Case Study
It is a busy morning on the surgical ward and one of the patients, Mavis, a 70-year-old retired nurse, has undergone a laparotomy for an acute bowel obstruction. She is first day post-op and her recovery so far has been uneventful with all vital signs being within normal limits. This morning however, her vital signs have altered somewhat; her heart rate has increased to 92bpm, her blood pressure has decreased to 105/70; her temperature is 38.0 C, although she looks a little pale. She has not passed urine for nine hours although she has an IV infusion in situ. When you attend Mavis to take her vital signs, she seems quite confused, disorientated and anxious. Her condition is markedly different from the last time you attended to her, less than an hour ago when she seemed fine. Mavis informs you that she wishes to go home, as she is due to start work. She becomes frustrated and tells you aggressively to ‘go away’. You review her medication to determine if she has been given drugs that may have affected her behaviour and report your findings to the shift coordinator; then return to Mavis. Mavis, however, is not in her room and you locate her in the visitor’s room. As you approach Mavis, you see her gown is open (and back to front), she has removed the dressing from her wound site, and is smearing faeces across her abdomen and onto her surgical wound. Additionally, she has pulled out her IV cannula and is bleeding from the insertion site. You immediately close the door to give her privacy and attempt to cover her, with the intention of guiding her to the bathroom to attend to her hygiene needs, informing her that you need to help her to wash. Mavis refuses any assistance and states, “I don’t want a wash”. You try to encourage her to accompany you to the bathroom but, she yells “leave me alone and go away, don’t touch me, I need to get home, or I will be late for work”
The essay will be written in academic essay format with an introduction, body and conclusion.
• Students required to use the APA referencing system and select seven to ten refereed articles that provide the strongest evidence for your topic.
• All articles must be ≤ 5 years old. Australian sources
• Students must adhere to the Assessment Guidelines when writing the essay.
Assessment Brief
The essay should be structured under the same headings as the marking rubric, please consider both documents carefully as you construct your essay.
Structure Here you will be assessed on your ability to form a logical piece of work that contains an introduction, which should inform the reader of the main content of the essay. The main body of the essay should contain a logical and cohesive development of ideas and your ability to sustain logical arguments. Application of critical thinking You will be assessed on your ability to consider the implications of the suggested actions/inactions and the application of theory to practice. You will also be assessed on your ability to support the arguments you put forward with evidence from appropriate literature.
English language proficiency (ELP) As with all written assessment work that you undertake at IHM, you will be assessed for ELP within this assessment. You should make every effort to ensure that you pay close attention to the construction of sentences, ensuring spelling, grammar and syntax are correct. Poor writing will detract from the content of the essay. If you are unable to articulate the true meaning you are trying to portray you may lose valuable marks. If you are at all concerned about your written work, please see your lecturer.
Writing based on evidence Assessment is designed to test your ability to synthesise evidence into an original piece of work. You can download a sample assignment showing how to cite references and synthesise evidence by clicking this icon
