| Course | NR 103 Transition to the Nursing Profession |
|---|---|
| Week | 6 |
| Paper type | Reflection paper |
| Length | About 1,110 words, 4 pages |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | Chamberlain University |
| Program | BSN (pre-licensure) |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for NR 103 Week 6
Reflection: The Medication Check-Off I Failed on a Tuesday at 1015, and What It Showed Me About the Steps I Skip Under Pressure
Student Name
College of Nursing, Chamberlain University
NR 103: Transition to the Nursing Profession
Instructor Name
Month Day, Year
Reflection: The Medication Check-Off I Failed on a Tuesday at 1015, and What It Showed Me About the Steps I Skip Under Pressure
The Hour
At 1015 on the Tuesday of Week 5, I stood in the skills lab at the bedside of a manikin named, on its wristband, Robert Allen, with a date of birth of March 3, 1951. My instructor stood at the foot of the bed with a clipboard. Another student waited by the door for her turn. The task was a simulated medication pass: an oral tablet and a subcutaneous injection, prepared from a mock medication cart and given with every safety check on the rubric.
I had practiced it four times the week before, alone and with a classmate, and passed each time. I drew up the injection correctly, checked the medication against the order three times, explained to "Mr. Allen" what I was giving and why, and gave both medications. When I stepped back, my instructor asked, "Who did you just give that to?" I had not checked the wristband. I had read the name on the order and said it aloud, but I had never compared it with the band or asked the patient to state his name and date of birth. I failed the check-off.
What I Thought Then
My first reaction was that the failure was unfair. I had done the hard parts right: the calculation, the technique, the teaching. The identity check felt like the easiest step, the one I would never really forget in a real hospital with a real person in the bed. I told my classmate afterward that I had "blanked on the easy thing because I was nervous," and I believed that the nerves were the whole explanation.
I also thought, privately, that I was good under pressure. I had worked for three years as a restaurant shift manager, handling complaints and short staffing on busy Friday nights, and I had assumed that experience would carry over.
There was a third thing I thought, which I am less proud of. I thought the rubric was more rigid than real practice would be. I had heard nurses who came into the restaurant after their shifts talk about how they skipped steps all the time when the floor was busy, and I assumed that the check-off was testing a standard that no working nurse actually met. That thought let me treat my failure as a failure of the test rather than of my practice. It took the debrief to show me that I was using other people's shortcuts to excuse my own.
The Thing That Moved It
What changed my view was my instructor's comment when we debriefed. She did not say I had been nervous. She said, "Under pressure, people drop the steps they think are beneath them." She pointed out that I had done every step I considered difficult, carefully and in order, and skipped the one step I considered obvious. That was not random. It was a pattern, and it was mine.
When I thought about my restaurant work, I recognized it. On busy nights I handled the complaints and the crises well, but I was the manager who forgot to check that the walk-in cooler was at temperature or that the closing count was signed. I did the dramatic parts and skipped the routine ones, and for three years nothing bad happened, which let me believe it did not matter.
The comparison mattered because it showed me the failure was not about nerves or about the skills lab. It was about how I decide what deserves attention. Under pressure, I sort tasks into hard and easy, and I give the hard ones my care. That sorting feels efficient, and in a restaurant it mostly was. In medication administration, the easy steps are where many of the serious errors happen, precisely because experienced people stop paying attention to them. A patient given the right drug at the right dose is still harmed if it was meant for the person in the next bed.
Evidence, in the Past Tense
I retook the check-off the following Monday. Before I started, I wrote the two patient identifiers on the back of my hand with a pen, which my instructor allowed. I checked the band against the order, asked the manikin's voice (my instructor) to state name and date of birth, and compared both before touching the medications. I passed.
Two weeks later, on my first clinical day on a medical floor, I gave a real patient her 0900 medications with my clinical instructor beside me. I checked her wristband and asked her name and date of birth. She said, a little impatiently, that the nurse had already asked her that twice that morning. I asked anyway. When I looked at the band, the date of birth matched but the room number on the medication record was for the next bed; the medications were correct for her, but the record had been opened on the wrong screen by the previous nurse. Nothing would have gone wrong that day. But I noticed it only because I did the step I had once skipped.
Duchscher (2009) describes the new nurse's early experience of the role in terms of anxiety, insecurity and inadequacy. I felt all three that Tuesday. What I had not expected was that the useful response to them was not to feel more confident, but to rely less on how I felt and more on steps I would do the same way every time.
