How do we build our collaborative partnership

Today, I had a lunch with one of my coworkers who used to work at Foothills unit 32 as well, and we were discussing how to build a collaborative partnerships with your colleague and clients.

Some people think that having a collaborative partnership means that the nurse never disagrees with the person and always follows her wishes. However, it is not the truth.

Mount Royal nursing team-photo by Tracy

the nurse's professional knowledge and expertise are important in a collaborative partnership relationship. The person has her own thinking and the nurse too may have goals for the person. However, unlike the traditional collaborative partnership, in which the health care professional holds most of the power, in the new collaborative relationship the client and nurse shared the power together. It was one my experience that I wanted to share:


One day a mom brought her son to meet up with Dr.M. Therefore, I had to do an interview with them for safety issues why her son's knee got injured and whether her son got abused by his mom. Thus,  I tired to set up follow up schedules. After two weeks, I checked the son's health history, and I noticed that they never showed up for the rest of the appointments. 


I called the mom asked how come you missed out your appointments and checked how her son was now. She replied" because he did not want to come, [and] I couldn't force him ". 


I wonder how come the mom did not minimize her son symptoms for a time, skip appointments and delay seeking care. 


Eventually, the child's disease really flared up, and the son was not getting treatment but needed to be. Therefore, I had to set up the interview again. Paying no attention to what's happening felt schizophrenic to me. I could not ignore that the son was not well and was limping. 


However, I was certainly not going to say to the mom " Well why did not you phone ? I could not believe you waited so long to reply my phone call". In contrast, I said " Things did not look as good as last time, and I am actually a bit surprised that you did not let us know. I bet there are good reasons; could we talk about them ? "  She started to disclose more information to me that she was too busy with her job, and she was divorced. No one could really help her pay attention to her son. After built the trust relationship, she promised me that she would come to visit Dr. M. on time and came to talk to me. 


From a position of knowing the mom, I felt comfortable bringing my concerns up. I knew that it might be better that the mom discuss this with me rather than the with DR. M. who was going to say " Aaah! look at the knee, They are like cantaloupes! what's going on here". 

Images "ER's in Jordan's hospitals are the real pain" taken by Wael Attili

Building a collaborative relationship, not only does require you know how to "take care of " the paitents' physical wound, but also does require you "give your heart" to them and listened to what exactly happened, which could be mental illness as well.

Science-Do you the secret of Vitamin C?

Lately, I was using my Diet Analysis +  to analysis my daily intake. My daily intake of Vitamin C was 52.06 mg/day; however, a health amount for intake should have been 75mg/day. This concludes that I am lacking 22.94 mg/day in order to have a healthy amount and meet my daily recommend amount (DRI)

Image "fruit and vegetables" :Turnham green. Taken from geograph

Vitamin c is involved in some major functions in the body. It is used in collagen synthesis which aids in the formation of bone, cartilage and gums. It is an antioxidant which helps with detoxification and it improves iron absorption.

Since vitamin c, also called ascorbic acid, takes part in some very important body functions we need tone aware of what the possible symptoms of deficient or excess intake are. An inadequate amount could cause scurvy which is a nutritional deficiency caused by a lack of sufficient vitamin c needed to synthesize collagen.

Common indicators are weakness, delayed wound healing, impaired immunity, degeneration of skin, teeth, and blood vessel disruption.

A large amount of vitamin c may increase iron to an unhealthy amount and will result in damaged body tissue. Vitamin c is taken by many individuals who believe it prevents or cures the common cold or dance. However, there is still little research on this topic and it is not well supported by scientific literature.

There are certain groups of people that are more at
risk for vitamin c deficient. Smokers including passive, active and second hand all have a higher risk for vitamin c deficiency. The recommend dietary allowances for females ages 19-30 is 75 mg/day and for males is 90 mg/day. Therefore, everyone need to watch their daily intake.

photo "roast winter vegetables" taken from Image Index/ food and dining

Variety !! is the key. For example, you should consume at least one dark green and one orange vegetable each day such as broccoli, lettuce, sweet potatoes and winter squash. Secondly, choose vegetables and fruit prepared with little or no added fat. In addition, instead of drinking orange juice, we should have more vegetables and fruit. According to Canada food guide, we only allow to take 125ml which is only a half cup of orange juice per day.

vitamin c is an essential micronutrient required for norma metabolic function of the body. To maintain a health amount we all need to have a well-planned diet. Consuming fruits and vegetables are the best food source that we could gain vitamin C from. Remember! It is important to know that either taking high doses or inefficient amounts can be dangerous as well

Self-concept and stressors.

Image "upset red balloon" took from Doolepress  sketchbook

Have you experience a period of time that you feel you lost yourself? You feel upset, angry, useless and unproductive. Have you experience everything in your life was all messed up? You even started to hate and disappointed at yourself.  You tried to look through the mirror to seek the real "you "; however, you noticed that have walked too far away.

