When I reflect on MHST601, Philosophical Foundations of Health Systems, my first thought is: “I did it! I took the first step in my master’s degree journey. I am so proud of myself.”
When this course began I felt overwhelmed. It was over a decade ago that I began my undergraduate degree and I wondered if I remembered how to be a student, and could I be a student, a professional, a wife and mother all at the same time? Did I possess the time management skills required to complete online classes? What exactly is Moodle? How do I write a blog? Am I citing things correctly? How do I even begin to develop an e-portfolio?
One step at a time.
As you read through my final blog post of MHST601, I encourage you to follow the links contained in this blog and pursue some of my course work as you go.
The design of this course allowed me to ease into being a graduate student. The development of an e-portfolio was daunting, but I am pleased with how it is progressing and feel inspired to continue its development as I continue my degree. Reviewing on my e-portfolio to date, I feel that my profession as a psychiatric nurse, with a special interest in vulnerable and marginalized populations, is evident in my blog submissions and reflects who I am as a professional.
The course began with typical introductions, but the challenge was to present them using applications that I was unfamiliar with such as Microsoft Sway and Adobe Spark, and although there were frustrating moments and hours spent learning new programs through trial and error, I quickly realized the importance of expanding my digital literacy skills and developing my online professional presence as I pursue a leadership role in my field. I overhauled my Facebook account, updated my LinkedIn and joined Twitter- just for this class!
The first few weeks of this class included topics that were mostly familiar to me. We reviewed definitions of health and discussed how the Canada Health Act might be modernized. We then expanded the topic to include social determinants of health and multi-level health models. Although the topics were familiar, the learning was rich with opportunities to practice curating resources, synthesizing knowledge and creating and sharing ideas through our blog posts. Something that I personally appreciated was the autonomy we were given in choosing topics relevant to our professional practice. As I am still quite new in my current role, I valued the opportunity to combine professional and academic learning and was genuinely engaged and excited about the topics being discussed. Each week laid the foundation for the next week’s learning. In my blog post, “A New Definition of Health” (2018), I wrote that “health is not an absolute, but a dynamic, multifaceted social construct. Moving towards wellness has positive impacts on the individual to the greater environment, and everything in between. It gives appropriate tribute to the interconnectedness of people to one another, and people to their environment and recognizes the imperative roles that harmony, purpose, and contribution play in the concept of health.” As the weeks continued, and our class was tasked to research social determinants of health and then multi-level models of health, this interconnectedness became ever more apparent.
In the next few weeks of the course the class examined chronic diseases and prevention, Indigenous populations and vulnerable groups and health in Canada. The idea of dynamic health and the influence of social determinants of health, as well as multi-level health influences, continued throughout these topics. In my professional role as a psychiatric nurse, I have focused heavily on vulnerable populations- those with mental health concerns, homeless individuals, people suffering from addictions and Aboriginals. I am a passionate advocate for marginalized populations and enjoyed researching these topics and creating blog posts to share my passion with other students. It is my hope, and professional aspiration, to share this passion with students in an instructor role in the future.
The course concluded with discussion on future health topic and the direction that healthcare is heading. A reminder that healthcare is ever evolving and that as future healthcare leaders staying informed about emerging topics and technologies will be an ongoing and necessary challenge throughout our careers. In my Moodle submission on the topic of future health, I discussed the trend of parents seeking health advice in online forums. In reflecting on why this has become such a prominent trend I reviewed the accessibility of our current health care system, some of the common barriers to accessing care, professional practice standards of representing yourself as a healthcare provider on social media and ended with some pros and cons of the emerging tele-medicine option. The opportunity to incorporate learning from nearly all modules of this course while discussing our final topic again reinforced the interconnectedness of each learning opportunity made available to us in this course.
The biggest challenge that I encountered in this course was developing my e-portfolio and trying to format it to reflect APA guidelines. I spent more time than I care to admit adding my curated resources to my portfolio and linking each section to an annotated bibliography, which I was unable to format with proper APA indentations and double spacing in the end. I had also never written a blog prior to this course and found that my writing style reflected a dry academic-style writer more than the thought-evoking blogger. I struggled to be concise and often tried to incorporate more into a post than my audience likely appreciated, and often failed to further existing ideas and incorporate my own thoughts into my assignments at times, instead focusing too much on research which created an enormous amount of work in the creation of my curated resources and annotated bibliography.
References:
Truman, C. (n.d.) Professional Portfolio of Crystal Truman. Retrieved March 26, 2019, from https://crystalbc.wixsite.com/website
Truman, C. (n.d.) Annotated Bibliography: Opioid Crisis. Retrieved March 26, 2019, from Crystal Truman website: https://crystalbc.wixsite.com/website/chronic-disease-copy
Truman, C. (2018, January 20). Professionalism in Social Media: A Personal Audit of my Online Professional Image. [Blog Post]. Retrieved March 26, 2019, from https://crystalbc.wixsite.com/website/blog/professionalism-in-social-media-a-personal-audit-of-my-online-professional-image
Truman, C. (2018, January 21). #Digitalliteracy? [Blog Post]. Retrieved March 26, 2019, from https://crystalbc.wixsite.com/website/blog/digitalliteracy
Truman, C. (2018, February 6). A New Definition of Health. [Blog Post]. Retrieved March 26, 2019, from https://crystalbc.wixsite.com/website/blog/a-new-definition-of-health
Truman, C. (2018, February 14). The HEALTH of our Nation. [Blog Post]. Retrieved March 26, 2019, from https://crystalbc.wixsite.com/website/blog/the-health-of-our-nation
Truman, C. (2018, February 17). One Step Forward, Two Steps Back: Comparing BC & Ontario's response to Canada's Opioid Crisis. [Blog Post]. Retrieved March 26, 2019, from https://crystalbc.wixsite.com/website/blog/one-step-forward-two-steps-back-comparing-bc-ontario-s-response-to-canada-s-opioid-crisis
Truman, C. (2018, February 26). Using CSC's Continuum of Care Model to Treat Depression in Aboriginal Male Offenders. [Blog Post]. Retrieved March 26, 2019, from https://crystalbc.wixsite.com/website/blog/using-the-continuum-of-care-model-in-treating-depression-in-aboriginal-male-offenders-in-the-correct
Truman, C. (2018, March 10). Chronic Illness in Corrections. [Blog Post]. Retrieved March 26, 2019, from https://crystalbc.wixsite.com/website/blog/chronic-illness-in-corrections
Truman, C. (2018, March 21). A Paradigm Shift on Aboriginal Status. [Blog Post]. Retrieved March 26, 2019, from https://crystalbc.wixsite.com/website/blog/a-paradigm-shift-on-aboriginal-status
Truman, C. (2019, January 11). This is my first ever tweet! #MHST601 [Tweet]. Retrieved March 26, 2019, from @CrystalTruman2 website: https://twitter.com/CrystalTruman2/status/1083936267325267971
Truman, C. (n.d.) Posts [LinkedIn Page]. Retrieved March 26, 2019, from https://www.linkedin.com/in/crystal-truman-3b4a52157/
Truman, C. (n.d.) Curated Resources. Retrieved March 26, 2019, from Crystal Truman website: https://crystalbc.wixsite.com/website/curated-resources
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