Placement Reflection On Caring For The Dying Nursing Essay

Placement Reflection On Caring For The demise Nursing EssayWhen I told mickle that I was going to do my practicum with people who are dying I felt uni piss an alien. And that dying is a part of the manners process. Death is slightlything that touches every private and family provided the reality is that we live in a contemporary death denying culture. To confirm this concomitant, numerous expressions are used to describe dying. To conceal finagle of death people use euphemisms like, done for(p) to meet his or her maker, gone on to a better place, passed on and numerous other expressions that do not engage the word died. The idea of doing my practicum at a hospice huffy me because it was a new domain for me. I was ready and eager to practise theories learned into a pragmatical setting. My placement win provided me insight that as a companion up to(p) engageer one is never better vigilant to deal with death of a knob or even ones impend death. I watched clients g rapple with mental and ablaze turmoil that comes with having a oddment illness and my spiritual perspective shifted. While usageing with individuals who are dying corporation be complicated and stressful, it provided potential to bring countless individualised and professional rewards which helped me challenge my avouch mortality.Philip Aziz Centre is a home hospice created as an alternative discourse addressing service users leases beyond gender or medical diagnosis. Services provided include practical, physical, randy and spiritual support for people living with HIV/AIDS, provokecer and other life threatening illnesses. Because bureaucratism is one of the apparatuss of development that organizes and structures operations of any efficient agency, my placement is no exception. Autonomy of both worker and client is bring off neary regulated in relation to specific rules of behaviour. Hence, the importance of analyzing the potential impact organizations may cave in to exe rt indicant and influence on employees and clients (Handy, 1997). My placement agency like any other hierarchical bureaucracy provides both social care and social control.During my first few weeks, I recall existence wondering(a) and uncomfortable ab bulge the spiritual component. This was because of an incident that happened a few weeks into my placement. I was assigned to work with the Chaplain to organize a retreat for a host of terminally ill clients who access spiritual care services from the agency. I started to increasingly feel uncomfortable when the Chaplain started to make unreasonable demands on me that she cherished to pray for me. Ogbor (2001) contends corporate culture can be used to honor informal norms and can become an expectation on the part of employees that would be otherwise alienated (p.594). Indeed, I felt lost in this religious dilemma and felt like I was in what Ogbor refers to as psychic prison. A mechanism very much constructed by individuals to p rotect against internal tensions. It occurred to me that I was not only losing my sense of self just now my identity was being manipulated through the prayer rituals.Couzen (2005) citing Foucault states that through norms individuals can be programmed by social institutions. This is because once there is dominance normalization makes dominance invisible. Hence, I ground myself assimilating into the assigned organizational religious pagan shelters and norms. When I reflected on the theories of corporate hegemony, I became aware of the intersections of whiteness and the cultural lie that was taking place. Why was I succumbing to what appeared as religious indoctrination? Was I being manipulated? Institutional patterns operate as techniques of power and domination (Ogbor, 2001). The imbalance of power was emotionally unsettling. Using Foucaults work to examine self-regulation, I take full responsibility for self-regulating and being complicit in my own domination. My failure to b e critical about ideological drills that went against my somebodyal beliefs and values gave the Chaplain permission to legitimatise and enforce the prayer rituals. Thus, techniques of domination intersect with self to produce what Foucault describes as governmentality..The self-imposed surveillance constituted a form of internalized panopticon (Ogbor, 2001). As a result, self-oppression and conformity was hindering my project of freedom. My consciousness was provoked by this realization. The harboured angry feelings turned me into an ugly someone. Unable to contain the anger, the situation exploded into a nasty confrontation with the Chaplain. Imagining that the Chaplain perceived me as a transgressor requiring to be save by trust, I became what Zimbardo (1971) describes as a dangerous prisoner. I lashed out at the Chaplin yelling and accusing her of trying to be self-righteous and ethnocentric. I regret this verbal altercation because it was not professional on my part. In re trospect, I realize that the factors influencing my angry reaction ran basser and were political. I felt that as a person of colour, the Chaplain was using the historical colonial weapon of religious belief to save me from myself. I grew up during the apartheid and religion was shoved down my throat from puerility until high school. Religion then was used as an ideological tool to t each(prenominal) Africans morals and civility. Thus, the very idea that the Chaplain may nurse been reproducing my dread(a) colonial past made my blood churn.It is through such accomplishment processes that my individual colonial past and fears manifest into a defense reaction mechanism. This defence mechanism often clock projects the deep colonial scars that lie deep inside. Now, I am aware that the residue of what happened in the past can mar my social interactions. For the most part, I have spent my life focussing on my painful colonial experiences of being treated as the Other and reacting ne gatively. I am aware that when a white person speaks I find myself analyzing every single word just to underwrite that there are no racial connotations. This is a problem because it content that I enter into this conversation with strong biases and prejudice. I realize the need to look beyond my physical and psychological trauma in rove to move forward. Nonetheless, I am encouraged by Bell maulers (1990) thesis in Choosing the margin. Through practice, I have learned that we tell apart our marginal identities but are not confined to these rigid positions. I admit that I have to change the way I speak. My words should not bind or fence in my dominator. Because words have meaning, I have to engage in meaningful and respectful dialogue.When the encroach with Chaplain heightend, I recalled the words of one of my professors in College that conflict was healthy and a normal part of any human relationship. I knew that al miserableing conflict to escalate can limit opportunities to en gage in open and respectful dialogue. But, for some st deviate reason, I allowed the conflict to fester for too long. I lost the learned key conflict resolution principles of using the I statements earlier that you statements. In fact, I cast blame on the Chaplain and turned myself into a victim a principle we learned