HANDLING A PATIENT WITH SMALL CELL CARCINOMA OF THE TRACHEA
In order to get the impact of this discussion board do each section (question) before proceeding to the next.
Mr. C. is your patient and he has had a rough course with cancer. He was diagnosed with a small cell carcinoma of the trachea. Despite surgery (resection of the trachea), he developed a lung cancer as well.
Question 1: How do you feel about this patient? Reflect on the image provided (above). Complete before moving on.
Although the ICU image is from the internet, Mr. C. is a real person, Mr. Jon Covault. Please get to know your patient. Go to https://www.caringbridge.org/visit/joncovault (see NOTE below)
1) Read “My Story” (1 short page)
2) Look at the photos (about 14)
3) Look at the JOURNAL. Go to page 2 and scroll down to the September 14, 2010 entry from Jon Covault. Read back through the Jon’s March entry and further if you wish.
Question 2: Now, how do you feel about your patient, Mr. Covault? Reflect on your thoughts as you imagine the man in the image to be Mr. Jon Covault that you now know.
Question 3: O’Keefe-McCarthy (2009) believes that “nurses caught up in the technological aspects of care may not recognize the person in amongst all the machinery, tubes, and monitoring devices” (p. 790). Do you support this notion? Why or why not? What is the point of this assignment?
(NOTE: Pam Covault, Jon’s wife, has invited you (as nursing students) to have access to his caring page. Pam is the Director of Nursing at the Mary Grimes School of Nursing, Neosho Community College, Ottawa, Kansas. She and I met at the 2012 NLN conference in Anaheim)
References
O’Keefe-McCarthy, S. (2009). Technology-mediated nursing care: The impact on moral agency. Nursing Ethics, 16(6), p. 786-796.
What is intensive care. (2007). Xtreme Everest 2. Retrieved 10.5.2012 from https://www.xtreme-everest.co.uk/images/news/uploads/Misc__016_XL.jpg
