Jennifer Vitti

Good luck to everyone on midterms this week and next!

I have my midterm tomorrow (I’m hoping it doesn’t get cancelled by the snow we’re getting in MA…that would mean it would get pushed back for 2 weeks and I just want to get it over with) and then 2 papers due over the weekend. Since everything is due before break I actually have a REAL break from homework for the most part. AMAZING!

Short post again because I have to continue studying childhood exanthems, headaches, ADHD, autism, childhood obesity, eating disorders, contraception, pediatric urology, and fevers (yikes!), but just wanted to let everyone know I’m thinking of them and wishing them good luck

~love always~

Jen

Decided I would share a study tip with everyone today–this especially goes to pre-nursing students or new nursing students. I guess I’m in the studying mode as I’m working toward my midterm next week. Now my disclaimer for this post though is that you of course have to study the best way that works for you to study. If you’re unsure of what your best study habit is, or if you work well with routines and study well with repetition then flash cards may be a good option to explore.

The way I make flash cards is I take all my notes (including textbook notes if applicable) and powerpoints and for each card I put either a question or a topic (not too big though–they are only 4 x 6″) and then of course write the answer/information on the back of it. Then while I’m studying I usually only have to run through my pack of flash cards 2-3 times to really feel like I understand the information. If there is anything such as an actual concept or procedure that I don’t understand from the notes that is when I’ll consult my textbooks and online resources until I understand it–helping to make my notes make more sense and therefore my flash cards make more sense. Sometimes I draw pictures on my flash cards, make tables, bullet points, whatever is the best way to get the point across. This has worked extremely well for me all throughout nursing school. These exams are intimidating since the answer is not always obvious. However, if I know the information backwards and forwards and upside down and I really take the time to read the questions and answer options thoroughly I can usually figure out the correct answer.

I like flash cards for a number of reasons–1) As I make the flash cards I’m actually studying 2) I can take flash cards with me anywhere–even out dog walking 3) It allows me easy repetition without having mounds of papers/powerpoints that I need to flip back and forth with 4) It allows me to quiz myself.

The only negative to flash cards for me is that it is so tedious to write them (and it hurts my wrist after a while), but I just keep telling myself that I’m studying as I’m writing them and that usually helps me chug through them. The other negative to flashcards I suppose would be that if they didn’t work for you because again people learn differently.

I would love to hear some other ideas from current and past nursing students about good studying tips. I get asked this question a lot by pre-nursing students and it would be nice to be able to compose some ideas for them. Ultimately my answer is that you have to figure out works best for you, but having some options when people don’t know where to start is also good.

~love always~

Jen

Hey a girl can dream right?

Trying to plan a week-long summer vacation with Sam, but I don’t have any good ideas. I think we want to stay within the country, but we’re willing to fly or drive. We want to do something both fun and relaxing that’s not going to completely break the bank. Basically that’s my criteria…pretty generic, which is where I am struggling. It reminds me of when I was looking at undergraduate schools–I liked them all so I had to end up being really nit picky to make my list smaller. But unfortunately I have no list even to begin with in this case. Any ideas big or small would be much appreciated

~love always~

Jen

Last semester, I took a class on Complementary and Alternative Modalities. As part of the class we were required to sign up for HeartMath, which was a free site that allows you to see “how stressed” you are (like I needed someone to tell me that…but okay ) and provides a lot of resources about healthy living–it’s not really a medical site, but from time-to-time I get interesting resources in my email and I check them out. I should also note that it is a free site to sign-up.

