Nursing is a field with multiple layers and dimensions. Evidence-based experience in nursing is combined with other knowing patterns, which serve as the sources of an advanced understanding of medical records. The patterns of knowing enable the nursing professionals to penetrate the disease history deeper, analyze it from a variety of perspectives, and provide the follow-up care accordingly.
Problem
The patient I treated was an African American male of twelve years old. He arrived at the trauma care with a head injury. The boy fainted at school and hit his head. The patient was diagnosed with a concussion and given two stitches on his right eyebrow. He has prescribed Ibuprofen for pain and a week off school to rest. Treating this patient, I found out that he felt dizzy and fainted at school due to starvation. I noticed that the boy was overweight and inquired about his condition. The patient confessed that he had been mocked at school for being overweight; as a result, to become thinner, he started to reject food. Statistically, after the beginning of the 1990s, the number of obese children in the USA estimated twelve percent (Baskin, Ahluwalia and Resnicow 2). African American children are under a fifty percent higher risk of childhood obesity than white children.
Intervention
While the patient was kept at the hospital for observation, I went to find his parents in the hall. Speaking with them, I found out that the boy had been suffering from conflicts at school over his weight. To provide intervention, I arranged a consultation with a nutritionist and endocrinologist for the patient and his parents. I continued speaking with the parents, who came from a poor district and expressed a concern that healthy nutrition was unaffordable for them. Evidentially, among all the American low-income households, the number of African American impoverished individuals exceeds the number of whites by three times (Lutfiyya et al. par. 1). I elaborated on the special shopping plans for low-income households that enabled low-income families to afford healthier nutrition. I also encouraged them to start engaging their son in sports activities to stimulate weight loss.
Patterns of Knowing
Working with this patient, I relied on empirical knowing provided by the examination of the boy. I compared his situation to personal experiences of dealing with extra weight in the past, and it helped me relate to him. Aesthetical knowing appeared with the realization that the dissatisfaction with his appearance pushed the child to give up food. Ethically, I had to be very careful and tactful telling his parents that it might have been their fault that the child was unhealthy, but I managed to reach them and make them cooperate with the doctors. Emancipatory knowing detecting social injustices occurred when I saw that the patient’s parents approved of his appearance and were supportive of telling him that being big is manly (Chinn and Kramer 2). I realized that trying to show love to the child they stimulated his wrongdoing.
Most Challenging Pattern
In the context of childhood obesity among African Americans, the most difficult knowing pattern to apply is ethical. Even though nursing professionals know how to empirically detect a problem in children and can identify its causes and prevention strategies, it is very difficult actually to put them into practice. Even for obese adults, discipline and dieting can be unbearable. Child patients would have difficulties understanding the point of dieting and lack motivation.
In conclusion, the problem of childhood obesity among African Americans is easy to relate to personally and to detect empirically. Ethically, it is challenging to speak about without offending the patients, and aesthetically it is the source of multiple problems. Emancipatory knowing shows that African Americans are culturally different from white people. They may support having extra weight as they approve of curvy shapes. Dealing with my patient, I applied all of these patterns, which helped me study his case better and provide a suitable intervention.
Works Cited
Baskin, Monica L., Harsonhena K. Ahluwalia and Ken Resnicow. “Obesity Intervention among African American Children and Adolescents.” Pediatric Clinics 48.4 (2001): 1027–1039. Print.
Chinn, Peggy L. and Maeona K. Kramer. Knowledge Development in Nursing: Theory and Process. Amsterdam: Elsevier Health Sciences, 2014. Print.
Lutfiyya, May Nawal, Rosemary Garcia, Christine M. Dankwa, Teriya Young and Martin S. Lipsky. “Overweight and Obese Prevalence Rates in African American and Hispanic Children: An Analysis of Data from the 2003-2004 National Survey of Children’s Health.” Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine 21.3 (2008):191-199. Print.