Reflective Journal - Week 7

 1. What did you learn from the unit.

I learned a lot from my interview about firing and discipline. I also got more experience figuring out how to read a budget and make decisions about how to cut that budget. It was really hard!

2. Discuss your feelings/experiences from the team activities? Did it change your opinion on the subject? If so, how? If not, why?

Our team activities this week were coming up with budgeting questions and sharing about the assignment we did on cutting a medical/surgical floor budget by $14,550. That was really hard for me. I learned so much from my teammates though. I was surprised, however, that one of them was willing to cut the budget by reducing nurses and techs. I wanted to avoid that at all costs!

3. How you will utilize the information learned in your nursing practice.

I hope I never, ever, have to budget for a hospital, or anywhere, except for myself. So, hopefully I won’t have to utilize this in my nursing practice. One thing I thought about though, was how I want to be better about not wasting supplies. That was one of my take-aways, that every dollar really counts in a budget, especially a hospitals. 

4. Your personal feelings about the material covered.

My personal feelings about budgeting for a company or hospital is that I never want to do it. Also, I think it is important to not cut costs by firing employees, unless there is no other way, or they aren’t needed.