This course was designed to develop skills that will help you be an effective online student and to also help you build a multidisciplinary approach to health. For this Assignment, you reflect on becoming a scholar-practitioner, social change agent, and part of a multidisciplinary field. After reviewing your Learning Resources for this course and completing the StrengthsFinder Assessment, consider the issue you addressed in Week 1 and examine how it can be addressed from a multidisciplinary perspective.
As part of this Assignment, you will incorporate the Gallup’s StrengthsFinder assessment results that you received in Week 4. Reflect upon them and respond to the following questions in your paper.
The Assignment (2–3 pages)
- Explain how your understanding of the multidisciplinary nature of the course content has changed or been validated.
- Explain how the issue you discussed in Week 1 of the course can be addressed from a multidisciplinary perspective.
- Expand on your insights utilizing the Learning Resources.
- Expand on your insights utilizing your StrengthsFinder Assessment results
Include proper APA citations and references (see Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association for assistance).
Individual Gallup Report
SURVEY COMPLETION DATE: 08-12-2019
Many years of research conducted by The Gallup Organization suggest that the most effective people are those who understand their strengths and behaviors. These people are best able to develop strategies to meet and exceed the demands of their daily lives, their careers, and their families. A review of the knowledge and skills you have acquired can provide a basic sense of your abilities, but an awareness and understanding of your natural talents will provide true insight into the core reasons behind your consistent successes.
Your Signature Themes report presents your five most dominant themes of talent, in the rank order revealed by your responses to CliftonStrengths. Of the 34 themes measured, these are your “topfive.”
Your Signature Themes are very important in maximizing the talents that lead to your successes. By focusing on your Signature Themes, separately and in combination, you can identify your talents, build them into strengths, and enjoy personal and career success through consistent, near-perfect performance.
Competition
Competition is rooted in comparison. When you look at the world, you are instinctively aware of other people’s performance. Their performance is the ultimate yardstick. No matter how hard you tried, no matter how worthy your intentions, if you reached your goal but did not outperform your peers, the achievement feels hollow. Like all competitors, you need other people. You need to compare. If you can compare, you can compete, and if you can compete, you can win. And when you win, there is no feeling quite like it. You like measurement because it facilitates comparisons. You like other competitors because they invigorate you. You like contests because they must produce a winner. You particularly like contests where you know you have the inside track to be the winner. Although you are gracious to your fellow competitors and even stoic in defeat, you don’t compete for the fun of competing. You compete to win. Over time you will come to avoid contests where winning seems unlikely.
Activator
“When can we start?” This is a recurring question in your life. You are impatient for action. You may concede that analysis has its uses or that debate and discussion can occasionally yield some valuable insights, but deep down you know that only action is real. Only action can make things happen. Only action leads to performance. Once a decision is made, you cannot not act. Others may worry that “there are still some things we don’t know,” but this doesn’t seem to slow you. If the decision has been made to go across town, you know that the fastest way to get there is to go stoplight to stoplight. You are not going to sit around waiting until all the lights have turned green. Besides, in your view, action and thinking are not opposites. In fact, guided by your Activator theme, you believe that action is the best device for learning. You make a decision, you take action, you look at the result, and you learn. This learning informs your next action and your next. How can you grow if you have nothing to react to? Well, you believe you can’t. You must put yourself out there. You must take the next step. It is the only way to keep your thinking fresh and informed. The bottom line is this: You know you will be judged not by what you say, not by what you think, but by what you get done. This does not frighten you. It pleases you.
Achiever
Your Achiever theme helps explain your drive. Achiever describes a constant need for achievement. You feel as if every day starts at zero. By the end of the day you must achieve something tangible in order to feel good about yourself. And by “every day” you mean every single day—workdays, weekends, vacations. No matter how much you may feel you deserve a day of rest, if the day passes without some form of achievement, no matter how small, you will feel dissatisfied. You have an internal fire burning inside you. It pushes you to do more, to achieve more. After each accomplishment is reached, the fire dwindles for a moment, but very soon it rekindles itself, forcing you toward the next accomplishment. Your relentless need for achievement might not be logical. It might not even be focused. But it will always be with you. As an Achiever you must learn to live with this whisper of discontent. It does have its benefits. It brings you the energy you need to work long hours without burning out. It is the jolt you can always count on to get you started on new tasks, new challenges. It is the power supply that causes you to set the pace and define the levels of productivity for your work group. It is the theme that keeps you moving.
