(Un-) Cram Your Case Presentation in 6 Ways

Speaking engagements are still few of the hardest things to prepare for. At least for working professionals with a pink collar job who don’t seem to have a uniform work-time schedule.

               

Few words to all nursing students, case presentations don’t end when the schooling is over. For professional growth and well, for requirements’ sake, it carries forward even after getting a paying job. It’s a little awkward for me to use the phrase “paying job” though.

I have started a clinical job in nursing that doesn’t pay much. But yes, case presentations come in even higher level. The only distinction is that, I don’t get graded for my output this time around.

I together with a group of workmates was actually set to present a case study last 14^th of June. Plus that we work in different shifts, we still haven’t come up with a final case of a patient to present. That was supposedly what we had in line to look for from the time we started our job last November but didn’t. Because of course we are still wise to ways of procrastination. Teehee!

We lived through inconveniences of preparation-- including the inadequacy of time, lack of thoroughly decided options, and uhm, a meticulous supervisor whom we thought would give us flop sweats on the day of presentation.

Drafting, finalizing, brainstorming. Group mates from left to right: Gen, Lily, Mae, Myra

Having only 6 days left to work on our case, we cannot for anything best take the leisure of time or to have like nurses-meet-the-avengers sort of power.  

Here’s what we had to do:

Headstart

We get lesser time each day.  There’s nothing we can do otherwise so we firmly set our day 1 for obtaining consent from the attending physician, the patient and her family on the case presentation.

It really doesn’t need one with a dominant choleric type of personality to dictate what is to be done. It only takes one small act of leadership from anyone among the group to begin the work.

Wise Distribution

We arranged the second day for gathering all information as much as possible and assigning each member a task to work on.

While leadership and management styles work differently in each person or group, what is important is to recognize what will work best-- authoritative or lassie-faire especially when on cram.

Delegating, reading, researching (It's always good to combine printed and online references)

Planning

Third day served for planning out how we would want the case presentation to go about.

Whether you’re expecting for accolades or a fair output, there is no good presentation that happens without a single plan or goal of how you'd want it to turn out. Plan out, even for a little. Set a goal, no matter how small.

Inspiration

Day 4 made room for our first day of “The Making” process. Anyone familiar with nursing case presentations would know that it is usually started with a short introduction, and a touch of the patient’s comprehensive health history.

The comprehensive history is for the most part boring during presentations. It is mostly a mere narration of all the information about the patient. So we constructed something that would create a more comprehensible and captivating way of presenting it by coming up with a video reenactment in a documentary film-like format.

The video shoot locations

Like photography, video making is half shooting half editing. And we have encountered more than enough challenges-- who to act as the subject, when to do the video shoot, what editing software to use (and we would not recommend windows movie maker for its unstable file setup) and where to get the balance between work and sleep.

Shooting day. Straight from duty with barely enough sleep. From left to right: Gen, myself, Ariane

Find something that won’t only get you to where you want but will keep you there. Remind each other always of your goal and why no one should give up. It’s not in times like this that counting who has worked the hardest matters.

The production team

Editing and producing. From top then left to right: Ate Darl, Jan, myself, Ariane

Sacrifice

We tuned for finalizing our output and providing what each one had for suggestion on day 5. We gathered in a place that is favorable for our working (with available wall plug, wifi access which became two of our major problems in day 4, and good food, plus good music to set up the positive mood). 

At Trio Cafe'

Everyone has to make his own part of sacrifice by staying up late, passing up a day of rest for the benefit of the group.

Winston Churchill once said, “If you're going through hell, keep going” and that I think inclined us to continue what we started. Each should not give up no matter how impossible things might seem. Even sometimes that means not realizing everything that was planned so you still have to be flexible.

Trust

Finally came day 6, the judgment day should I call it. There was no turning back. The presentation pushed through in, pardon me for a little prate, positive way. Everyone was definitely proud of how it all came out.

The final preparation

Our case presentation was by the way about respiratory failure from acute demyelinating polyneuropathy. We had a refined idea of putting an emotional video for prayer which we took from youtube. Then said a courtesy to the Philippine National Anthem followed by a powerpoint presentation of the introduction, fitted with good visual theme and arrangement suitable for our audience.

Our case

On the Introduction: Justin

On  Anatomy & Physiology: co-red cross instructor, Ivy

On Pathophysiology: yours truly

On the nursing care plan: Alchie aka John Lloyd :)

On the discharge plan and prognosis: Ariane

Next was the creative video documentary film of the patient’s history, plus a moderate innovation in the format of the presentation that includes-- presenting the nursing care plan in a focused charting format, providing a consented and discrete photo of how our patient progressed from her condition.

