[ANSWER]PCC302 Palliative Care and Life Limiting Conditions – Voluntary Assisted Dying: A Reflection

TASK DESCRIPTION

ASSESSMENT BRIEF-Palliative Care and Life Conditions

Subject Code and Title: PCC302 Palliative Care and Life Conditions.

Assessment: Reflective piece and professional plan.

Individual/Group Individual

Length: 1000 (+/- 10%)

Learning Outcomes: This assessment addresses the Subject Learning Outcomes outlined at the bottom of this document.

Submission: Due by 11:55pm AEST Sunday end of Module 2.2 (Week 4) Palliative Care and Life Conditions.

Weighting: 30%

Total Marks 100 marks

Task Summary

In this assessment you will be required to write a 1000 (+/- 10%) reflective piece and a professional plan, on a contemporary issue in palliative care. The topic chosen may include voluntary assisted dying, palliative care for people living with dementia, equitable access to palliative care in Australia, or medicinal cannabis.

Context

This assessment allows you to explore current, contemporary issues in palliative care which impact the delivery of nursing care and can generate robust discussion, acceptance as well as well as opposition.

This assessment will allow you to reflect on the nurse’s pivotal role in managing acute and chronic conditions in a palliative care context. You will explore the nurse’s role in caring for people from diverse cultural and religious backgrounds in a clinical practice setting, who have an incurable illness requiring palliation. This assessment will also help you to reflect on the legal and ethical factors related to current contemporary issues relevant to palliative care in Australia today and help you to identify resources to support your ongoing professional development.

Instructions

• Chose one contemporary issue from the following list:
  1. Voluntary assisted dying
  2. Palliative care for people with dementia
  3. Equitable access to Palliative Care and Life Limiting Conditions in Australia
  4. Medicinal cannabis
• Think about the following:
  • What is the issue you have chosen?
  • Why have you chosen this particular issue? Why did this issue make an impact on you? Was it from the panel discussion, a personal or a student experience whilst on clinical placement?
  • Why is discussion on this contemporary issue important or relevant right now?
  • How does this issue make you feel i.e. are you confused about the topic, unsure of how you feel, angry about inequity?
  • What did you know about your chosen issue previously? Does the issue you have chosen challenge your personal beliefs and values or assumptions?
  • What do the Professional Standards of Nursing (NMBA, 2018) say about the role of nurses relating to your chosen issue?
  • What ethical issues does your chosen topic bring up i.e. autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence or justice?
  • What state or national legislation influences your chosen topic i.e. what is the current national legislation about cultivation and production of medicinal cannabis?
  • Have your thoughts or feelings changed about the issue since commencing this subject, course, professional or personal experience?
  • What have you learnt from the content so far and how will you use it in the remainder of the subject or in your professional development plan?

Reflective writing

• The reflective piece should be written in the first person. This piece is about you, your thoughts, reflections and feelings about your chosen topic (e.g. “I am conflicted about the voluntary assisted dying practice, as on one hand I have witnessed the suffering that a person with life limiting conditions has experienced, in the last weeks of their life. But on the other my religious beliefs state that a person should not take their own life”).
• Try to be as specific as possible, use brief examples to illustrate your points and try to select examples that enable you to demonstrate learning against the attributes in the rubric.
• Maintain confidentiality of any examples that you use for instance; do not use people’s real names or any other information that makes them easily identifiable and compromises privacy, particularly if your example eludes to previous experience with patients as a student, or healthcare worker.
• All other principles of academic writing apply, including strict APA referencing, acknowledgement of the work of others and avoidance of plagiarism.
• A brief guide to Reflective Writing is available at:
• Laureate academic skills unit (LASU) (n.d). Reflective writing skills. https://laureate-au.blackboard.com/webapps/blackboard/content/listContent.jsp?course_id=_20163_1&content_id=_2498857_1&mode=reset

Professional Plan

• In developing your professional plan, identify the key areas you would like to further develop your theoretical knowledge or practical skills, pertaining to the contemporary issue you have chosen. You should base the points you raised in your reflective piece.
• Explain why you have chosen these key areas. What was it about this specific area of that topic that impacted on your decision?
  • Examples may include,
    • I would like to understand more about the legal safeguards that are in place to ensure that people who do not have capacity to make informed decisions, cannot access voluntary assisted dying services, to inform my practice.
    • I would like to understand more about what resources are available in the Victorian community to support people living with dementia to access Palliative Care and Life Limiting Conditions services to provide information to patients in the future.
    • I would like to know what resources are available for individuals living in rural and remote communities to access palliative care services to inform patients in the future.
    • I would like to know more about the current legislation surrounding the use of medicinal cannabis in Victoria to help inform my practice and understand the legal issues surrounding the use of medicinal cannabis in Victoria.

