The nurses in If Florence Could See Us now exemplified the skill of adaptability. Adaptability is a skill that I have but definitely could use more work on. In the movie, one of the nurses mentioned how adaptability can be as simple as fixing a device that isn’t working the best you can to ensure that it is doing what it needs to do for the patient in the moment and then revisiting it later. It can also range to what a nurse is doing every day. They can embody adaptability in almost every aspect of their work. The nurses were talking about how their following the patient and meeting them where they are at from start to finish and being an agent of change in that patients course for treatment. In order to be an agent for change, you have to keep being persistent and adapt to any challenges thrown at you, because no matter what, we need to do what is best for our patients, so we have no choice but to adapt to whatever circumstances are given to us. Again, I feel like I possess this skill but there is one of those skills that you can never get enough on.

One of the Native American tribes was featured in the movie. I have never served this patient population yet. The barriers to care that are seen seemed to be largely geographical. They lived in an area where there was no major health system and the nurse had to drive through miles and miles of back roads to administer care to their population that consisted of many elderly patients. Cultural humility helped ready those nurses to care for patients of diverse populations through allowing those nurses to identify their own beliefs and cultural identities so that they can further extrapolate on those ideas to understand that all people have their own way of doing things and those ways must be respected to provide competent and excellent care. In order to provide better for diverse populations, I think I would want to learn about as many cultures as I can to gain a better understanding and prepare myself to anticipate their needs.

To prepare for interviews I am definitely going to try my best to be myself. Some of the career services people were saying that it was ultimately what is in your head that will make you stand out in an interview, no matter how much you prepare. To prepare for my interviews I am definitely going to show up early, send out thank you letters to my interviewers, ask a good set of questions to show interest, ask them about their career paths and residency programs. I am also just going to put my best foot forward as the best version of myself, dressed well for an interview (I just bought a suit this weekend for interviews), well-groomed and feeling confident so that I can really showcase the talents that I can bring to their organization. I want to market my brand as someone who is interested in learning as much as they can and someone they can trust who will put in the work necessary to become a competent ICU nurse who wants to provide the as best care as they can for their patients. I will describe my strengths through examples from my customer service-oriented jobs, my experience in the ICU from preceptorship and my work experience, my perseverance and success in my studies (supported by grades, gpa, academic honors), my communication skills through my leadership experiences and ability to manage my time effectively through multiple commitments, my strong passion for helping others through my leadership experience etc.  In terms of weaknesses, I believe I take a lot of responsibility on to myself sometimes, not wanting to bother others to help with a task or being shy to ask for help. So, I’m going to talk about how sometimes when I don’t delegate tasks or ask for help I can get overwhelmed, so I want to develop learning delegation skills and just learning when to ask for help when I am in over my head and how to go about doing that.