Anyway, recently I was provided access to a free webinar on cultivating positive discipline in children–as a pediatric nurse practitioner student I thought this may be an interesting topic that I could educate parents who have “difficult” children in the behavioral sense. The 1 hour webinar was last weekend and I found it really interesting! It was conducted by Jane Nelson and Jeff Goelitz. They discussed different techniques for dealing with children without resorting to punishment. I just wanted to share one aspect of it that I found most interesting (for the rest of the interesting ideas you’ll have to watch the webinar or look into writings by Nelson). The one I liked the most was the “Wheel of Choice” (it may have been called something else, but I’ll explain the idea anyway). When a child does something mildly to moderately inappropriate (kids being kids basically–keep in mind not every option they gave was appropriate for every disciplinary situation, but this is a good option for many of the every day kid actions that need some disciplinary actions) the parent can take them aside and explain to them that what they did was inappropriate and why and then say they can take some time to cool-off from the activity or they can choose something from the Wheel of Choice–this wheel includes options such as “Apologize”, “Choose a Different Activity”, “Go to Your Cool-Off Spot” (a better term for time-out), or take 10 deep breaths, etc. There were approximately 10 options filling up the wheel and the child got to choose what they wanted to do as their disciplinary action. So in these day-to-day behaviors that are normal for kids to have this is a great option. Kids love choices (this is good for toddlers through school-age–obviously with age appropriate disciplines) and everyone wins because they are appropriately disciplined but they get to choose what is going to work best for them at that time, hopefully avoiding a fight. I thought this was such a creative and great option for children and easy for parents to make to have a visual. What are your opinions of this option? I wish I could share all the ideas they had on this webinar, but I recommend signing up for the website and taking advantage of the other opportunities and future webinars they have and looking more into this topic and the speakers if you’re further interested.

~love always~

Jen

My house is in disarray, I’m way behind in my homework, and I’m completely exhausted…oh yeah it’s midterms next week. MY LAST MIDTERMS! (Silver lining, right?)

Things are mostly the same with me–clinicals are going well, but doing them 4 days a week is wiping me out. Doing well in classes so far this semester. And life in general is going okay. I’m just so ready to be done with school…

I’ll think about posting something more meaningful soon. I know many of you empathize with me though as I do with you, and I appreciate it.

~love always~

Jen

And Happy Belated Birthday to my dad!!

~love always~

Jen

*WARNING* The following post is disgustingly mushy and romantic. It’s my anniversary though and I’m so happy I just have to dedicate a post to our story.

Seven years ago today I started dating my current boyfriend Sam. I was 17 and he was 16 years old. We met through mutual friends and we didn’t live in the same town nor did we go to the same high school.  We met a year or so prior to that, but were both seeing other people at the time and didn’t really cross paths all that often. 6 months later I found myself in a really difficult time in my life. Sam reentered my life out of the blue (sort of like my knight in shining armor!!) and was there for me when not many others could be. We had both been single for a few months. We talked A LOT for the following six months through chat and on the phone. We enjoyed each other’s company and could talk for hours on end. I went to a few of his high school dances (our song is “I Don’t Wanna Miss a Thing” by Aerosmith because that was the big slow song to play at dances back then) and then we finally set up our first real date February 13th, 2005 (my father’s birthday is Valentine’s Day, so I was never allowed to actually have Valentine’s Day dates growing up). We went to the mall/movies, which was what we did in high school and enjoyed each other’s company. On this date he pulled out his wallet to pay for the movies and out came a $2 bill. He said he kept it in his wallet for good luck. I then responded by pulling out my $2 bill that I kept in my wallet for good luck and we knew it was meant to be  He asked me to be his girlfriend and of course I said yes.

Our First Date: 2/13/05

I went away to college that fall–3 hours away from where I lived. Sam is a year younger than me, so it was hard leaving him behind. We had always been really strong with communicating over “long distance” as again we didn’t go to the same high school, we didn’t live in the same town, and our first 6 months of our relationship were mostly based on chat and on the phone. We survived–stronger than ever. Then Sam went to his college–SIX hours away from mine. We would visit each other once a semester and kept up our communication. Our love story became “epic” among our social circles as the other high school relationships crumbled around us.

Fast forward a few years–we both graduated and our relationship never even wavered during our long distance time apart. Last year we bought a house (and got a kitten) together and moved in. Now we finally get to spend the time together that we are meant to (which will be even better once I graduate from NP school in May). We are each other’s best friends, we love each other’s families, and we are so excited to be celebrating seven years together today and hope for many more. He is my “perfect puzzle piece” and I am so blessed to have him in my life. I love him with all my heart.

