Experiential Learning: Experience as the Source of Learning and Development - Personal Statement Example

Reflective Clinical Journal: Personal ment, Health sciences and medicine Year 2: Level 5 1912 June 21 Introduction Learning is a continuous process, and it needs to follow a structured method, where experiences are document and the student reflects on these experiences. This work is influenced by Kolbs experiential learning model, and I have tried to adopt all the four roles of Accommodators, Converger, Diverger and Assimilator, recommended in the model (Kolb, 1984). The document is written as per the structure provided by the Gibb reflective framework (Gibbs, 1988). The document presents three main entries and each entry has different sections, which indicate the learning I have undertaken. My Background: I am a mother with children and my journey into homeopathy practice started about 14 years ago when I gave birth to my first son. Due to the complications of the pregnancy, I was asked to visit a homeopath and my subsequent treatment and interactions with the doctor, formed a new perspective about homeopathy. Since then, I have been fascinated and curious about the subject, and then decided to join a college, and make a career as a homeopathic doctor. I hope to use this opportunity to increase my knowledge about the subject, treat patients, and help them to lead a better life, free from excessively powerful drugs. I like to help people, share my experiences, and knowledge with someone who will benefit from them, and it is the best gift for me. I believe in being honest and sincere with myself this very important about my experiences. Through this reflective statement, I want, through my practice, to show to people I come across with, how important it is, and simple it is, be honest with you. 2. Entry 1 Description: Our school uses video clinics where the patient is examined in a separate room with a camera. The camera transmits the entire treatment process to another room where we students sit and watch the proceedings on a large, flat TV screen. The camera is placed in such a manner, that it captures all the questions asked by the student doctor and the questions posed by the doctor in attendance. The sessions are very interesting since we can see the manner in which patients interact with the patient, their initial inhibition at opening up and while some people are hesitant to speak about their illness, others are voluble and it is difficult to actually get them to quieten down. I had a chance to sit in as an observer in the clinic with one of the students who was already quiet advanced, and she was very confident in what she was doing. Our patient was an old woman suffering from leukaemia, and she was looking for a help to go though chemotherapy and side effects of all the prescribed drugs she was taking. My student partner took her case in a first place and I was witnessing the follow up. Feelings: My problem is that I wear my feelings on my sleeve and in this case, forgot that I was a doctor and the clinical dispassionate and disassociation expected in a doctor-patient relation was almost set aside. I felt sorry for the woman during the entire consultation. I wanted to ask her thousands of questions that I was not allowed to do as an observer. It is difficult for me not to be able not to speak out what I want. I am “tubercular” when it comes to any sort of restrictions. I felt like giving her a big long loving hug when she broke in tears and once I was even smiling imagining that a reaction it may cause in our class if I did that. I did feel close to a patient I worked with, and I did feel her suffering, I do try to hold back my tears sometimes. I do feel sorry and compassioned. I have realised that maybe it is because I need someone who will be the same towards me. I do treat people the way I would like to be treated. I need love and care, and that is why I always think that people who came to see me suffering from lack of love and attention. Analysis: I realised that my problem comes from my concern for the patient as a human being, and not as a patient, that requires medical attention. Such an approach becomes unhealthy and certainly unwelcome since the doctor needs to look at the ailments from a clinical point of view, while I attempt to consider the psychological aspects of the case. I realise that over burdening myself with such feelings would only slow down my work and make me less efficient. Caring for the patient, analysing their illness, and prescribing the required treatment are the only process that needs to be followed. In the above case, I realise that the woman, who was suffering from Leukaemia, needed medication to reduce her suffering. She did not need my sympathy or my tears. While a doctor needs to feel understand the patients suffering, bonding at the pain and distress level is certainly not needed. I really wonder, what the patient would have felt, if I had tried to hug her? I feel a bit different from my classroom mates. Sometimes I feel I am being like an eyesore for some of them. I am late often, I talk too much, making comments, asking too many questions and argue with our lecturer trying to prove my point of view, I can feel the vibes of irritability in the air, because of me, but I cannot help it. I am an attention seeker. I am the seeker of the positive attention and understanding and an acceptance. I am depending on people goodness, forgiveness, and patience towards me. I love my classmates; all of them and each of them are so special. I am anxious sometimes when I think that eventually we will go separate ways in life. Conclusion: I can conclude from the above incident, that it would perhaps be better if I focussed more on clinical approaches and medication, rather than try to get involved emotionally with my patients. While bedside manners are needed to help the patient overcome fears and reassure them about their illness, excessive involvement is unwanted. Such involvement makes the doctor to ignore the symptoms and illness of the patient and proper examination, diagnosis, and treatment become secondary. Action Plan: I have decided to take up more video clinics and get more involved in examining patients. I have decided to take up mental conditioning and ignore all possible misplaced sympathy that can create barriers in the treatment. I have some friends who are allopathic, and homeopathic doctors and I have decided to visit them, take part in the consultation of vulnerable subjects such as young children, whose illness would move anyone to tears. I will also involve myself in the clinic run by my college and learn to be clinically detached while examining and treating patients. Outcome: The approach I have adopted helped me in treating my son and my mother, when they fell sick. It was a simple flu like symptoms that started with sudden sore throat, tiredness, and elevation of a body temperature. If I had not conditioned myself to be dispassionate and be observant, I would have driven myself into a tizzy, and worried myself. However, I used clinical analysis and asked simple questions such as How do you feel today? Are you tired more than usual? Is your throat sore? How was your appetite? This attitude and approach helped me to diagnose the illness correctly and I gave him a dose of Aconite 30C. By next morning, the cold and sore throat had disappeared. I have realised that since homeopathy is very precise and sensitive, when it comes to choosing the remedy, I have also be sensitive in order to be precise, and set aside personal feelings. Another outcome worth mentioning occurred when I was travelling with my family and my mother. Haemorrhoids along with back pain, and constipation. Many times she was bedridden, lost her appetite, feeling depressed and tired. We were travelling abroad, and I purchased some medicines, hoping they would help her, but the modern medicines and treatment was not effective. I was still a student, and was not very confident about my treatment, but decided to try. After, analysing her symptoms and complaints, for half an hour, I decided to give her some homeopathic medicines from my stock of Murphy’s repertory and Prisma and the Ainsworth Homeopathy kit. I gave her a dose of Sepia 30C, and I am thrilled to say that my mother was cured. 2. Entry 2 Description: Feelings: Analysis: Conclusion: Action Plan: Outcome: 2. Entry 3 Description: Feelings: Analysis: Conclusion: Action Plan: Outcome: Conclusions References Gibbs, G., 1988. Learning by doing: A guide to teaching and learning methods, Oxford Centre for Staff and Learning Development. London: Oxford Polytechnic Kolb, D., 1984. Experiential learning: Experience as the source of learning and development. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall Read More