The idea is to trust in the capabilities of all your group members. It has always been said that two heads are better than one.

Lastly, we didn’t forget to have fun!

The group

The candid shot. What's the sleeping all about?? :)

Celebrations!

Meal get together

Pardon me as well for including our idiosyncrasies and signature pose below:

The "in-love" smile

The "pogi" pose

The "nyora pose"

The feeler pose

             All the memories are worth keeping.

Postscript: The documentary film video mentioned in this post was not included for the patient's privacy. I would also like to personally extend my deepest gratitude to all my group mates and to you who reads this post. Smiles!

Photo Credits:
google (dot) com (slash) images- 1st photo

Learn to Love Your (Naked) Self

How many times have you thought about being naked? Or so, have you ever thought about your own nakedness-- unclad, bare-skinned, and transparent? And when you have, what did you see and how did you feel about it?

                This entry has been inspired by Amy Bloom in her article from Oprah.com. Glory is to God for his never-ending inspiration through other people’s writings.

Love what you see l Image taken from weheartit.com

It’s not so often that we think of ourselves stripped off from our shoulder straps and our plaid printed pajamas heading to our bathrooms, washing up, and stepping out with our body half-ly covered with towel. People barely talk about nakedness in its literal sense and within the limits of it. Frequently, the scenes that follow in their minds are the ones that become daily challenge to men and women alike.  But that’s a separate point in question.

Amy Bloom said she went from pajamas to underwear to clothes every morning and back the other way every night. And no one had said anything to her about what a good time was to be had between pajamas and underwear. I thought with her experience that many of us, people in our subliminal sense still pass around the pleasant feeling of being at peace with our own brand of nakedness. Most of the time what we see in the mirror turns out to be unfavorable. It’s hardly ever that we come close to the mirror and see ourselves naked and smiling at the same time. Some  of us would only notice the cellulites that crowd in our hind end or the freckles and pimples that lay proudly across our face. 

Fit yourself around the confident few. If you’re not assured with how you look, it will obviously show. God for certain didn’t make a mistake in molding you into how you naturally look today. He’s the best of the best creators more than the famous sculptors and painters. He has the most perfect description of a human body. He made you exactly how you look. But he sure didn’t make you exactly how you feel with how you look. See the difference? And maybe what I’m trying to say is, it can be all about attitude.

Feeling unhappy about the way you look might have started since you were young.

 Image taken from weheartit.com

The Face of a Shadow

Photo by Thomas Leuthard 

How can I not remember you? You, whom I’ve first looked fixedly and assembled a world, a world that's fully-figured with enigmatic moods of upbringing. You, whom I’ve meted out a hundred laughs wrapped in a pavement blue and a thousand tears camouflaged in a crawl-way yellow. Inside you are testimonies of how I primed and morphed into this kind of mortal wit.

As I riffled through the old photographs, I can bare witness of the decades that passed. In an abode that served my family for more than 60 years, I can clearly see the memories. Contained in you is an alluring painting that turned gray-haired over time. The furniture, aristocratic in its own way, that only seemed exhausted a myriad ages.

So far, I only see nothing but changes. Now that things have taken me two decades of chargeless life, I only see nothing but living quarters that get emptier through the years.  And yes, these changes are the ones that naturally have to happen in ways no one can ever hold purse strings. Well, every human macrocosm has to face this dynamo of life.

In a minute when my crowded cranium decided to meet you in the flesh again, and this time in a more seasoned look, the contemporary milieu described me a litany of familiar shadows. And here’s one shadow that I just couldn’t seem not to seek. I find this shadow exactly similar to what I was seeing several primordial years back. 

Revolting curiosities really encouraged me to get to know whose, this shadow I’m seeing was. Finally, my senses discerned like hedonist, adroit agent of Whoop. Howbeit in these discoveries, a secluded aimless shadow is found. Rubbed confidence and self-regard surfaced like a floating albacore in a bombed sea world. And this shadow appears still so young. This is, as I’ve finally figured out, a shadow exactly similar but not entirely the same to what I’ve seen in the past. My heart goes out to this shadow but I just couldn’t get into a rescue. The help to defeat the Machiavellian thief that wears down this shadow’s identity is only about to come, from itself. 

The least thing I can do is to offer a lavish of prayer that someday soon, a bright incandescent will show up erasing to the boundless of times the face of this shadow that is yet unseen in the dark.

Image Credits:

Drop Shadow by Thomas Leuthard, flickr.com