Assignment 2: Practicum Experience Plan (PEP)
As you establish your goals and objectives for this course, you are committing to an organized plan that will frame your practicum experience in a clinical setting, including planned activities, assessment, and achievement of defined outcomes. In particular, your plan must address the categories of clinical reasoning, quality in your clinical specialty, and interpersonal collaborative practice.
For this Assignment, you will consider the areas you aim to focus on to gain practical experience as an advanced practice nurse. Then, you will develop a Practicum Experience Plan (PEP) containing the objectives you will fulfill in order to achieve your aims. In this practicum experience, when developing your goals and objectives, be sure to keep PMHNP clinical skills in mind.
To Prepare
Review your Clinical Skills Self-Assessment Form you submitted last week, and think about areas for which you would like to gain application-level experience and/or continued growth as an advanced practice nurse. How can your experiences in the practicum help you achieve these aims? There may be overlap between your skills goals and your PEP goals.
Review the information related to developing objectives provided in this week’s Learning Resources. Your practicum learning objectives that you want to achieve during your practicum experience must be:
- Specific
- Measurable
- Attainable
- Results-focused
- Time-bound
Reflective of the higher-order domains of Bloom’s taxonomy (i.e., application level and above)
Discuss your professional aims and your proposed practicum objectives with your Preceptor to ascertain if the necessary resources are available at your practicum site.
Select one nursing theory and one counseling theory to best guide your clinical practice. Explain why you selected these theories. Support your approach with evidence-based literature.
Create a timeline of practicum activities that demonstrates how you plan to meet these goals and objectives based on your practicum requirements.
The Assignment
Record the required information in each area of the Practicum Experience Plan template, including three to four (3–4) measurable practicum Learning Objectives you will use to facilitate your learning during the practicum experience.
Practicum Learning Objectives
Objective 1: develop at least 10 treatment plans based on screening results for psychiatric patients during the practicum experience.
Planned activities: screening patients collaboratively with the preceptor and other health care providers engaging at least one patient at a personal level weekly, active engagement in care management.
Mode of assessment: number of patients handled/screened weekly, number of new conditions per week, and number and length of collaborative sessions per week.
PRAC Course Outcome(s) Addressed: (3) – Apply advanced practice nursing assessment, diagnosis, and treatment skills in mental health settings.
Objective 2: To implement the use of different psychotherapeutic modalities in treating patients of various age groups during the practicum experience.
Planned activities: collaborating with the preceptor and other health care providers in implementing different psychotherapeutic modalities based on patients’ age groups.
Assess and record the variation of psychotherapeutic modalities according to patient needs and ages.
Mode of assessment: differentiated assessments including the type and numbers of psychotherapeutic modalities applied weekly, clinical work hours (weekly), number of patients attended to weekly.
PRAC Course Outcome(s) Addressed: (4) – Analyze cases involving advanced care of patients across the lifespan in mental health settings.
Objective 3: evaluate at least five treatment plans for patients weekly during the practicum experience.
Activities: collaborating with the preceptor and other health professionals in evaluating psychiatric treatments and weekly records of patients’ reaction to psychiatric treatments.
Mode of assessment: number of patients attended to weekly, number of conditions experienced weekly, number of hours spent with patients.
PRAC Course Outcome(s) Addressed: (4) – Analyze cases involving advanced care of patients across the lifespan in mental health settings.
Theories to Guide Clinical Practice
Nursing goals are vital in clinical practice to guide best practices and policies and ensure that patients receive the best care possible. Imogene King’s theory of goal attainment is a suitable nursing theory to best guide my clinical practice. Its central tenet is that the nurse and patient should communicate, set goals collaboratively, and take the necessary initiatives to achieve the set goals (Smith & Gullett, 2020). Nurses must also realize that many factors affect goal attainment, including space, time, and roles. Accordingly, initiatives applied to achieve the goals must consider possible barriers. I selected this theory since it recommends a collaborative approach to solving patient problems. Collaboration is pivotal in clinical practice as the basis for informed decision-making and quality care (Nibbelink & Brewer, 2018). It will be a critical component in facilitating achieving practicum and individual goals.
On counseling theories, the most suitable theory is behavioral theory. According to Garrett (2019), the behavioral theory is found on the premise that behavior is learned. As a result, the occurrence and outcomes of a behavior can be decreased. The same concept applies to psychiatric care. Mental health professionals should work collaboratively to change patients’ unwanted and destructive behaviors (Chauhan et al., 2017). For instance, which I look forward to learning more about during the practicum experience, positive behavior modification techniques can reinforce desired behaviors. Such an approach underlines the critical role of cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) and similar behavioral approaches in clinical settings.
Timeline of Practicum Activities
| Objective | Main Activities | Timeline |
| 1 | i. Collaborative patient screening
ii. Patient engagement |
Continuous activity
To develop at least 10 treatment plans by the last week. |
| 2 | i. Implementing psychotherapeutic modalities | Complete by the end of the practicum experience. |
| 3 | ii. evaluating psychiatric treatments | 5 treatments weekly |
Conclusion
Nurses need an organized plan to frame their practicum experience in a clinical setting. This practicum experience plan describes my objectives, theories to guide the clinical practice, and the timeline of practicum activities. Under objectives, the primary urge is to gain more experience on treatment plans and psychotherapeutic modalities. Imogene King’s theory of goal attainment and behavioral theory will guide my clinical practice. The timeline is a projection of when specific activities should be completed.
References
Chauhan, B. F., Jeyaraman, M., Mann, A. S., Lys, J., Skidmore, B., Sibley, K. M., … & Zarychanksi, R. (2017). Behavior change interventions and policies influencing primary healthcare professionals’ practice—an overview of reviews. Implementation Science, 12(1), 1-16. doi: 10.1186/s13012-016-0538-8
Garrett, M. T. (2019). Psychotherapy for psychosis: Integrating cognitive-behavioral and psychodynamic treatment. The Guilford Press.
Nibbelink, C. W., & Brewer, B. B. (2018). Decision‐making in nursing practice: An integrative literature review. Journal of Clinical Nursing, 27(5-6), 917-928. doi:10.1111/jocn.14151
Smith, M. C., & Gullett, D. L. (2020). Nursing theories and nursing practice. F.A. Davis Company.