Us Recently

Hope everyone has an amazing Valentine’s Day with their sweetheart.

~love always~

Jen

Tomorrow is my 7 year anniversary–Sam and I celebrated a day early since he has work tomorrow and I have class at night. We saw The Vow, which was really cute I enjoyed it for what it was–however…it wasn’t as romantic/feel good/make me cry at the same time-movie as I was hoping for! I won’t spoil it for anyone, but I thought from the previews it had a chance at beating my favorite romantic/feel good/make me cry at the same time-movie: P.S. I Love You (yes, I’ve also read the book, which I also enjoyed, but I actually for once liked the movie better) and The Vow did not beat it. Still a cute, enjoyable movie, but I need something to pull at my heart strings–HARD–when I’m in that sort of mood haha. Really sad romantic movies and horror movies are my favorite genres haha…I’m odd I know.

After the movie, Sam and I went to Bullfinchs Restaurant. We’ve never been, but we wanted to do something a little nicer for our anniversary and it was recommended to us. It was SOOO great. We both loved our meals, our whole experience. We split a brie quesadilla with apple chutney for an appetizer, I had the “winter chicken” for dinner (chicken in a garlic/parm sauce with caramelized onions and cranberries) and Sam had some sort of steak meal (I forget what it was called–but he kept raving about it), and then I had a warm flourless chocolate cake for dessert (yes we went all out haha) and Sam had a sundae. I HIGHLY recommend. We’ve also been recommended to go for brunch and they have cooking lessons on Tuesday night, which we might try to go to one.

Since tomorrow is our actual anniversary and Tuesday is Valentine’s day I may try to write a nice post about our relationship

~love always~

Jen

I recently went for my annual physical (which was all fine ), but it was interesting as this was my first physical while I have been in the NP portion (specifically I’m studying to go into primary care as well) of my program (not to mention the END of my program…hehe can’t say it enough). It’s interesting to compare the different ways that all my preceptors and my own PCP conduct physicals (all of which are very good, but very different). What questions they ask, what exams they put in,…what they leave out. Granted, I’m 24 now (almost half way to 50 as my sister likes to remind me) and I am no longer pediatrics, which is what all my preceptorships are in, obviously. But it’s still interesting to me to observe from the “other side of the exam table”. Nothing in particular to point out, but in general I always like to be hyperalert during these types of visits so that I can pick up aspects to include in my future practice (or not to include if that’s the case). It sort of adds a learning component to my routine/healthy physical exams now. Have you ever been the patient in the same specialty of what you are a nurse, nurse practitioner, PA, physician, etc. in? How was it?

~love always~

Jen

Sorry for the lack of updates for the past few days–school is picking up quickly with papers and quizzes galore! My “getting on a better schedule” is going slower than I expected, but it’s heading in the right direction!

Anyway, in classes we’ve been hearing a lot about the “medical home”. It sounds like a good idea–continuous comprehensive care for the pediatric patient (pediatrics at least in my case), but I felt like I hadn’t really learned about it, just heard bits and pieces and opinions, so I did some online research mostly through this website and found out some interesting information.

As mentioned, it is a medical care setting that will provide continuous, comprehensive care to the pediatric patient. There are seven key characteristics that allow a facility to be a medical home (the website also gave some helpful ideas to allowing a facility to become a medical home–as it is a process). The characteristics include: a personal physician for each patient, a physician directed medical practice, whole person orientation (love this one–I’m all about holistic care for the whole person not just disease specific), coordinated care among all aspects of the health care system and the patient’s community, quality and safety (of course ), enhanced access (meaning better scheduling options for being able to access your personal physician or other staff), and more appropriate payment for services (AAFP, AAP, ACP,  & AOA, 2007- Source). Overall it is supposed to decrease cost and provide better access to healthcare. It seems like a win all around to me! Although I’m still learning so far I like the idea. I will be interested to see how this is implemented over time and if it works as smoothly as the information and websites make it seem.

Have you heard of the medical home? What are your thoughts on it? Have you had any experience with any medical settings becoming medical homes and if so how have they worked out? I’m curious!

~love always~

Jen