Module 4 Blog Post

In my clinical area I do a lot of patient teaching.  In the course of 1-2 patient visits I am usually able to diagnose the patient and develop a treatment plan.  Once the treatment plan is complete there is often a large amount of patient teaching that needs to be done.  I find the lay public to be very unfamiliar with disease of the spine and worse yet there is a great deal of misinformation. Consequently I spend a great deal of time teaching anatomy, physiology, pharmacology, surgical procedures etc. For the most part I really enjoy this part of my job.  Most people are very quick to assimilate the information and seem to be relieved once they know what is going on and how it could effect them. 

Occasionally I will have a student follow me.  I find this very enjoyable depending on the interest of the student.  If the student is simply there to fill the credit as was the case with my last student, then it can drag a bit.  If the student is there to learn as much as possible and asks a lot of questions then I find I trust the student more, and want to help them as much as I can.

I do not believe that there is a nursing role that does not include teaching of some kind.  I work in the OR and often consider the role of circulating nurse.  They have a very technical job that is done mostly with charts, equipment and sleeping patients.  Even in this case there is a copious amount of teaching that takes place.  They have to teach the patient pre-operatively, they have to teach the OR staff, they have to teach nursing assistance and orderlies. So, I dont think there is any nursing role or provider role that teaching is not a mojor portiong of that job.