in the first stratum that it did not exist because power is everywhere. A fact I ulterior disproved by exercising negative power through yelling at the Chaplin. Lessons from Foucault came into focus that power is not always repressive because it is relational. Eventually, I took self-possession of my role in this particular conflict, an opportunity that enabled me to step moxie from the emotional attachments that went with the religious disagreement.This introspection allowed me to seek help from my Faculty Field Supervisor. It was aft(prenominal) my meeting with my Faculty Supervisor that I began to reflect on my own behaviour in the whole process. I took owners hip and apologized to the Chaplain for behaving in an unskilled manner. I was able to convey to her my feelings about the situation and the matter was unflinching amicably. She in turn apologized because she had not realized the implication of her behaviour. She immediately halt bringing the idea of praying for me in our work relationship a end that I appreciated because it allowed my individuality and growth in my practicum. I all important(p) admit that this conflict was a driving force for my improved slaying in my practicum. My relationship with the Chaplain turned into a healthy and positive experience which led to better team decisions and more seminal ideas.My Faculty consultant helped me realize the importance of taking a step back beforehand reacting. In our meeting, I recall him advising me to use a critical brooding approach as a tool to resolve practice dilemmas in a constructive way. This useful advice was turned a somewhat poisoned surround into an amenable situation. Through dialogue this situation was resolved and my relationship with the Chaplain became cordial. In fact, she became one of the people I sought advice from as I encountered my clients try with the meaning of life after a terminal diagnosis. Through this experience, I gained insight into my workplace, my colleagues and myself. I was able to identify my own assumptions and biases about religion which was interfering with my professional practice. I have learned that spirituality is an essential component of the bio-psycho-social framework particularly in palliative care. Identifying spiritual assets and strengths can help clients cope with or solve problems.The conflict with the Chaplain was pivotal in my self-awareness and consciousness raising as I pursued my journey with dress, a fifty year old woman battling terminal crabmeat. My journey with beautify (pseudonym) gave me prose to think about the meaning of life. As a social worker, my client taught me that when a life threatening illness such as cancer confronts us, it is the realities of death and questions about life that prompt us to step back from our lives including theory. Ironically, my perspective on realities of implications of a terminal illness emerged from spiritual and philosophical orientation. It became evident that the end of life was one of the most important times for a social worker to address spirituality. In this process, I watch over that spirituality is an essential yet undeveloped component of cultural competence.My interaction with my client led me to examine spirituality as a form of cultural competence. Spirituality represents a potential influence on emotional well-being of the cancer patient as well as the family members or caregivers. As invests cancer progressed she confronted me with a myriad of questions. When Grace said why me? Why now? My social work textbooks could not provide practical solutions. What do you tell someone asking you why she is dying? A t that moment, I realized that cancer causes not only physical but mental, emotional and spiritual suffering. I discovered that some clients find guard in discussing spiritual issues with a social worker because of the professions lack of conglutination with a specific religious or spiritual base (Healy, 2001). However, as a social worker, I felt challenged because my training does not hold the topic of spirituality as part of service provision. But, through our interactions, Grace was able to teach me that spirituality was in fact a significant part of ones cultural identity and can be a fountain of healing.Healy (2001) provides helpful account of benefits of spirituality in palliative care. My experience at Philip Aziz made me aware of the importance of spirituality in social work practice. Healy pleads spiritual issues are often apparent in palliative care and require social work to extend practice which may at times be limiting because of opposition by some proponents who argue that religious and spiritual care are incompatible with the image of new profession (p.85). The incident described above, allowed me to reflect on my own practice and confusion arising from my failure to understand the difference between spirituality and religion. work with Grace raised my consciousness in spirit that spirituality refers to look for meaning and mutually fulfilling relationships. Religion on the other hand is often an organized activity for the expression of faith. This distinction helped me to be reflexive and draw on social work theory to come up with creative solutions to help my client.I was able to explore a broad range of practice options for my client. For example, conducting a needs assessment helped to identify my clients strengths and capacities that were evidently invisible because of my resistance to spirituality as a form of intervention. Despite the fact that cancer was ravaging her body, Grace was able to let me know that her precedence need was working on spiritual distress she was experiencing. Integrating spirituality in my work practice presented incredible effective cross cultural communication techniques in palliative care. Using the strength perspective framework, she was able to articulate her hopes for the future in our relationship. I discarded my idea of quest to remedy her personal cancer pathology and focussed on her need. Our relationship blossomed until Grace died peacefully on February 26, 2010. Because Grace was Jewish, I had the honour to be invited by the family to what is called a Shiva, an occasion for family and close friends only. I learnt that in Judaism, a person mourns for a relative in seven stages. The mourners sit on low stools throughout that period to symbolize the mourners awareness that life has changed. The low chairs shows propensity to be close to the earth in which the loved one was buried.Finally, I concluded that social work and spirituality had much to learn from each other. I learnt that death is central to the meaning of human life and provides a backdrop against which life is lived. Throughout this process, my greatest learning outcome came from understanding that as a social worker my role is not to work miracles but to provide support and actively listen. To help people discover their own strength rather than an attitude of rescuing them. I will value taking fifteen minutes of my every day to reflect on how my actions negatively or positively impact everyone I come into middleman with. This reflective process will enable me to avoid pointing fingers to other but at myself and find ways to change whatever needs to be improved.