If you have all the symptoms that I have described, you had lost your positive self-concept.

Photo"self-portrait" by Kathleen Creighton, Photography. 

A positive self-concept provide a sense of meaning, wholeness, and consistency A healthy self-concept has a high degree of stability and generates positive feeling toward yourself. The components of self-concept frequently considered by Delmarlearning are identity, body image, and role performance.

Photo " refracted moments " by Dennis mojado.

Stressors affecting self-concept.

A self-concept stressor is any real or perceived change that threatens identity, body image, or role performance, and thus, a stressor challenges a person's adaptive capacities. The most important factor in determining an individual's response is the individual's perception of the stressor. 

The ability to re-establish balance is related to numerous factors, including the number of stressors, duration of the stressors, and health status (Source: from Hokenberry, M., Wilson, D., &Winkelstein, M. (Eds). (2003). Wong's care of infants and children(7th ed.). St. Louis, MO: Mosby). 

The normal process of maturation and development itself is a stressor. Changes that occur in physical, spiritual, emotional, sexual, and family can affect self-concept. Being able to adapt to stressors likely lead to a positive sense of self, whereas failure to adapt often leads to a negative sense of self. For example, I was stressed for the whole spring semester. There were a large number of things happened in such a short time. I was sick and no one was around me that could take care of me, one of my close family members had passed away and I could not catch up with all my studies. Therefore, I was super stressed, and I felt I lost myself identity. Hence, I have acted like someone that I never ever wanted to be.

Identity confusion results when people do not maintain a clear, consistent, and continuous personal identity. It may occur at any star of life if a person is unable to adapt to identity stressors. Under extreme stress, an individual may experience disturbed personal identity, estate in which the differences between the self and others cannot be determined. 

Therefore, we need to know when we should forgive ourselves 

As a result, we need to find a way to set ourselves free, and we have to admit that we are not perfect that we also made mistakes. Thus, we all need to give ourselves some personal time only care about ourselves, and talk to ourselves to seek the real us. Moreover, we have to realize what have done were wrong, and we have to learn from the past. Always remember to ask yourself who you really are. 

Lantern Festival

Lantern Festival is a China's traditional festival, which is celebrated on the fifteenth day of the first month of the lunar year. Hence The 15th day is the first night to see a full moon; therefore,  the day is also called Yuan Xiao Festival in China.According to Chinese tradition, at the very beginning of a new year, when there is a bright full moon hanging in the sky, there should be thousands of colorful lanterns hung out for people to appreciate

photo taken by Li, Chao (My roommate) 

Iantern Festival is also one of the biggest holidays in China. Several days before Lantern Festival, people begin to make lanterns which are made in the shape of different animals, vegetables, fruits and many, other things. 


While making lanterns people usually write riddles on lanterns. On the evening of Lantern Festival, all the lanterns are hung up in order to pray for the luck of the year. 

Photo taken by Li, Chao

The most interesting part is making " Yuan xiao". The shape of yuan xiao is round as snowball so that it has another name as " small round dumpling balls", and when you bite into it, the dumpling gives way in a soft but chewy manner.  In Chinese families, yuan xiao means "happiness and fullness" because all the families could finally gather together eating yuan xiao without worrying their stressful and overloaded job or thinking about other disturbing things. In contrast, they could chill and drink with their family members that they were too busy to visit anymore. 


In my memory, eating "Yuan xiao " was my favorite part of Iantern Festival. Not only does it have the sweet taste, but also it made me fell so warm that could be full around with my beloved ones, hearing their laughs, and sharing their happiness. In Chinese culture, we only ate 6 "yuan xiao " at 12 am on the Lantern Festival because it made by a glutinous rice flour which is hard to digest.  Secondly, "6" represents " a good luck " in Chinese culture; therefore, if you eat "6 Yuan xiao", you will have best wishes and good luck for the rest of the year.

I was the youngest one in my whole family so that my grandfather loved me the most.  When everyone closed their eyes to pray for the best luck for our family on the festival dinner, my grandfather always gave me one extra "Yuan xiao" from his bowl secretly, and he had been doing this until I came to Canada.

At the beginning, I thought maybe he was too old to have too much sweet food so he needed to share one with me.
Recently, my grandma told me because your grandfather thought you were so weak ( because I was born prematurely) that he was scared that we would not be able to  rise you up healthy. Therefore, he always tried to give his " luck " to you, and hoped you could live in a healthy and happy life after you "eat " it.

My grandfather kept this secret for more than 20 years, and I was so selfish that took his "luck " away. Somehow, I think back right now, if I did not take his "luck" away, he would live longer? or whether I would suffer more pain and illness in my life instead of letting him go through everything for me?

