MN577 Clinical – Womens Health Focus
Unit 1 Discussion
The purpose of this unit is to focus on performing the necessary components of the women’s health exam and to learn to identify crucial exams and necessary age appropriate screenings for the women’s health client.
Discuss how the age of the female patient, demographics, race, and lifestyle will drive your exam and plan of care. Give examples and support with evidence-based practice.
 
MN577 Clinical – Womens Health Focus
Unit 2 Discussion
Describe how your first 2 weeks of women’s health clinicals are going.
Describe your clinical setting and the 10 most common diagnoses.
How are you feeling about caring for women’s health patient populations? What are your learning goals for this rotation?
Be sure to provide constructive and scholarly feedback to at least two other students’ posts and follow the grading rubric for full credit.
 
MN577 Clinical – Womens Health Focus
Unit 3 Discussion
Women’s bodies go through a myriad of changes during the course of their life. Hormones play an integral role in those changes at each stage of development, from puberty to post-menopause.
Discuss how hormones across a lifespan can impact a woman’s physical and mental health. Give examples.
 
MN577 Clinical – Womens Health Focus
Unit 4 Discussion
Contraceptive counseling provides education, dispels misinformation, facilitates selection of a method that will be successful for the individual, and encourages patient involvement in healthcare decisions and life goals. Discussing contraception brings the nurse practitioner and patient together to create a tailored plan that meets the individual’s reproductive needs over a lifetime.
Discuss any clinical encounters that you may have had relating to contraception. How did you counsel patients on their choices and possible risks? Describe how you would explain the differences to your patients in the long acting reversal contraceptive devices.
 
MN577 Clinical – Womens Health Focus
Unit 5 Discussion
Sexuality affects individuals and society across a broad spectrum of activities through health, but also through factors at multiple levels, such as gender relations, reproduction, and economics. Physiologic, behavioral, and affective measurement of sexuality and sexual behavior is complicated by cultural values and norms but is essential to individual health (including happiness) as well as public health. Cultural or structural norms that stigmatize aspects of sexuality, such as sexual orientation, have adverse effects on individuals across their lifespan, with homophobia being a prominent example of such.
Discuss how one’s age, race, lifestyle, and demographics have an impact on your choice to complete a sexual history when working in the primary care setting with women across a lifespan.
 
MN577 Clinical – Womens Health Focus
Unit 6 Discussion
Women often present to the primary care setting with a variety of breast complaints. Many of these are benign conditions but can be concerning to the patient. Breast complaints are common across the lifespan, and it is imperative for the nurse practitioner to be comfortable in assessing, diagnosing, and treating breast complaints.
Discuss any encounters you have had with patients who have had breast concerns. Review the evidence-based guidelines for evaluating and treating breast conditions. How did you approach the assessment and the evaluation of breast complaints seen in the clinic setting?
 
MN577 Clinical – Womens Health Focus
Unit 7 Discussion
Chronic pelvic pain can be defined as intermittent or constant pain in the lower abdomen or pelvis of a woman of at least 6 months in duration, not occurring exclusively with menstruation or intercourse and not associated with pregnancy. It is a symptom, not a diagnosis. Chronic pelvic pain presents in primary care as frequently as migraine or low-back pain and may significantly impact a woman’s ability to function.
Discuss the common causes of pelvic pain and who, when, and why you would decide to refer the patient for diagnostics and second opinions.
 
MN577 Clinical – Womens Health Focus
Unit 8 Discussion
CDC’s Division of Nutrition, Physical Activity, and Obesity (DNPAO) is committed to increasing breastfeeding rates throughout the United States and to promoting and supporting optimal breastfeeding practices toward the ultimate goal of improving the public’s health.
Discuss the CDC breastfeeding initiative and describe how you will support this when interacting with your pregnant and postpartum women in the primary care setting.
 
MN577 Clinical – Womens Health Focus
Unit 9 Discussion
An adolescent’s concerns about privacy can prevent them from seeking primary health care, especially for specific sensitive health care services such as STI screening and family planning issues. Those with privacy concerns are also less likely to talk openly with a health care clinician about important health issues, such as substance use, mental health, and risky sex. Recognizing that confidentiality is critical to high-quality care for adolescent women, professional health care organizations have adopted policy statements and practice guidelines that support the provision of confidential services.
Discuss these guidelines and the laws in your state that address adolescent confidential health care.
 
MN577 Clinical – Womens Health Focus
Unit 10 Discussion
Hormones and depression: Today, millions of women around the world use hormonal contraceptives that have expanded beyond the pill to patches, implants, injections, and uterine devices. Decades of research support their safety, and serious but very rare side effects such as blood clots are finally much better understood. But other areas of research lag, and we still do not know as much as we would like about how these medications affect women’s mental health.
Discuss the guidelines for prescribing hormonal birth control to women with a known history of depression and/or anxiety. How will you manage a patient who reports feeling depressed after starting hormonal birth control?