Assignment Paper

Farkhanda Farooqi, DNPc, MSN, AGPCNP–BC, FPMHNP, RN, FN-CSA. Farkhanda Farooqi is a Board Certified in Adult Gerontology Primary Care / Family Psychiatric Mental Health. Her background includes emergency medical /surgical trauma and forensic medicine nursing for sexual assault survivor and psychiatry mental health for children and adult with complex mental disorders, substance abuse disorder “dual diagnoses”. She provides exceptional compassionate integrative personal care for her patients with dual diagnosis through life span.
Her education includes a Doctorate in Nursing, Master of Science in Nursing as Adult gerontology primary from Saint Peter’s University and postmaster in family psychiatric mental health from Fairleigh Dickinson University.
Dr. Farooqi clinical career took her on a journey through the healthcare system, from inpatient to outpatient settings, managing the care of everyone from toddlers with autism to older adults with dementia with behavioral disturbance severe Anxiety Depression Her expertise lies in psychopharmacology for seasonal depression /Anxiety Substance abuse and many mood disorders.
Experience & Training:
• SERV BEHAVIORAL HEALTH, OUTPATIENT MEDICATION MANAGEMENT OFFICE /TEL PSYCHIATRIC SERVICES, CLIFTON, NJ
• FAIR LAWN BEHAVIORAL ASSOCIATES LLC, MEDICATION MANAGEMENT OUTPATIENT OFFICE /TELEPSYCHIATRY SERVICES, FAIRLAWN, NJ
• OVERLOOK MEDICAL CENTER EMERGENCY MEDICINE, CRISIS INTERVENTIONS, SUMMIT, NJ
• CHRIST HOSPITAL MEDICAL CENTER, EMERGENCY MEDICINE, CRISIS INTERVENTIONS, JERSEY CITY, NJ
• HUDSON COUNTY PROSECUTOR’S OFFICE, FORENSIC MEDICAL EXAMINER, EXPERT WITNESS, SART/SANE PROGRAM COORDINATOR, JERSEY CITY, NJ
• LIBERTY NURSING HOME, LONG TERM CARE INPATIENT MEDICAL /PSYCHIATRY (ACUTE, CHRONIC, ADULT /GERIATRIC, MENTAL ILLNESSES), JERSEY CITY, NJ

My exceptional twins made me exceptional provider

I was born and raised in a very small village in Pakistan I could find endless words in the lexicon to describe my parents, but the one word that stands out above the rest for my mother is “incredible.” Both my parents had cared for me and my family throughout my whole life till their last breath. When I was growing up, my mother worked very hard, she made us breakfast, lunch for school every day without fail, sewed our clothes, cooked for the family, helped us with school homework, cleaned the house, supervised small workers assisting her in our house work in the house helping my father form workers. She was happily married. My mother was well known as a religious scholar and educated thousands of children with basic religious education. I don’t know how she managed to do all of these things so well and still have time for herself. My Mother passed away sept 15, 2016 due to pulmonary embolism.

My Father on other hand I think about him as “pure”. My father was a very kind, simple, humble person and well respected by the town and many surrounding towns due to his noble habits. He was honest, peace maker, trustworthy. “love and respect for all hate for none man” My parents had three boys and eight girls. I was number 3rd from the girls.

I loved my both parents, but my father was my immense moral support system. I loved him deeply anytime something exciting happened or there was a crisis in my life, he was the first person I turned to. I have seen many friends come and go in my life, but my father was different. For forty years of my life, he has always been there for me. No matter the distance between us, we are always very close to me. He understood me and knew me better than anyone else I know all my life. Since I was a little girl my father had complete faith and trust in me. He will tell my mother to leave her alone. She is doing the right thing with her life, and I will never fail. I will always make him happy by letting him know what I am doing these days and what he thinks about it. Sadly, my father passed away suddenly on November 3rd, 2006 with cardiac arrest. One month before I lost my father, I visited him in Pakistan and when I was leaving to come back to the USA my father was tearfully very sad at the airport with his gray green eyes. He was tearfully softly whispering, “this might be the last time I am seeing your face” I put my hand on his face saying please do not say that I am coming back soon papa I am going to bring you to the USA waiting for your Green card authorization. He ignored and pulled me from my arm and made me stand in front of him. He looked inside my eyes and said that I want you to know this and remember that “My inside is very happy with you; I am at peace. I feel cool breeze from heaven when I think about you as my daughter, among all of my children I am very blessed to have you as my daughter “you are the number one” your support is unforgettable, you share my burden very fairly and helped us and all your siblings emotionally, financially” and these words were my reward only I know the value of this treasure my dad left for me before he passed away and he knew it he is going to leave us soon and that’s why I call my father as he was “noble, pure man”.