Asian vs Indian

picture belongs to me

I believe that Asian and Indian cooking is not alike because of their variety of spices and cooking methods. Asian people and Indian people use the same type of food like rice, chicken, vegetables, beef and pork. But they cook it differently with their cultural spices and sauces. I think Indian food have more favours because they use a lot of spices like curry power, Indian gooseberry, mango extract, rose water and jaggery.


Indian:

Coconut rice is made with white rice in coconut milk or coconut flakes. A way to make this dish is to make the rice separately and then mixing in the coconut mixture (coconut flakes that are toasted in sesame or coconut oil and spiced with paprika, nuts, curry powder and leaves). This is a very nice mild and creamy dish to serve with spicy meats and curries.

Curry Chicken can also be called chicken curry, it is interchangeable. The ingredients in this dish include:
curry powder
masala powder
saffron
ginger

picture belongs to me

Asian:

Fried rice is made from steamed rice stir-fried in a wok. It is often cooked with other ingredients such as eggs, vegetables, green onions, soya sauce and meat. It is usually made with leftovers from other dishes.

My mom makes fried rice a lot. She usually makes it with Asian sausage with eggs and green onions. I like this dish because I get a bit of every food group. It is very flavorful and easy to make and not time consuming. I found a recipe online that I tried to make. It was very simple to read and cook. The end result was delicious; it had just enough salt and ingredients that went well with each other.

Soy sauce chicken is made from soya sauce and chicken. There are no additional ingredients needed, its very simple to make and yummy.

picture belongs to me

There are many places that serve excellent food in Calgary that some people may not have been or even heard of. I honestly think that the food here in Calgary are decent with affordable prices and are convenient to get too.  The top places I recommended are:

Indian

My absolute favourite dish in this culture is butter chicken. Butter chicken is also known as Murgh Makhani. It is full of flavours that complement the chicken well. I like it spicy with naan bread. Moti Mahal in Delhi was the first to introduce butter chicken. Maurya Finest Indian Cuisine is pretty good, they have huge pieces of chicken in your meal and its spicy. They have a heated stone in their kitchen where they cook the naan bread. Every naan breads made is fresh. There are different kinds of favours served like garlic, plain and herbs.

Namskar
202 16 Avenue NE
4032304447

Moti Mahal
1805 14^th Street SW
4032017336

picture belongs to me

Asian

Towa Sushi
The word Towa in Japanese means forever. The owner, Toyohiko Sato is dedicated in providing delicious sushi. Towa Sushi is famous for their huge portions of sushi they serve. Their menu has a variety of cold and hot cold, offering specialty salads and dishes including tempura, sashimi, and contemporary rolls. Towa is located on 2116 - 4 Street SW. Towa Sushi is one of my favourite sushi places because every bite you take you get a bit of the fish and seaweed. It usually will take 2-3 bites just to finish a piece of sushi. They have really good salads, which contains different types of sushi like scallops, salmon and tuna.

China Rose
228 28th Street SE

4032482711

Thai House
125, 555-11 Avenue SW
4032378828

Sikh Khanda

One of the most important religious symbols of Sikhism is the “Khanda” , basically the coat of arms for Sikhs. I did not know that the Khanda had so many meanings attached to it, I thought that it was just a symbol that my community and I recognized and followed, but I was wrong and did some research and the Khanda has more than one meaning to it. So I will break it down for all of you!

Khanda

image from Flickr Yahoo

The central double edged sword called the Khanda itself indicates divine strength, truth, freedom, justice and God’s creative power.

The ‘Chakkar’ which is the inner circle means the oneness of God and humanity, basically meaning that there is only one God and that humanity is also one because we are all of God’s creation.

The two ‘Kirpans’ which can be called the crossed swords represent the balance a Sikh must place on spiritual ambitions and social responsibilities.

Benefit Gala: Cultural Evening and Development and Peace

The Benefit Gala represents development and peace for a cultural evening of ethnic food and performance. The movement started in 2011 and it has been a great success so far. The event took place on Saturday June-16-2012 in Saint Cecilia's Church in Calgary. The event was to raise awareness and fundraising for organizations dedicated to development and peace.

Development and Peace is an organization that addresses the root causes of injustice and poverty by respecting and empowering people and communities in the "developing" world. The organization addresses these causes through emergency relief operation such as drought in Africa, floods in Philippines and many others.

It also included dance performances from around the world and some of the most delicious food I have ever tasted. Each dance performance represented a specific country and the traditional dances each country has.


Photo by Jasmin
Brownies representing India

Photo by Archana
Brazilian martial art dance Capoeira



Events like these promote a better understanding of various cultures and traditions while promoting a broader  cause of helping the needy.