(1) What is your essential question, and what are your answers? What is your best answer and why?
My essential question is "what are the most vital components to delivering effective patient care?" Out of the three answers that I have come up with, the answer "centering health care upon the patient themselves" is the most vital component to delivering effective patient care.
(2) What process did you take to arrive at this answer?
When coming up with my three answers as a whole, I needed to weigh out which was the absolute best answer of the three. My first answer was communication, which all in all, was one of the most important parts of health care. However, it was proved to be too vague of an answer and generally just too broad. When presenting for my first presentation with this answer, I found myself talking about communication in all different aspects. From language barriers to teamwork, although it is an important aspect of the health care field, it was too imprecise and not specific enough.
My second answer is "keeping up with modern medical innovations and technology." Though this was very important, after interviewing my mentor Tiffany Ramirez, she stated that though it was very important, it didn't come close to the most vital component in health care. Yes, health care has become miles more convenient and accessible because of modern technology. However, when asking my mentor in her experience what was the most vital component to delivering effective patient care, she stated the centering health care on the patient themselves.
This resulted in my third and overall answer to my essential question. From speaking to multiple health care officials from my team at both the clinic and the hospital to my own experiences with my mentorship in the field of patient care, my whole senior year worked towards solving the answer to my essential question, which is the patient themselves.
(3) What problems did you face? How did you resolve them?
Gathering interviews from health care officials at my mentorship was very difficult because everybody is very busy during mentorship in general, and many of them don't have the time out of work to sit down with me and answer questions. I also especially wanted to interview somebody who wasn't a registered nurse and have some variety with who I interviewed, though again, it was difficult to aqcuire and at times, people I was meant to interview would flake out on me.
(4) What are the two most significant sources you used to answer your essential question and why
Definitely interviewing adults who have worked in this field for decades and my own experiences at mentorship. Though reading journals and listening to podcasts from experts who dedicated their lives into researching this topic is extremely useful, experiencing the field itself and hearing personal stories really made an impact to what my research has become.