Education was my parent’s weakness; both my parents desperately wanted all of us to get college education. When I graduated high school my mother and father pushed me to go to nursing school. I was resisting because I wanted to go to medical school but my parents do not have the resources to support me. Medical school in Pakistan requires fortune even for admission. Let’s not talk about going through years of education. At the end I started a school of nursing education journey in 1982 its four years’ intense program and graduated with associate general nursing and midwifery diploma in 1986.

I met my Husband in 1985, I became married in 1986. I was blessed with my first child my daughter at my age 19 years old in 1987 and then my son when I was age 20 years old, I was still living in Lahore Pakistan. I moved from Pakistan to the United States (US) in 1991 with my family, my husband, two children, my daughter was four years old, and my son was only 7 months old. Now the next chapter of my life started when we initially moved to the United States of America (USA). I struggled for a few months before finding information on how I could continue with my nursing education in the USA. I started by preparing for the Registered Nurse National Council Licensure Examination (RN, NCLEX) exam.

I started working incongruous part time jobs just to survive and provide for my family. In 1992 and 1993 I worked temporarily on a booth at the Central Park where I was selling “sweatshirts” for the tourists and at the same time doing my RN, NCLEX exam questions preparing myself for the exam, in between the customers. I will read and answer questions and then check right and wrong answers. I was unable to afford and go for any review course. I just study with books available at the library that time. While preparing for the exam my youngest child was nine months old and I was pregnant again. The pregnancy was unplanned and on top of that I gave birth to twins. I was thrilled but continued my struggle and effort to prepare for exams. I sat for my boards full at 34 weeks’ pregnancy. This was the last paper pencil exam after that NCLEX was computerized. My twins were born in May 1993. I passed my boards and received my RN license from the board of New York Education Department in June 1993. That time it was taking almost two months getting results. I was very excited with my achievements and remained very motivated and started working as a Registered Nurse (RN). I started working in a very busy trauma center emergency room part time and unit manager MDS coordinator in a long-term care facility in 1995.

During this time, I learned my twins are developmentally delayed and

In 2005, when my daughter graduated from high school and went to college, I also decided to go back to the college and get my BSN degree from New Jersey City University (NJCU) which took me almost four years to accomplish due to working two full time jobs and home responsibilities it was very difficult to focus to do required school work.

I studied in a local city university close to home, so I don’t have to commute and waste my time on the road. I knew that I needed to advance my education in the nursing field because the nursing field was rapidly evolving, and I had a burning desire to enhance my knowledge and provide quality preventive care.

I wanted to be a positive influence in my children’s lives. I also needed to stand up and show my children that it is okay to be yourself and stand for what you believe in. In spite of my personal obligation and routine academic school work, I was very involved in many school activities I was able to manage and I organized health fair for health promotion and won outstanding ability to organize a health fair and provide health promotion to a community award in May 2007 by Department of Nursing NJCU. I graduated with a BSN in 2010 from New Jersey City University (NJCU).

I continue my education for a Master of science with focus on Adult-Gerontology Primary Care specialty to deliver high quality, cost-effective care, emphasizing disease prevention and health promotion. I learned a huge deal and a crucial part of my role is teaching my patients and their families about maintaining their health and preventing disease.

I never stopped there; I continued my studies by enrolling for a DNP program and at the same time working two full time jobs. one as sexual assault response team / sexual assault nurse examiner (SART/ SANE) program coordinator with Hudson County Prosecutor’s office. I received an outstanding performance award as a forensic nurse certified sexual assault (FN- CSA) from prosecutors’ association in 2013 for assisting in investigation and collection of evidence in violent gang rape cases, of a mother and daughter for positive Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) results on exam.

My Blessings are my four children, my daughter is 32 my son who is 28, both have acquired MDs degrees. The twins are 26 years old and they both developed seizure disorder/ movement disorder with multiple violent aggressive behaviors at the age of 18. However, their behavior is well managed and controlled with medications.

I know it’s hard to believe that one event could change your whole life, but I promise you it can. A major life changing event happened to me in 1993. My twins were born this day from that day, my whole life changed, and it was never the same again. In May 1993, I said goodbye to my old self and started taking steps to becoming the person that I am today. My whole story started the day I realized my twins were born with special needs. I was in shock and I could not believe it. The tough economic time even made the situation worse. I was very new to the situation and at the same time, my twins needed me the most to care for them. I never knew how I was going to do all that. There was so much going through my mind, I didn’t know how to react to this situation and how to inform my family, my children, my husband and my sister who was living with me to assist me with my 4 children.

