Senior Project Reflection

(1) I am most proud of the outcome from the senior presentation. I learned a lot about my topic and it made me more passionate about my topic. This entire project helped me make a definite decision as to where I go from here and what career I'll be pursuing. In addition I most proud of the way I delivered my information to make it easily understandable for my audience.
(2)  (a) For my presentation I would give myself somewhere in between a P+ and an AE-. I feel that I did a good job explaining the various concepts in my presentation but I know I had some difficulty speaking and kind of slowing down. I think I could have done a better job in addressing some of my sources as well.
       (b) Overall I would give myself an AE on my project because I did dedicate a lot of time to it and had solid research and did a good job in incorporating it all into my essential question and knew what path to follow to come up with answers for my essential question. Adding on to that since this something I was passionate I knew a lot of information from the top of my head and always kept researching in order to make my senior project all the better.
(3) What worked for me in my senior project was my research process and that was all thanks to my mentor Deborah Nakielski and Mrs. Ortega. They helped me come up with my essential question and gave me a lot of resources to help me answer that question and have a great senior presentation. All that support helped me do well in my exit interview and my final presentation.
(4) If I had a time machine I would go back in time to fix the time in which I started working with my mentor because it did take me a little time to find her and that prolonged the start of my research. I would also go back to my presentation to go more in depth about my best answer and address which books helped me the most with my answer.
(5) As I mentioned before the senior project helped me learn more about my topic and decide for sure that this is the career I want to go into. The project also helped me get in touch with a lot of people in the field that can help me with my education, with getting the proper experience for my residency, and actually obtaining a job. For example, my mentor Deborah Nakielski is someone who will actually be working with me through college to help me get my degree and certification.

Mentorship

•  Kaiser Permanente
• Deborah Nakielski, CNM 
• (626)485-9344
• matt.fivesixteen@verizon.net

Interpretive
I think the most important thing I gained from mentorship was the first hand experience. Mentorship allowed me to be in the hospital environment with midwives and other medical professionals. It allowed me to see a lot of the concepts I was learning about in my research in real life. It gave me that hands on experience I wouldn't have been able to obtain else where, especially with a topic such as midwifery. It gave me a jump start as to what I'll be spending the rest of my life doing and provided me with knowledge I'm almost sure many nursing majors won't have in college.

Applied
My mentorship helped me answer my essential question because it allowed me to see a midwife's work ethic which helped greatly with my third answer. My third answer is, "If a midwife is empathetic and supportive, then she will build a strong relationship with her patients while making them feel comfortable and safe." Working closely with Deborah Nakielski allowed me to see that the manner in which you do things and the attitude you carry yourself with makes all the difference in whether the client will enjoy the service being provided to them. It allowed me to see that being a strong practitioner while having the right characteristics is very appealing to women and is what makes them lean towards a midwife led birth. Mentorship also pushed me farther to research more. Whenever I came across something I didn't know about it would make me curious and I would look into and 99% of the time it helped me add more to my answers. For example, during a labor I was able to see and hear a lot about C-section procedures and concepts. I didn't know about the things I was being shown so I went in to research on it and it helped me greatly with answering my essential question. That's how I came up with my first answer, "If a midwife has an extensive knowledge in maternity care, then she can prevent her patient from having a caesarean section." In addition, doing that extra research because of what I had seen with my mentor allowed me to find evidence to back up my first answer.

Exit Interview

(1) Essential Question: What knowledge most affects a midwife's ability to best serve her patients? Answers:

• If a midwife has an extensive knowledge in maternity care, then she can prevent her patients from having a caesarean section.
• If a midwife is knowledgeable and experienced in primary care, then she can provide her patients with more cost effective health care.
• If a midwife knows how to be empathetic and supportive, then she will build a strong relationship with her patient and will make them feel comfortable and safe.

Best answer: My best answer is "If a midwife knows how to be empathetic and supportive, then she will build a strong relationship with her patient and will make them feel comfortable and safe. I chose this as my best answer because ultimately this is what midwifery revolves around. Midwifes can't be cold, stern, and distant. If she doesn't have those characteristics then her patients won't feel a close bond in order to trust them fully. When a midwife is personable it makes her patient feel safe and important and helps the midwife makes the experience all the more better because she is catering to that woman's personal needs. Doing this is what essentially makes women lean towards getting a midwife rather than physician.
(2) To arrive to this answer I had to research thoroughly and work with trained professionals in the field. I interviewed and observed midwives to be able to understand that the characteristics a midwife holds are key to the service she will be providing. After doing my summer mentorship at a birth center with Simona Istrate and interviewing and working with Deborah Nakielski I concluded that being empathetic and supportive is like the cherry on top of the sundae. A midwife might be able to be very good at maternity care, primary care, and basic gynecological care but those characteristics are what will keep their patients, bring them more, and make their services more preferable. If they don't possess this women would just recruit to physicians, this is what ultimately differentiates the two.
(3) A problem I faced was that I couldn't find a path in which to aim my research towards. At the very beginning of my senior project I was all over the place, I didn't really have a main focus. I was able to resolve my issue by showing Mrs. Ortega the sort of research I was doing and sharing with her what I thought was an important key point in midwifery, she gave me a few tips and I went from there. Once talking with Mrs. Ortega I took what she told me and discussed it with my mentor, Deborah Nakielski. She then gave me a share of her information and gave me some books that I could use to guide my search and that's how I formulated my essential questions along with my answers.
(4) The two most significant sources I used were Varney's Midwifery and Deborah Nakielski. They are the most significant because that is the two places where I pulled most of my information from. Varney's Midwifery provided me with all the information from maternity care, primary care, gynecological care, to family planning services and Deborah provided me with first hand experiences and hands on learning that backed up the information I was learning.

