics are inadequate beds, fall injuries, sepsis protocol, CAUTI update, C. Diff

update, and informed consent.

Noticing

From my perspective, many of the topics from this meeting were very interesting.

The meeting has set schedule on the various topics that needed to be addressed by the

council. Initially, I thought the counsel meeting would be very long and be formal. As

discussion begins, many of the topics were very intriguing. I heard a lot of nurses

agreeing on key issues. One particular issues that stood out was regarding the lack of

beds available for patients. One ED nurse statement really stood out to me. She said that

she tried to call and request for additional beds for the ED and that she had elderly

patients waited for a periods of time without a bed. Another nurse had a vocal statement.

This particular nurse demanded that there be more rental beds due to the lack of available
beds. I felt bad for Aramark, whom are responsible for fixing faulty equipment. I saw

both sides of the discussion. The issue was a really heated debate between the Aramark

team and the nurses. It came down to the available funding

Responding

A negative stress that I had experienced is learning the new IV pump. I have still

not mastered using the IV pump yet. Since I just started my clinical immersion, I have not

got the chance to learn the new IV pump. It does stress me out and frustrate me as a

senior nursing student that I do not know how to operate an IV pump properly. A positive

stress is that I am currently experiencing is clinical immersion. Clinical Immersion is

stressful but at the same time I gain so much knowledge and hand on experiences that I

do not regularly get. It is a rewarding experience at the end of a12 hours shift. At first I

was nervous. As I continue on, it really helped me with time management, skills, and

documentation. Reflection is something I usually do when experiences negative stress

and positive stress. I like to look at what I could have done better versus what went

wrong. Reflection really helps me better myself in handling stressful situation.

If I could be assigned as a representative for my unit, I would like to participate in

the falls committee. Falls can occur anywhere. Falls in the hospital pose a lot of issue. I

would like to participate in this subcommittee. The reason is I want to see and look into

the possible ways in reducing the number of falls and eliminating the potential for falls.

Reflection-on-Action and Clinical Learning

The professional meeting also brought up a very important topic of informed

consent. According to Bon Secours policy, a physician or a person that is conducting the

operation is responsible for obtaining an informed consent. According to nursing

educator, a nurse role is to witnesses an informed consent and determined that the patient

knows his or her risk and benefits of the procedure. Currently at St. Mary, the role had

always been pushed for the nurses to obtain consent. There is a pushed back by nurses to

give that responsibility back to physicians. According to the Journal of Nursing

Administration, it stated that informed consent is a shared decision agreement between

the physician and the client. It also pointed out that the physician or surgeons are

responsible for obtaining an informed consent (Menendez, 2013).

The professional meeting is a really valuable and has a great impact on a health

care system. As mentioned earlier, the professional meeting points out key issues that

each units deal with on a regular basis. It focuses on the nurse’s point of view. It was

really interesting to see that the professional meeting means a lot to the nurses. Nurses

were advocating for their scope of practice, patients, and themselves. The meeting is also

very important to the healthcare system. The nurses mentioned about untouched supplies

on their units. Which could be brought up to hospital administration regarding the

removal of the supplies and save the hospital expense

As a result of this observation experience, I can definitely say yes my feelings

have changed. The meeting has showed me how amazing nurses are. Nurses play a vital

role in advocating for the patient. I got to see it and see the frustration of the nurses.
 Reference

Menendez, JB., 2013. Informed consent: essential legal and ethical principles for

nurses. Journal of Nursing Administration Healthcare Law Ethics Regulation,

15(4), p. 140-144