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.