The Significance of Managing Acute Postoperative Pain - Assignment Example

? Reflective Evaluation of Your Teaching With Recommendations Medicine is an important profession that is involved in saving lives and ensuring that people are healthy. This field is very sensitive and hence requires undivided attention from the person who is taking it as a lifetime. Students who have chosen medicine as their lifetime profession should be equipped with the necessary knowledge and skills. This should be enhanced by teachers who are involved in the teaching lessons. Practical lessons, guidance and counseling are important teaching strategies that should be applied by teachers handling students in the medicine profession. Nursing is a sub-branch of medicine and hence requires students to be cautious and ready to handle emergencies in the health institution. The work load can be overwhelming for students in the nursing profession. It is, therefore, crucial that students should be well armed with knowledge on how to handle pressure in the work setting. The proficiency of a student in any profession reflects back to the tutor. This is the reason why teachers should be in a better position to transfer knowledge to students to enhance their ability to take care of patients. As mentioned, nursing is associated with saving of human lives, and this is the reason why a lot of caution should be taken when dealing with students in the profession. It should be made sure that the students are well behaved and disciplined because dealing with human lives is extremely sensitive. It is important for teachers to discourage behaviours that show a negative attitude in the profession of nursing. Intoxication by the abuse of drugs and alcohol are some of the prevalent behaviours with students at the college level. These behaviours should not be tolerated because once students in medicine engage in such behaviour, the health safety of the patients would be at risk. Stringent measures should hence be put in place to ensure that students do not jeopardise the health status of patients in the health centres. The Significance of Managing Acute Post-Operative Pain The clinical environment is one of the most sensitive ones in many health care institutions. Post-operative pain is some of the acute problems that face patients who are from surgical operations (Archer, Levy, & McGregor, 1993). Teachers should hence take initiative of ensuring that the students have the necessary knowledge and skills of handling acute post-operative pain in patients. This would ensure that the welfare of the patients is given priority. Surgical patients may face a lot of complications and this is the reason why students should be ready to handle such complications. The management of post-surgical pain is essential because it might be very severe and hence affect the health status of the patient. As a teacher, one should initiate highlighting the importance of managing acute post-operational pain. One of the strategies that should be involved in the teaching practice would be to give the negative impacts of this pain (Brown, Christo, & Wu, 2004). One of the negative impacts of acute post-operative pain is increased mortality or morbidity. Once students know that this pain can place the patient’s life at risk, the students would be ready to learn the different courses of action that should be taken in handling the pain. From medical research studies, surgery is known to suppress the immune system of the patient (V. Bullough & B. Bullough, 1999). This implies that the patient is more prevalent to opportunistic infections, hence high chances of mortality. With this knowledge, teachers should go the extra mile and provide a variety of corrective courses of action to safeguard the health status of the patient. One of the control strategies that should be proposed by the teachers is analgesia. Effective analgesia can counter the negative effects of acute post-operational pain. There is a variety of medications that should be administered to the patient. The teacher in charge of the students should ensure that these medication options are provided for the students. Some of the common medications that the teacher should propose for the control of this pain include high dose opioids, clonidine, patient controlled opioid therapies and the use of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory medication (Munro, Booth, & Nicholl, 1997). These are important points of notice that the teacher should provide to the third-year nursing students in the management of acute post-operational pain. Advantages of Managing Acute Post-Operative Pain Teachers in charge of third-year nursing students in the management of acute post-operative pain should give the advantages of the management practice. This strategy should create a positive attitude towards the students. Such a measure would also enlighten the students and ensure that they are ready and willing to capture the knowledge. Patient comfort is an aspect of great significance in the hospital setting. Teachers should let the students know that it is important to enhance the comfort of the patient in the course of any medical procedure. Acute post-operational pain interferes with the comfort of the patient. Teachers should hence emphasise the importance of comfort because it has a positive impact on the health status of the patient. Pain-free patients have a high chance of quicker recovery compared to patients suffering from pain from different medical operations (Wasnick, 2013). Earlier mobilisation is another advantage associated with the management of acute post-operational pain. Teachers should focus on this aspect as well because it ensures earlier recovery from the