Teaching care plan - please look at my situation!

[Lemur, BSN, RN]

And tell me what you would do!

We are in a 5 week med surg mini-rotation. We have clinical once a week. For two of the five weeks, we go on "filed trips" (once to PACU and once to a GI procedure unit). The first week I had my GIPU field trip, and tomorrow I have my PACU field trip. So I have only been on the floor once so far. We have a teaching care plan due on 5/2, which apparently is next Friday! Who knew?! I digress: the only patient I can really do this care plan on the the one I had last week, since the next patient I will get will be on 5/1 and I REALLY do not think I can do a care plan with APA format and med cards, etc. in one night. Right? Here's the catch: I didn't figure out how to find the lab values in the computer for my patient last week. SO I don't have them. Do I turn in my care plan sans lab values? Do I say anything to my [EXTREMELY TERRIFYING] instructor before I turn it in? Seriously, guys, this is keeping me up at night - what would you do??

TIA,

L.

[Daytonite, BSN, RN]

a written teaching plan goes something like this:

1. overview: a synopsis about what is going to be taught in the course
   
2. goal(s): the aim(s) or outcome(s) that you want your learner to achieve as a result of the lesson you plan
   
3. objectives: the more specific information that the learner will come away from the course knowing that will achieve the goal(s) you have determined.
   
4. content: a play-by-play of the specific content that is going to be taught and in the sequence it will happen. your content should address and cover all the objectives. this part of the written lesson plan is presented in an outline format.
   
5. procedures and materials: how all the above will be achieved, i.e. lecture, demonstration, discussion, etc. materials that can be used and resources that can be needed for the lesson to be successful and essential to teaching your lesson plan are listed and may include demonstrations, audio-visuals, handouts, experiments, stories, game playing and any number of other creative items.
   
6. evaluation: determining if you met the goals of the teaching plan. this can be done through a return demonstration, short post test, short question and return answer session with the client to verify they understand the information correctly or a task the participant needs to perform.
   

if you look at it, it has some of the elements of a care plan (goals, interventions, execution and evaluation). what is different is that you actually lay out how a list of how you are going to do the teaching, kind of like a nursing procedure is laid out step-by-step for you.

what is great today about patient teaching is that there is so much consumer teaching on the internet. you should be able to find just about anything you want to teach to a patient on the internet that you can download and use as a handout for your project. most large hospitals and insurance companies have these consumer teaching webpages. look at a few to get some ideas on what subject you can teach. let me warn you, however, that you will need to do more research on the subject you choose than what you see on the consumer sites. what is presented to the consumer (lay public) is a simplified version. and, you are in school to learn, so do a subject that interests you and that you can also learn something about yourself.

• medline plus http://www.medlineplus.gov/
  
• emedicinehealth list of topics from a to z http://www.emedicinehealth.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=60185
  
• web md index list of medical conditions http://www.webmd.com/a_to_z_guide/health_topics.htm
  
• university of pittsburgh medical center health library - http://www.upmc.com/healthmanagement...ence/diseases/
  
• care guides for high blood pressure, allergy, type i and ii diabetes, low back pain, transfusion free surgery, exercise, high cholesterol, asthma, arthritis, and surgical weight loss http://adam.about.com/care/
  
• encyclopedia of surgery http://www.surgeryencyclopedia.com/index.html
  

[Lemur, BSN, RN]

Thanks Daytonite! I'm actually totally fine with the actual teaching care plan part, it's just the fact that I will be handing it in without lab values that I am worried about. My patient's med dx was asthma exacerbation and he is hypertensive, so it's pretty easy. I'm just wondering what others would do in my situ!

L.

[MySimplePlan]

In your situ, I would take another look at at what Daytonite is trying to give you and start on that teaching plan right now, making it as perfect and as professional as you can. Your project is going to take a hit without those lab values, so what you submit is going to have to be stellar. She has outlined it for you as pretty as it is going to get.

About the lab values: you scary instructor is going to find out you don't have them eventually. Could you someone get the courage to tell her ahead of time that you don't have them, possibly giving her a chance to retrieve them for you from the hospital computer? I'm thinking that's the only way you could ethically obtain them at this point. (We have a scary instructor like this at our school, and she actually HAS the lab values of her students' patients, so she can check them against their paperwork. She knows EVERYTHING about their patients, and her clinicals are a living nightmare from day 1 to the las day.) I think would just out and out own up to my error beforehand, and possibly get those values SOME way before my project is due.

Good luck. You have a tough assignment there. I hope you do well.

[Daytonite, BSN, RN]

something that i would at least try is to call the facility where your patient was and identify yourself as a student who took care of the patient. try to talk to a director or supervisor of nursing service, manager of the unit the patient is on or the medical records manager if the patient was discharged and ask if you can come in to review information in the chart that you need to complete a written assignment that you are doing. if they will permit it take your student id and a photo id with you to prove who you are. it's worth a try.