Benner's Competency Assessment

Benner's Competency Assessment

Domains of Nursing Practice

Helping Role

I once had a patient who had just come back from a double hip replacement and needed help doing her basic activities throughout the day. My major role with this patient aside from the medical nursing care of infection prevention after surgery and monitoring, was making sure that her pain was kept under control, and encouraging her to do as much as she was able to so that she would be able to get back to herself as quickly as possible. This was a helping role because it was helping the patient achieve and reach her previous performance levels and by administering her medications to keep her pain under control so that she should be able to achieve this.

Teaching/Coaching

I had a patient who was a newly diagnosed diabetic. The patient was very young and apprehensive about the whole situation. Multiple times on my shift he would start crying and would complain that his life was over and there was nothing he could eat anymore. He kept on saying that he cannot have all of his favorite food items. I realized that aside from the emotional support that this patient needed, he also needed someone to explain to him in simple language the disease process of diabetes and the fact that there are many foods that a diabetic can eat and enjoy. The doctors use to speak a lot of medical terminologies and the patient did not have anyone explaining it to him in a way that he understood which resulted in issues in understanding the problems. He just kept on hearing about all the things that he could not do. I took the time to speak with him and explain to him the disease process and about all the wonderful things that he would be able to enjoy. I taught him that with proper care and caution he will be able to live a long and productive life.

Management of Rapidly Changing Situations

One of my patients was really a critical care patient with extremely low blood pressure and very little output. Her blood pressure was constantly changing and she was also extremely malnourished. Since she was not eating very well she also had her ups and downs. On the days that she would eat physically she would do a bit better and her blood pressure would go up. Then when she decided not ...