I encountered many challenges in life when I learned that my precious twins were severely developmentally delayed, they had an unknown syndrome no one knew about. They both started sitting at the age of 27months and crawling at age 37 months. They both are total care, and developed aggressive violent behavior at the age 18 causing injuries to themselves and others. Their doctor diagnosed them with partial complex seizures. Mild /Moderate Mental Retardation (MMR) was the initial diagnosis but not sure, it was just to place them in the school system. Their electroencephalogram (EEG) did not show any seizure activities. At that time, I was very disappointed with many healthcare providers, psychiatrists, and neurologists. Their observations and replies to my questions were not helpful at all. I felt like no one was paying attention or cared much towards my twins’ prognosis and condition of disability. Many of the times after visiting my children’s doctors, I left with weird feelings. The healthcare providers’ faces never gave me hope. They all kept sending the vibe that my children were handicapped, should accept it, and live with it. That observation influenced me to start learning about mental illness and psychotropic medications use and looking at adverse reactions of medications, as my children were not able to verbally tell me what they were feeling after giving them their medication.

I went through lots of different emotions. Some of the recurrent emotions were sadness, anxiety, and helplessness on the thought of living my twin home alone with a stranger who does not really understand their needs when I went to work. I was not nor am I unhappy about having my twins with special needs. I was very motivated to care for them, love them, and provide them with a quality life. I hired a nanny to care for twins, but it failed. I sat down with my husband and we both agreed and decided how to manage this situation. Therefore, we both came up with a plan that I will work in hospitals and nursing home to have enough income to support our household and he will be working from home, and take care for our twins

My twins are my angels. They made me a very strong and better nurse and human being. They made me learn different worlds of patients with disability, long-term chronic illness, and sensitive needs of nonverbal, total care individuals and their loved ones. I started feeling and learning every day from my twin boys by observing their body language, level of comfort and discomfort and learned to manage this very sensitive task assigned to me by nature.

My twins were my motivation. They inspired me to understand better ways to help patients and their loved ones. I started looking at my special needs’ clients in a very keenly and careful manner with a deep feeling of kind-heartedness and urgency to support. I was always eager to comfort and reassure my patients and their loved ones that everything would be okay. I would make every effort to provide a comfortable environment, to make hospital visits less hectic by offering and providing multiple small needs such as chairs at bedside, information about procedures, approximate waiting time to see providers, labs /radiology exam’s results or just providing reassurance. I would provide sitters hospital staff with special needs family members to give them little breaks just to go to the hospital cafeteria in case they need some refreshment or time to exhale. I observed it was much appreciated and comforting to such families.

Continued interest in advancing my education in nursing after completion of my Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) from NJCU and Master of Science in Nursing as Adult-Gerontology Primary Care Nurse Practitioner board certification (MSN, AGPCNP –BC), now working on completion of my doctorate in nursing DNP and post master program in Family Psychiatric-mental health nurse practitioner (FSMHNP). Enhancing my education helped me to understand better and manage my family and professional life with a positive approach. It helped me to be surrounded by hope.

As literature shows long-term illness causes stress on caregivers and it affects the whole house environment (Esdaile, 2010). I have seen at times burnout signs in my family. My husband and my two adult children looked stressed, ragged, and worn out at times. I encouraged my family with a positive attitude to care for the twins with their whole heart not thinking they are a burden. My husband learned and accepted that it is a special mission from God assigned to us, because we can handle it better and provide quality life to our twin boys in a very loving and caring way keeping them safe free from injuries, abuse, and neglect.

Caregivers for chronic illness or special needs personals live longer and healthy (Sigalet, Benzies, & Bouchal, 2011). I was blessed to be a nurse with advanced education; I can use my nursing education and skills to help my family and my children with special needs. I am thinking about “strengths model and paradigm shift.” The Strengths model presents paradigm shift in mental health, social work, and other helping professions (Lehmann, 2019). A paradigm is a model or way of perceiving the world and solving problems.

References

Esdaile, S. A. (2010). A focus on mothers, their children with special needs and other

caregivers. Australian Occupational Therapy Journal, 41(1), 3–8.

Families of Children with Special Needs. (n.d.). Special Needs and Early Years: A Practitioners Guide, 34–58. doi: 10.4135/9781473957862.n2

Lehmann, P. (2019). Paradigm Shift. The Routledge Handbook of International Development, Mental Health and Wellbeing, 251–269. doi: 10.4324/9780429397844-17

Sigalet, E., Benzies, K., & Bouchal, S. R. (2011). Caregivers of children with special health needs work the healthcare professional relationship to enhance perceptions of competence. Journal of Nursing and Healthcare of Chronic Illness, 3(4), 436–444.