A. Think back to the last time someone close to you became sick. Using Myra Estrin Levine’s conservation model: what would have been the focus of your assessment? How did the illness affect you and the rest of your family?
Levine’s Conservation Model is focused in promoting adaptation and maintaining wholeness using the principles of conservation. The model guides the nurse to focus on the influences and responses at the organismic level. The nurse accomplishes the goals of the model through the conservation of energy, structure, and personal and social integrity (Levine, 1967). Although conservation is fundamental to the outcomes expected when the model is used, Levine also discussed two other important concepts critical to the use of her model – adaptation and wholeness. (http://nursingtheories.blogspot.com, retrieved April 16, 2012) Now recalling the recent hospitalization of patient RG (my girlfriend) due to vaso-vagal syncope, I unknowingly applied all of the four conservation principles, as well as the major concepts that revolve around the model. A few days prior to admission, patient RG reported to began having episodes of constipation. Two hours prior to admission, she stated that she woke up due to severe abdominal pain and directly went to the bathroom. A few moments later she was found by her mom on the floor, just regaining her consciousness and with a deep, moderately bleeding, 2-cm laceration on the right cheek bone area. She was rushed to the emergency room and was eventually brought to the OR for repair of facial laceration by a plastic surgeon. I happened to be on duty at that time and, as expected, was the one to attend to her during her stay in the ER. Standard ER protocols would lead me to primarily assess for changes her level of consciousness (should the origin would be neurological in nature), followed by a brief review of systems – any variation from the normal