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Reflection paper on Practicum experience plan

Student’s Name

Department, Institutional Affiliation

Course ID and Course Name

Instructor’s Title and Name

Due Date
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Reflection paper on Practicum experience plan

Introduction

As a psychiatric diagnosis and reasoning clinician in the mental healthcare system, my

role involved assessing, diagnosing, and treating patients at the clinic. My goals and objectives

were to successfully diagnose, perform a mental status examination, and provide interventions

tailored toward specific patients’ needs. I worked with other healthcare teams to ensure the

organization’s overall success.

The Degree to which I achieved my Goals and Objectives during the Practicum Experience

I fully achieved my goals and objectives by identifying and developing diagnoses of

clients based on their symptoms interrelated with my preceptor’s diagnosis. My diagnostic

technique involved using DSM-5 to assess the diagnostic measures, which ensures that the

diagnosis process is pertinent to the patient’s symptoms. I monitored their prescription to gauge

the effectiveness of their medication and changed their treatment plan appropriately.

The three most challenging patients I encountered during the Practicum experience

The three most challenging patients I encountered had issues relating to non-compliance

with medications at home. The first patient had been diagnosed with anxiety disorder and

prescribed selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors and serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake

inhibitors. However, the patient had opted for Benzodiazepines, which have harmful

psychological and physiological dependence, causing withdrawal symptoms. The patient had to

start the medication regimen all over again. The second patient purchased an expired fluoxetine,

a drug for treating depression, and was shopping for control medication. The third patient

diagnosed with schizophrenia was asking more about legal issues rather than psychiatric

treatment.
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What I learned from the experience

This experience taught me the skill of boundary setting when dealing with patients.

When seeing patients frequently and listening to their issues, it is hard to set boundaries between

the patient and within myself. Maintaining a familiarity with patients’ emotions, personality

types, and responses to them improves the efficacy of the interview (Dolczewski, 2022). Being

empathetic and setting boundaries is critical when interviewing patients.

Resources at my Disposal

Resources, including mental health counselors, the hospital’s website, blog, and online

community, were readily available for all the clinicians. I searched the hospital’s website for

evidence-based practices and interventions when dealing with mental health patients. These

resources aided in providing holistic care to my patients.

Evidence-based Practice I Used for Patients

I searched for a literature review on person-centered care on hospital websites. The

psychiatric literature review emphasized the psychotherapy procedures for patients with

depression and compared the relevance of the outcomes of such procedures with the frequency of

their quantification in recent quantitative treatment efficacy studies for adolescent depression.

The literature review assisted me in prescribing appropriate medication for one of my patients

who had depression.

New skills that I learned

I learned to stay focused when collecting information from mental health patients to

manage my time effectively. Initially, I found it challenging to manage my time, especially

when interviewing emotional and talkative patients. However, I learned how to navigate the

situation, stay on track, and attend to all my clients.

What I would have done Differently

It was challenging to recall every client’s treatment plan. I realized that reviewing their

information before their arrival would have saved me a lot of time and prevented confusion.

Moving forward, I will make preparations to check all the clients’ information before attending

to them.

How I Managed Patient Flow and Volume

One of the chronic issues I faced was beating patient flow and volume. When the clients’

volume and flow were beyond my capacity, I stayed focused on my appointment schedule and

guided them back to the main issue. Additionally, I redirected traffic flow to other psychiatrists.

Directing traffic flows when patient numbers outweigh the capacity of healthcare specialists to

attend improves patient outcomes and ensures timely attendance of patient needs (Turkington et

al., 2020). These techniques eased my schedule and facilitated patient care.

Conclusion

Working as a psychiatrist in a mental health hospital, I encountered challenges

encompassing patients’ non-compliance with prescribed medication at home. Nonetheless, I

learned to set boundaries and stay focused when dealing with patients. This practicum

experience highlighted some challenges and areas of improvement that will aid my clinical skills

in the future.
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References

Dolczewski, M. (2022). Semi-structured interview for self-esteem regulation research.

Acta Psychologica, 228, 103642. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actpsy.2022.103642

Krause, K., Midgley, N., Edbrooke-Childs, J., & Wolpert, M. (2020). A comprehensive

mapping of outcomes following psychotherapy for adolescent depression: The

perspectives of young people, their parents and therapists. European Child &

Adolescent Psychiatry, 30(11). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00787-020-01648-8

Turkington, D., Moorhead, S., Turkington, G. D., King, C., Bell, L., & Pickersgill, D.

(2020). Improving patient flow in acute psychiatric wards: enhanced bed

management and trusted assessment. BJPsych Bulletin, 44(4), 159–162.

https://doi.org/10.1192/bjb.2020.12
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