Um olhar sobre a preparação do regresso a casa

Abstract

This report describes the course of action of my internship, representing the final step towards -Surgical Nursing. The internship would normally be divided in three Modules: Module I Emergency Service; Module II Intensive/Intermediate Care; and Module III Optional Palliative Care. However, I received credit for my previous work in Intensive/Intermediate Care and completed only two Modules: Palliative Care, at a private hospital in Lisbon, and Emergency, at a hospital in the centre region. What motivated my choice of internship locations were the characteristics, broad range and quality of the care provided at those locations, which are known for the excellence of their care, allowing for the development of competences that qualify me to provide specialized nursing care. In this report, I describe activities conducted towards fulfilling the defined objectives, describing the competences and behaviours developed. During the course of my internship, I developed competences related to caring for critical patients and their relatives. I employed knowledge, skills and capacities to provide care to critical patients in different environments such as the palliative care unit and the emergency room. This diversity of environments allowed me to develop the human, technical and scientific competences one should expect from a specialist nurse, as well as my critical thinking and decision making. In the scope of the palliative care internship, it is important to highlight the Nurses Council Quality Standards continuous improvement programme I developed together with the nursing team, focused on the impact of training programmes aimed at caregivers for dependent patients upon home return, developed through an integrative literature review. It became evident that healthcare professionals are responsible for fulfilling the needs of caregivers through clear and objective communication, providing the necessary information to allow them to care for the patient upon home return. Above all, the necessary support should be given to each caregiver, ensuring a reliable presence of the nurse to provide assistance and to clarify any doubts. Several areas in which the informal caregiver needs assistance were evident, namely training, information, emotional support and guidance, whether in a hospital or community setting. Therefore, the relevance of the nursing practice visibility should be highlighted, whether by research in nursing care or by its communication, supported by a theoretical framework that endows it with credibility and quality. This report aims at providing an account of my personal analysis on the internship I undertook.

Date of Award	2015
Original language	Portuguese
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Patrícia Pontífice-Sousa (Supervisor)