Shannon Olsen

Professor Mann

Transition to Practice 

February 28th 2024 

Career Development

I think resilience and self-discipline are characteristics exhibited by the nurses in this movie. I believe these characteristics are ones I wish to possess myself and will work on trying to achieve while going through my nursing career. I connect this with the coursework I have had so far because you have to have self-discipline to go through nursing school, pass your classes, get the work done, and still have a good balance of other aspects in your life at the same time. Nursing school in itself takes an immense amount of self-discipline and work ethic that can sometimes be hard to find and keep up with. Having resilience in the nursing world is necessary to get through the hard days, work with a variety of populations, go out of your comfort zone, and have bad days and still push on to reach your goals in life. I think back on my freshman year self and realize the amount of growth I have had since that first acceptance day into the university. I have so much more to learn and practice before becoming an official registered nurse and being resilient and self-disciplined are characteristics that I believe would help get me to this point. 

A patient population that stook out to me in this movie is the homeless population and those who struggle with substance abuse. The nurses in this movie that work for the Glide organization help those with substance abuse no matter if they are housed, in a shelter, or living on the streets. These nurses work with all walks of life, which comes with a variety of challenges as well. Language barriers, behavioral issues, a variety of chronic conditions and comorbidities, and having to understand a vast amount of different cultures and backgrounds are just some of the many barriers that are faced in this organization every day.The concept of cultural humility plays a big part in working with diverse populations as nurses. Being able to reflect on oneself before providing care and realizing what cultural beliefs/traditions/identities you hold, is important in order to practice cultural humility within healthcare. Having cultural humility helps nurses focus on all aspects of an individual’s health and respect their identity and place in the world. Cultural humility prevents biases and stereotyping from occurring while providing care as well. I think working with diverse populations would help me learn a lot about myself and my own personal identity. I want to improve my knowledge in my future practice about diverse populations and how to provide quality care for them. 

My participation in the Mock Interview Round Robin and Nursing Career Showcase has enhanced my skills in interview preparation and my job search. I have learned so much through both activities in my Transition to Practice course. I now understand that in order to achieve the goals I want and receive the job I want, I have to set myself apart from other applicants. I will prepare to explain my strengths and weaknesses to my future interviewers and make sure to match these up with what the specific job is looking for in an employee. I have also learned to be honest, be confident, and to be myself. Being genuine and professional in an interview is important to show the interviewer that you are the real deal! I now know how important it is to ask questions of the interviewer at some point within the interview in order to show you have done research on the company and are looking for a job that really fits your interests. I will describe my strengths to my future employer by explaining my clinical rotations, preceptorship, and prior work experience related to zed strengths. I plan on talking a lot about my experiences in the PACU during my preceptorship because that is where I learned so much about myself as a nurse and what I am skilled at. The career fair was great exposure to all the different career options there are in Maine and surrounding states. I found it helpful to talk to recruiters from the hospitals I am interested in to get my name out there and show further interest in the companies. I gave multiple recruiters my resume and immediately applied to several jobs at MaineHealth once I got home that day! One piece of feedback I got from the mock interview activity was to slow it down when I am giving answers to questions during the interview. I often found myself talking about one subject and jumping to another story/example that I want to add on to my answer, and eventually rambling and speaking fast to get it all out. To improve on this I will be making sure I can provide more concise/short/sweet answers to simple questions and to not provide too many examples/stories for each answer I give.