• What strategies can you put into place in your professional plan to develop your knowledge or skills on the points you have reflected on in your reflective piece? E.g. read articles, talk to other health professionals.
• Reflect if you have used similar strategies successfully or not in the past and why were they successful or unsuccessful?
• Formatting your professional plan: Your professional plan should be set out using the
• S.M.A.R.T goal and objective format with brief description (50 – 100 words) under each point. Components of the S.M.A.R.T format include; Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time Bound.
  • Define your goal
    • Provide one or two sentences which outline your goal/s (You can have more than one). This can be related to a particular area of focus i.e. To improve my knowledge of the safe guards in place, to protect people with limited capacity from accessing voluntary assisted dying services.
  • Prioritize
    • Develop a plan of action of how you might achieve your goal. For example. 1. Identify research from the last five years and read abstracts. 2. Identify relevant articles and read them. 3, Summarise articles. 4. Read relevant legislation.
  • Set a deadline
    • What is the timelines for achieving your goals and priorities?
  • Develop new skill
    • How would you share your newfound knowledge with colleagues/other students or patients?
  • Take action.
    • Complete the tasks as you have outline above.
  • Measure progress
    • Identify how you will use to measure your progress, i.e. completed readings, written summary, develop a ppt presentation or one page document with what you have learnt during the process.

Specific: Provide one or two sentences which outline your goal/s (You can have more than one). This can be related to a particular area of focus i.e. To improve my knowledge of the safe guards in place, to protect people with limited capacity from accessing voluntary assisted dying services.

Measurable: Identify how you will use to measure your progress, i.e. completed readings, written summary, develop a ppt presentation or one page document with what you have learnt during the process.

Achievable: Develop a realistic plan of action of how you might achieve your goal. For example. 1. Identify research from the last five years and read abstracts. 2. Identify relevant articles and read them. 3, Summarise articles. 4. Read relevant legislation.

Relevant: Describe the relevance of achieving is learning objective and consider how you could share it with other students. How would this learning inform your clinical practice? Time bound: What are the timelines for achieving your goals and priorities? Will this be an ongoing process of learning, or a goal you can complete in a set amount of time?

Referencing

It is essential that you use appropriate APA style for citing and referencing research. Please see more information on referencing here http://library.laureate.net.au/research_skills/referencing

Suggested structure:

Introduction or background information (100-200 words)

• Provide information on why you have chosen that particular contemporary issue. Consider why the issue sparked the interest or why it is meaningful to you.

Body (600 – 700 words)

• Provide reflection on your chosen contemporary issue.
• Develop and present your professional plan to continually develop your knowledge of this contemporary issue you have chosen including studies involving evidence-based research.

Summary (50 – 100 words)

• Provide a brief summary of your findings.

Submission Instructions

Submit you word document, with conventional naming via the Assessment 1 link in the main navigation menu in PCC302 Palliative care and life limiting illnesses Blackboard site. The Learning Facilitator will provide feedback via the Grade Centre in the LMS portal. Feedback can be viewed in My Grades.

Assessment Rubric





[ANSWER PREVIEW]

As the need to ameliorate Palliative Care and Life Limiting Conditions increases, several quality improvement alternatives arise. One of them is the ever contentious voluntary assisted dying (VAD). The discussion is particularly relevant because many parts of the world are fast legalizing and adopting it with safeguards.

Personally, I feel extremely conflicted about the topic. On one hand, I believe that VAD equals harming the patient, which is not just against any medical code of conduct, but is immoral and illegal. On the other hand, I feel that patients ought to die with dignity and should be granted the right to self-determination. Patients know what is best for them and also have a right to die (Duxbury, 2019). A cancer patient at the fourth…[Buy Full Answer for Just USD 9: 1202 WORDS]

[SOLUTION DESCRIPTION of Palliative Care and Life Conditions]

Type: Essay

Word Count: 1202

Grade/Mark: 93 (Distinction)

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