Reflection on the Course and My Journey so far

Reflections

(Chen, 2017)

I chose to do my master’s because of a drive for “greater”. My mother has always instilled the value of education in me from a young age. As an intrinsically motivated person, I decided it was time to increase my knowledge and my potential. Throughout this course, the value of personal, professional and academic reflection has been shown to be very important.

In the words of Peter Drucker,

“Follow effective action with quiet reflection. From the quiet reflection will come even more effective action.”

What a journey this has been! The beginning of the MHST601 course found me in Windsor, Ontario living away from my fiancé due to work. A few weeks after the start of the course, I drove three days back to Moncton, NB on my own to re-join him prior to our move to Edmonton, AB. By the end of the semester, I have settled into my new home in Edmonton while adjusting to a new work environment.

Professional Reflection

This course has taught me the value of discretion and the importance of ensuring that my personal stance and my professional side do not fall on opposing ends. As a person who utilizes several online platforms, the reflection I did at the start of the course allowed me to recognize what it means to have an appropriate social media presence and to be mindful of the things said on a public forum. This is something that remains with me to this day. As a healthcare provider, I have a public obligation to provide unbiased and accurate information according to my professional standards and ethics.

Additionally, the creation of my e-Portfolio that I continued to build on throughout the course functions as a site to save work created throughout the course as well as a means of allowing other colleagues and healthcare providers to learn more about me as a professional and assess my content curation and writing abilities. It also serves to provide information on certain health related subjects to anyone who reads the blog.

Collaboration is key. The ability to work with my colleagues Andrea and Negar, as well as incorporating feedback received from other classmates reinforces the thought that the most polished submissions are done through peer-review and collaboration.

Academic Reflection

The term content curation was new to me. I realized that I had never truly done it before, not even during my undergraduate degree. I was familiar with finding the resources I needed and possibly bookmarking the page online or using a physical bookmarker. However, I was not familiar with creating a collection of valuable resources that was easily accessible and organized. This was something that I was able to create through the use of Sway, another platform that was introduced to me during this course.

As healthcare professionals, health forms the basis of what we do and therefore, it was important to challenge the current definition of health. Health is influenced by so many individual and socio-economic determinants that are often inter-connected. Chronic diseases still remain one of the primary health burdens in Canada with similarities and variances between provinces.

This course allowed me to not only learn about its prevalence and potential mitigating strategies but also introduced me to concepts such as the socio-ecological model and how to assess these diseases. I was able to apply this model towards assessing chronic kidney disease, a disease that often arises due to the presence of other chronic conditions, but I find is often overlooked.

Chronic diseases often affect the most vulnerable groups within society. Researching and curating content about Indigenous persons broadened my understanding of the various groups of people who fall under this umbrella and the factors influencing the overall lower health status reported by them. This led me to further research health issues affecting immigrants (a topic relating personally to myself) in Canada which seemed to largely stem from policies in place.

Personal Reflection

The first month truly taught me the value of time management and prioritizing. Finding the time around the regularly scheduled work day to complete activities and assignments was a task. During my trip back to Moncton, I would drive all day and then attempt to curate resources and read posts made by classmates at night, in a motel room with unreliable Wi-Fi (that was an even bigger challenge).

Throughout the house-hunting trip and then the 6-day drive from Moncton, NB to Edmonton, AB, I began feeling overwhelmed by the amount of work required for the course (to create content I believed was representative of my standards).

However, I persevered and as I sit here reflecting on the past 13 weeks, I am truly grateful for not only the concepts learnt but also for the development of myself as a person and healthcare provider.

References

Chen, R. (2017). Win your life by harnessing The Power Of Reflection [Image]. Retrieved from https://medium.com/thrive-global/why-you-should-harness-the-power-of-reflection-4a8f6d7710d4
Peter Drucker. (n.d.). Peter Drucker Quotes. Retrieved from: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/peter_drucker_120337