The Part Still Unsettled
I have not settled whether this is a habit I have fixed or one I have only covered with a pen on my hand. The identity check is now automatic for me in the skills lab and on the floor, because it was the step I failed and I think about it every time. What I do not know is which other routine step I am skipping without noticing, because I have not failed that one yet. My instructor's sentence applies to all of them, not just the one I was caught on. For now, my plan is to write down, after each clinical day, one routine step I did and one I am not sure I did, and to ask my instructor to watch for the second one next time.
References
Duchscher, J. E. B. (2009). Transition shock: The initial stage of role adaptation for newly graduated registered nurses. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 65(5), 1103-1113. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2648.2008.04898.x
NR 103 Week 6 instructions, in plain terms
The Week 6 reflection asks you to look closely at a single experience from the course and explain what you learned from it. Many sections suggest a reflective model with stages such as description, feelings, evaluation, analysis and action. Expect a short APA paper, often with one scholarly source. The instructions reward depth on one moment over a summary of the whole term. A strong reflection shows thinking that changed, not only feelings, and gives evidence that the change happened rather than promising it. Keep classmates and instructors unidentified. If your section names a model such as Gibbs, follow its stages as headings or make sure each one is clearly covered.
How the NR 103 Week 6 example is put together
The reflection opens with the hour: the skills lab, a manikin wristband reading Robert Allen and a correct injection let down by a missed second identifier. The next section records what the writer thought then, including pride in handling pressure as a restaurant shift manager. The turning point is the instructor's line about dropping steps that seem beneath you, which the writer matches to forgetting cooler checks on busy nights. Evidence follows in the past tense: identifiers written on the back of a hand for the retake, then a real patient's name and birth date checked at 0900. Duchscher's 2009 paper frames the anxiety. The final section admits the habit may only be covered, not fixed.
NR 103 Week 6 rubric: what full points look like
Reflection rubrics usually reward a clear description of the event, honest analysis of thoughts and feelings, links to a source or concept, a plan or evidence of change, and APA writing. Analysis carries the most weight in many sections, so the sample states a claim about how the writer sorts hard and easy tasks under pressure. Linking the claim to restaurant work shows the pattern is real, not invented for the assignment. The source row is earned when Duchscher's description of new nurse anxiety is applied to that Tuesday. Evidence of change in the past tense is stronger than future promises. The unsettled final section shows the self-awareness reflection criteria often name.
NR 103 Week 6 help from the desk
Reflections lose points when everything worked out and the writer coped admirably, leaving nothing to examine. Another common gap is drifting into a timeline of the whole term. Change written only in the future tense, such as I will manage time better, shows no evidence. Some papers skip any outside standard, so they cannot say what good practice looked like. Identifying an instructor or classmate can cost points regardless of content. If your moment feels small, a short failure examined well beats a big success described loosely. Send the event, the model your section uses and what you have drafted, and the desk can help turn it into a full reflection.
Get a NR 103 Week 6 example written to your instructions
Send the prompt, the rubric and three or four lines about what actually happened in your own week, and a custom NR 103 example is written to those instructions and returned inside 24 to 48 hours. The first one is free. A rough account of a real bad hour produces a far better example than a smooth invented one.
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NR 103 Week 6 questions, answered
Does it have to be about something that went wrong?
Not strictly, but a success is much harder to make work, because the interesting question in a reflection is what changed and a week that went well usually changed nothing. If you write about something that went right, write about the part of it you cannot yet repeat on purpose. That gives the page the same tension a failure would.
How personal is too personal?
The test is whether the detail is doing work in the argument. A shift you could not cover because of a family emergency belongs in the paper if it explains a decision you are examining. Health details, other people's crises and anything you would not want read back to you in a meeting can be described at one level up without weakening a single claim.
Do reflections need references?
Many sections ask for at least one, and it is worth including even when optional, because it is what separates this from a diary entry. A professional standard, a code of conduct or a published account of learning in practice will do. Place it beside your own claim, not in a paragraph of its own where it reads as an obligation discharged.
Where can I find a free NR 103 Week 6 sample paper?
The full Week 6 reflection on a failed medication check-off, with the instructor's comment, the retake and the first clinical day, is printed further down this page.
Does the NR 103 Week 6 reflection have to be about a failure?
No, but a moment where something went wrong usually gives more to analyze; this sample uses a skipped patient identifier because it reveals how the writer ranks tasks under pressure.