Focus
“Where am I headed?” you ask yourself. You ask this question every day. Guided by this theme of Focus, you need a clear destination. Lacking one, your life and your work can quickly become frustrating. And so each year, each month, and even each week you set goals. These goals then serve as your compass, helping you determine priorities and make the necessary corrections to get back on course. Your Focus is powerful because it forces you to filter; you instinctively evaluate whether or not a particular action will help you move toward your goal. Those that don’t are ignored. In the end, then, your Focus forces you to be efficient. Naturally, the flip side of this is that it causes you to become impatient with delays, obstacles, and even tangents, no matter how intriguing they appear to be. This makes you an extremely valuable team member. When others start to wander down other avenues, you bring them back to the main road. Your Focus reminds everyone that if something is not helping you move toward your destination, then it is not important. And if it is not important, then it is not worth your time. You keep everyone on point.
Deliberative
You are careful. You are vigilant. You are a private person. You know that the world is an unpredictable place. Everything may seem in order, but beneath the surface you sense the many risks. Rather than denying these risks, you draw each one out into the open. Then each risk can be identified, assessed, and ultimately reduced. Thus, you are a fairly serious person who approaches life with a certain reserve. For example, you like to plan ahead so as to anticipate what might go wrong. You select your friends cautiously and keep your own counsel when the conversation turns to personal matters. You are careful not to give too much praise and recognition, lest it be misconstrued. If some people don’t like you because you are not as effusive as others, then so be it. For you, life is not a popularity contest. Life is something of a minefield. Others can run through it recklessly if they so choose, but you take a different approach. You identify the dangers, weigh their relative impact, and then place your feet deliberately. You walk with care.
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Week 1 Assignment
After many years of working in the healthcare field, one issue that sparks my interest the most is the over prescribing of opioids and barbiturates. Working trauma made me realize the harm healthcare providers unintentionally cause patients by placing them on long-term use of painkillers. Currently, the United States is experiencing an opioid crisis of epidemic proportion. Commonly prescribed medications such as Oxycontin, Percocet, Vicodin, and Xanax are extremely addictive and are responsible for more drug overdose deaths than heroin and cocaine combined (NIH, 2019). Every day, in the United States alone, more than 130 people die from opioid overdoses. As a healthcare provider, I am expected to deliver care in the most efficient yet beneficial method that meets the needs of the patient without causing harm. As a patient, I expect to get the best possible care from my healthcare provider because I have entrusted them with my health.
Prescribing opioids should be avoided when possible and when there is no other option; the number of prescribed pills should be limited to less than a month’s supply. A thirty-day supply or more of opioids increases the chances of dependency and can cause brain damage (NIH, 2019). Avoiding non-medical use of prescription medications is a critical part of providing quality patient care. Therefore, healthcare providers need to evaluate and identify the genuine medical needs of patients when placing them on opioids for pain management; the potential risk for misuse, abuse, and addiction should be considered. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) estimates the total “economic burden” of prescription opioid misuse alone in the United States at $78.5 billion per year (CDC, 2019). The misuse and over prescribing of opioids has become a public health emergency with overwhelming consequences including an increase in opioid abuse and overdoses. I have personally seen the harm opioids cause with patients and loved ones, they are dangerous and the recovery process can be scary and deadly. Often times healthcare providers do not understand how to provided proper treatment for patients with an opioid abuse problem. In many cases, healthcare providers are not utilizing resources and treatment options to help the patient with their addiction.
Addiction to opioids is a disease and should be treated as such. Healthcare providers need to change the way they see opioid addiction. A personal goal of mine has always been to give back to the community I live in by providing better resources and treatment options to treat all addictions. Currently my community is struggling with opioid addiction. Healthcare providers are not sufficiently trained in treating addiction and struggle in finding affordable resources for patients battling this disease. In my current field of study, I hope to gain the knowledge and skills to accomplish my ultimate goal of improving patient access to treatment and recovery services. I would like to strengthen provider understanding of the crisis and encouraging the use of overdose reversing medications. I hope to one day be able to provide support for research on pain management and addiction in order to provide safe, effective, and non-addictive methods to manage chronic pain.
References
NHI. (2019). Opioid overdose crisis. Retrieved from https://www.drugabuse.gov/drugs-abuse/opioids/opioid-overdose-crisis on 7/10/2019
CDC. (2019). Opioid overdose: understanding the epidemic. Retrieved from https://www.cdc.gov/drugoverdose/epidemic/index.html on 7/10/2019