Cassidy's Eportfolio

The Portfolio Podcast that I have created is to show my improvement of digital editing and communication skills throughout the course. Some ways that I have noticed that I have improved starts with my confidence while reading the script. I always struggled with being nervous over the camera while talking, and I found by the end of the semester I improved with being more confident in that field. Another way that I have improved was my editing skills. I found myself struggling with basic editing and not being able to come up with ideas. But by the end of the semester I found more sounds off freesounds.org, and I found better music that fits better with my prompts that I created. This class has also helped my communication and reading skills, this point starts with reading off a script while being nervous. I found myself getting scared before recording but having to persevere through. And that has taught me to be able to read outloud in a professional manner. Lastly, this class has helped me with creativity. Being a nursing major has made me overlook the whole view on how important creativity is. And this class has allowed me to dig deeper into what creativity should look like. 

Overall this course has allowed me to gain confidence through my digital editing and communications skills. And this portfolio podcast has allowed me to put all my projects from the very first podcast to the last, together, to show students that improvement is a real thing. This course was challenging at times, with being creative, but it has taught me more knowledge than I thought, that I didn’t know I needed. 

The audio I used in this podcast is Hovercraft Hyperpop Instrumental from Freesounds.org. I wanted to use something fun and upbeat.

Course Description: This course examines key historical, contemporary, and future perspectives regarding educational access and equity in American education, addressing historical events, issues and policies from our country’s history, as well as current events affecting education. Through course experiences, participants define their own roles and responsibilities as citizens in identifying biases and supporting changes that create educational opportunity and equity for all. Class meetings are highly interactive and discussion-based, with high expectations for class participation.

Student Description: This course allows students to engage with one anther by having hard conversations while also staying respectful and equal. We dove into impact bias, race, women change-makers, and many other important assignments throughout this course, that taught the students a lot more than our preferred major.

Hello, my name is Cassidy Jacobsen and I am from Waterboro Maine. I am a nursing major here along with being on the women’s lacrosse team here at UNE.

Cassidy Jacobsen 

Monday, March 10th, 2025

Professor Nancy Simpson 

In this interview I interviewed Whitney Cass who is my cousin. Whitney works at Maine Medical Center in the CTICU (cardiothoracic intensive care unit), where she graduated in 2024 from nursing school. I asked Whitney six questions regarding the importance of medical terminology.

The first question I asked Whitney was; how do you use medical language in your job? With whom? She replied with “I use medical jargon/language every day in my job. Whether it be explaining to patients the effects of medication on their bodies, or expectations of their care and providing answers for the discomfort they may feel post surgery. communicating with providers and getting new orders/updating on a patient status, etc. working with respiratory therapists and coming up with a plan for a patient’s respiratory status while on the ventilator with different ventilator settings, etc.” This response shows how important medical terminology is, by the way Whitney explains that she uses it by communicating with not only her co-workers but her patients. 

The second question I asked Whitney was; How does using medical terminology support your professional role? Whitney says “Using medical terminology allows for practice that leaves a smaller margin of error. When communicating at a certain level that includes medical terminology that is standard across the board, efficiency follows and allows for a conversation to ensue among team members that can really assist in critical thinking – all in all it supports my role as a nurse to become a better nurse.”  With this response, Whitney explains that using medical terminology makes for less error all around in the medical world. 

The third question I asked was; Can you share some examples of word parts, terms and abbreviations you use daily? Her examples include, “maybe using temporary pacemaker settings on a pacer box like whether a patient is A or V pacing, at a certain rate, mA output, and sensitivity. what underlying rhythm a patient may have, junctional, bradycardic, in afib with RVR, or a life-threatening rhythm like vtach or vfib. Other medical terminology might provide a patient picture such as “x patient is acutely decompensating with hypotension with a MAP of 43, HR in the 120’s, JVD present with muffled heart sounds” this would be indicative of a cardiac tamponade. regularly, in my unit specifically, we may use medical terminology such as, “patient on VA ECMO is centrally cannulated and has a left IJ quad, right radial art line with good waveform draws back appropriately, and 2 16 gauge IV in the right forearm. currently on a dex drip at 1.4, levo at .06 and vaso .06. neuro intact.” This response shows how much medical terminology is actually used through her unit, and her unit is just one of thousands. 

The fourth question I asked was; How is medical language used in patient records? Whitney said that, “a patient’s H&P uses a lot of medical language that gives a basis for the present illnesses or past medical history of a patient. Generally the story of a patient is found and explained by using medical terminology “PMH of HLD, HTN, CAD, T2DM with an A1C of 8.9, former tobacco user, s/p ureteral stenting BSL BUN/Cr 20/1.7.” This type of information ties into the last question that is asked. Because of how important it is to know what each medical term is presented. This is also important because it makes it so there is less confusion and mess-up on the job because medical terminology is very organized. 