patient. Patients who are free from the acute pain experienced after surgery are less likely to suffer from pulmonary and cardiac complications (Judd, 2009). The risk of suffering from deep vein thrombosis is also reduced, and this is the reason why teachers should be keen enough to mention all these advantages. Students would be much more focused on understanding the reasons as to why it is crucial to control the acute post-operational pain. Without this knowledge, the students would not have a clue about why specific control measures should be taken. Reduced health care costs are also minimised when the acute post-operational pain is controlled. Insufficient education in the field of nursing has revealed that many mistakes occur in the health care setting as a result of inefficient teaching from teachers. To enhance the capacity of the students to manage acute post-operative pain, teachers should focus on highlighting some of the common errors that occur during the surgical procedures. Lack of adequate education is considered to be one of the major setbacks associated with the medical complications that put the patient’s health at risk. Errors are prone to occur when the medical practitioner is not fully equipped with the necessary knowledge and skills. Another important point to mention to the students would be the fear of complications that may arise after the administration of specific analgesic medication. This goes back to the knowledge about drugs and medication. Students should be well aware of the impact of different analgesic medication to the patients. This would ensure that the students are able to make correct decisions on the most effective and efficient analgesic medication. Poor pain assessment is also another error which leads to the administration of analgesic medication that is not in line with the complication. Critical evaluation of the patient is significant before the administration of any type of medication (Fairman & Lynaugh, 2000). Teachers should focus on the importance of critical evaluation of the patient’s health status before administering any form of medication. The chances of errors occurring are considerably minimised when a correct patient assessment is done. Apart from the common human errors that may affect the health status of the patient, it is important to highlight the best ways to deal with inadequate staff. The work setting can be overwhelming in situations where the nurse to patient ratio is low. This reveals that the number of patients surpasses the number of medical practitioners. Such situations arise in case of accidents and the number of patients shoots up suddenly. In such a situation, students should be educated on the importance of being calm and focusing on the emergency cases first. Basically, students should be taught on the different strategies that should be applied when the pressure is too much in the work place. Such initiatives would ensure that the students are able to handle the needs of the patients including those suffering from acute post-operational pain. Tension is one of the limitations in the work setting. Errors are prone to occur when the medical practitioners are under a lot of pressure and tension in the work place. By mentioning such information, the students would be ready to handle such situations in the work setting. Consequences of Acute Post-Operative Pain The consequences of acute post-operative pain could be severe and hence affect the health of the patient physically, emotionally and psychologically. A teacher in charge of third-year nursing students would have to mention these consequences as part of the teaching strategy. Acute post-operative pain may result in anxiety and trauma to the patient. Students should hence be enlightened so as to ensure that the right course of action is taken in the control of pain. Fatigue is also another effect of acute post-operative pain (Ellen, 2004). Once students have been enlightened on these effects, it would be very easy to come up with the most effective way to administer the correct medication in controlling the acute post-operative pain. Acute post-operative pain has an impact on the general health status of the patient. The patient may suffer from an immunological system that is impaired. This creates the impression that the patient may suffer from a variety of health complications. Pneumonia and an immunological system that is impaired are some of the health defects that may affect the health status of the patient. Highlighting all this information of the effects of acute post-operative pain would be of great benefit to the students. This is because they would put more efforts towards avoiding the negative impacts associated with the pain. Apart from highlighting the impact of acute post-operative pain on the health status of the patient, it would also be important to mention the effect on the general operations of the hospital. Poorly managed acute post-operative pain would result in increased operational costs for the hospital (D’Antonio, 2010). This is because the hospital would have to come up with more expensive ways of handling the impact of the acute post-operative pain on the patient. The impacts would require more financial input compared to the situation where the pain could have been controlled before affecting the health of the patient further. Poor staff morale is also considered to be a negative impact of acute post-operative that affects surgery patients. The complications associated with the defect would require more input from the patient compared to situations where the pain ought to have been controlled. Reputation is an important aspect especially towards the public. A hospital would be at risk of being