Anyone who has worked on the inpatient side of healthcare is familiar with the concept of a medication reconciliation. Med rec, for short, is the process of creating the most accurate list possible of all medications a patient is taking — including drug, dosage, frequency, and route — and comparing that list against the physician’s admission, transfer, and/or discharge orders, with the goal of providing correct medications to the patient at all transition points within the hospital. Studies have shown the benefits of completing a med rec for patients to avoid errors, omissions, duplications, interactions, etc.
What if we provided that same level of attention to ourselves? The analogy is rather striking when we break it down. We transition constantly as a result of multitasking, commuting, classes, work, and any of the millions of other attention-demanding things we face on a daily basis. We get spread so thin that we carry along things that we should have left in the past, forget to do things, and make errors. So what if we took time to reconcile our own mindset periodically throughout the day? I want to challenge you to try a meditation reconciliation exercise this week. When you are making a ‘transition’ in your day, maybe walking to or from class, before sitting down to catch up on studying, or prior to going out to do something fun, stop and reflect. Take a couple deep breaths. Breathe in the cool air, bringing in emotional purity. Breathe out the stress, tension, and negative emotions that stiffen your body. Go through the same steps you would when taking care of a patient. Ask yourself, What am I thinking about right now, what am I ruminating about that has already passed? Make mental note of these things, and then remove them from your med, rather, worry list. Then ask yourself, What am I doing now? How do I give my focus to the present? Update your focus to match your answers to these questions. This Meditation Reconciliation is another perfect example of adapting the skills you already use on a daily basis and repurpose them to take better care of yourself. You take the time to make sure your patient’s medications are correct and optimized for the current situation – not worrying about what has happened in the past, or worried about what will happen in the future when they leave the hospital. Take the same time for yourself. Keep Breathing. Missed a dose or need to increase your dose? https://adoseofmindfulness.weebly.com/content Comments are closed.
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