Independent Component 2

a) I, Ariami Garcia, affirm that I completed my independent component which represents 30 hours of work.
b) The person that helped me complete my second independent component is Mandi Woolery, who is a childbirth educator in the city of Upland. She owns the studio Peachy Keen.
d) I completed my 30 hours by taking another childbirth class. I did both Bradley and Lamaze this time around.
The independent component helped me answer my essential question because it aught me more about nutrition and exercise which play a huge role in keeping mothers low risk to prevent c-sections. It also helped with my third answer because I was able to see the characteristics needed to help an expectant mother.

Preparing For Interview 4

Our fourth interview is twenty questions long and we weren't allowed to use the previous ten from interview three so I struggled with this one. I couldn't come up with any questions that weren't like the ones I had previously came up with. After staying up until 2am I finally came up with twenty new questions that I can use and were worthy for my fourth interview. The other difficult part was finding someone that I could interview because I had already interviewed my mentor twice so I couldn't interview her again. However, I talked to my mentor and she helped me get in contact with a recently certified midwife so that I can interview her. Thanks to my mentor I will be interviewing this CNM this upcoming week! (:

Fourth Interview Preparation

20 Questions:
1. What do you consider to be the most important aspect(s) of midwifery?
2. What knowledge most affects a midwife's ability to serve her patients?
3. Which prenatal diagnostic do you use? Why? Is this the best one?
4. How do you keep your patients low risk throughout their pregnancy?
5. What can a midwife do throughout a woman's pregnancy to prevent a c section?
6. What can a midwife do during labor to prevent her patient from having a c section?
7. How important is having an extensive knowledge in maternity care? Does it affect her ability to serve her patients?
8. How important is having an extensive knowledge in primary care? Does it affect the midwife's ability to serve her patients?
9. Which is more important to possess? A knowledge in maternity care or primary care? Are they equal?
10. What does a midwife need to do often to provide her patients with good health care?
11. What can midwives do to best improve the practice of midwifery?
12. What other things, that are out midwives hands, can be done to improve the practice of midwifery?
13. Which do you think is most cost effective? A midwife or physician?
14. What is done during an at home birth if a woman needs to undergo a c section?
15. What characteristics do you think a midwife should have?
16. What sort of personality is needed to be a midwife?
17. How do that personality and characteristics affect the relationships built between the midwife and her patients?
18. For you specifically, what affects the way you serve your patients?
19. What type of childbirth classes do you recommend expectant parents to take?
20. What books do you really enjoy and know of, that focuses on all aspects of midwifery?

Third Answer

EQ: What knowledge most affects a midwife's ability to best serve her patients?
Answer 3: If a midwife knows how to be empathetic and supportive, then she will build a strong relationship with her patients and will make them feel comfortable and safe.
Details: Being empathetic helps the patient feel closer to their care provider because they feel as if they can relate and truly care. For example, when a midwife is empathetic during a labor women often feel more calm and closely connected to the midwife. Providing all the support possible to women during this emotional intense in their life will help them feel like they are not alone. For example, a woman who has a supportive midwife will strive to stay healthy and fit to benefit herself and her baby during her pregnancy. Being a strong empathetic, supportive practitioner will make patients feel safe and they will put their trust in you. Patients want to feel like they are in good hands and when a good relationship between the care provider and patient is created things tend to go absolutely well. A midwife should be like a friend to her patient.
Research: 

• Lake, Ricki, and Abby Epstein. Your Best Birth: Know All Your Options, Discover the Natural Choices, and Take Back the Birth Experience. New York: Wellness Central, 2009. Print.
• Clift-Matthews, Victoria. "Providing High-quality Midwifery Care." British Journal of Midwifery, 17.7 (2009): 412.
• Halldorsdottir, Sigridur, and Sigfridur Inga Karlsdottir. "The Primacy Of The Good Midwife In Midwifery Services: An Evolving Theory Of Professionalism In Midwifery." Scandinavian Journal Of Caring Sciences 25.4 (2011): 806-817. Academic Search Premier. Web. 4 Sept. 2014.

Concluding Sentence: Building a relationship with your patient, providing unconditional support, and making your patients feel cared for and safe will help improve the way you work with them and the outcome of the service being provided. It will improve your quality of care while building stronger bonds that will keep your patients and bring you new ones.