closed down if its reputation is not good in the society (Donahue, 2010). A hospital with a history and many cases involved with acute post-operative pain would have a bad reputation in the society. This would lead to people having a negative attitude towards the health services offered by the hospital. When acute post-operative pain is poorly managed, the patient would have to prolong the length of stay in the hospital. Therefore, this has the effect of increased costs and increased work load to the staff. However, if the acute post-operative pain is well managed, the length of patient stay in the hospital would be shortened. This initiative would reduce the costs of operation for the hospital and also reduce the work load on the staff. Such initiatives would show that the hospital is efficient and effective in providing excellent health care services. The teachers in charge of the third-year nursing students would have done a great deal in mentioning the consequences of poorly managed acute post-operative pain. Health care students would have a positive sense of direction once such knowledge is passed to them from the tutors (Himmelmann, 2007). Recommendations to Acute Post-Operative Pain Management There is a variety of recommendations in relation to teaching students on the significance of acute post-operative pain management. One of the recommendations would be for the teacher to mention the challenges facing the control and management of acute post-operative pain. The society and the patients have become aware of their rights and therefore call for excellent services from the hospitals (Cullen & Titler, 2001). This becomes a challenge to hospitals in trying to ensure that the patient’s needs are taken care of in terms of managing the acute post-operative pain of the patients. Health care students should show the initiative of meeting the demands of the patients and the society at large. The students would have to avoid operating contrary to the rights of the patient, and this becomes a challenging factor. Another challenge facing the management of acute post-operative is the pressure on hospitals to reduce the length of stay of the patients. It would hence be contrary to the standard operating procedures of the hospital once patient’s length of stay is prolonged as a result of acute post-operative pain. There are new challenges facing the management of acute post-operative pain for patients and it would be important for teaches to mention some of these challenges (Cole, 2002). New strategies are required when dealing with opioid tolerant patients in the pain management process. One of the changes that have taken place in the pain management in the last decade is the authorisation of the use of opioids in the control of chronic non-malignant pain (P. Kalisch & B. Kalisch, 2003). This trend has been adopted by many hospitals. By highlighting the changes in the health practice industry, the teacher would be confident enough to bring up students who are up-to-date with the current health care practices, hence efficient. As a teacher, a lot of practical lessons on the management of acute post-operative pain would be of great significance for the welfare of the student in handling patients. In the nursing profession, practical lessons would be of great benefit compared to the theory part. These lessons would mould the students towards becoming efficient in the provision of health care services. Students should be well equipped with the necessary knowledge and skills, and this is the reason why practical lessons would be of great significance to the patient (Hardy, 1997). Practical lessons are also efficient in that they enhance the memory of the students, hence being forgetful is limited. Practical lessons should be fully incorporated in the learning system of the third-year nursing students. Such initiative would result in students of high intellectual capacity especially in the health profession. Practical lessons would also assist the students in handling some of the real life situations once employed in any health institution. The students would be in a better position to handle complicated situations in the hospital setting and this would gain from the practical lessons. Conclusion Health management is one of the important factors in health institutions. Medical practitioners should be in a position to handle the needs of the patients. Acute post-operative pain should be well managed in the health care institutions. Students in the nursing profession should be well equipped with the different health management practices that should be applied for patients. This would ensure that they meet the health requirements of clients in different health complications. Acute post-operative pain has been prevalent in many health institutions. This should be one of the health priorities that should be focused on for health patients who have undergone surgery. The challenges facing the control of acute post-operative pain should also be addressed, and this would enhance the efficiency of the health institutions. Nursing students should also be well enlightened on the different strategies that should be applied in the management of acute post-operative pain. This would enhance the provision of health care services for health institutions. It is, therefore, important for medical tutors to ensure that students have all the relevant knowledge and skills especially in the management of acute post-operative pain. Such initiatives would create a lasting impression for the health care institutions. The society would also be in a position to approve of the health care services provided by the health care institutions. 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