The fifth question I asked was: Has the use of electronic medical records affected the use of medical terminology in your job? She says that, “the EHR has assisted with understanding a patient’s story and why they are in the hospital as well as looking to see if possible, any other visits the patient may have had to the hospital. it’s important that EMS notes or ED notes are looked over to get a better picture of how the patient arrived at the hospital and where they are now.” 

The last question that I asked Whitney was: What do you do when you encounter a term you don’t know? Whitney lastly replies with, “I ask someone who may know what it means or I can look to online resources to figure out what something means if I don’t understand.” This is important because not knowing something is normal. There is so much medical terminology information, so not knowing one and asking another healthcare professional can help you learn more as a new nurse. 

Overall this interview was very interesting and helpful to listen to. I found out how important it is to pay attention and learn about the medical terminology that is presented to us during the first few years of nursing school. The one answer that surprised me the most was when Whitney states that if she doesn’t know what something means, she easily just asks another nurse. This surprised me because as a new nurse like Whitney, it can be scary to ask questions, but she showed the importance of asking questions. Which can lead to not only learning more on the job, but also avoiding miscommunication or mess-ups on the job. Thank you Whitney for participating in this interview with me.

Now that I have completed the scripted story podcast, here is a recap of the project. My overall goal for this project was to get the word out that UNE student athletes need more options for food before and after games and practices. With that, I interviewed 6 student athletes here from all different sports and seasons and asked what their opinions were on the food options here at UNE, and what changes need to be made to make it more accessible for us. Their answers were pretty much the same with the times that the Dhall and forum need to be open longer, or the overall food options just are not good enough for our needs. I then interviewed a nutritionist minor here at UNE. The interview was not good enough quality and my time restraints were also an issue. I did not add in her interview, but I recapped what we had talked about and the information provided from her. She mentioned that student athletes should be eating more calories than most think. The last person I interviewed was the head of parkhurst dining at UNE, and she answered the questions based on the importance of student athletes, and how she is trying her hardest to provide late night services for student athletes, along with future things that are going to be provided. Overall, I am proud of this podcast and how far it has come in the last few weeks. All the benchmarks have also been met. I hope this podcast can help UNE figure out a way to support the student athletes, while student athletes also learn to advocate for themselves. Thank you for listening to this podcast, and thank you interviewees for allowing me to record you. The music today is from Freesounds.org. 

Now that we are about 2 weeks into the scripted story podcast. I have been able to accomplish all the milestones. I have completed interviews with the athletes, the parkhurst workers, and the nutritionist minor. I feel as though I got good content, and accomplished a lot with that. The athletes all said the same thing, so I tried to crop out as much repetitive content as possible for that. The only content that I was unable to use was the nutritionist minor because I didn’t get good enough content and I feel as though that part of the podcast would have been iffy if I put it in. Therefore I summarized what we talked about, so the listeners are able to get the sense of what we talked about. The parkhurst worker editing portion was very challenging. I got very good content from her, but it was over 10 minutes long. So I did have to cut down a lot of what she said. But after listening to it multiple times I found that it was also very repetitive. So I took out the more interesting portion that goes directly with my story. She mentioned some interesting facts about what they are currently doing to help student athletes, how student athletes can advocate for themselves, and a lot more things that I didn’t know. The last thing I did was cut down my conclusion because I then felt like I was saying too much, which is why my podcast went over the time limit. But the conclusion now is simple and easy to follow, which I feel as though that’s what the listeners want to listen too. I am now doing my final edits, where I will cut down my podcast to less than 7:59, add sound, and edit the voice levels. 

The past week, I have completed all of my student athlete interviews. I have gotten a wide range of different sports athletes as well as different age and gender. Not only did I get a wide range, I also got a lot of different opinions and I am excited to add those to my podcast. I am struggling with finding 2 people outside of the student athletes. I will be doing more research on who else I can interview by Thursday, and hopefully get those interviews done. I am leaning more towards a psychologist to back up the facts on how important meals are for student athletes or looking into a nutritionist major or minor here at UNE to speak about what they know. And I am hoping to hear from the dining hall workers soon. For my own personal portion, I started my script and I am adding some facts and information about student athlete calorie count compared to burn, and how important food is for student athletes. And will be recording that tomorrow. It’s hard to know exactly what to say when I don’t have all my interviews done. But will have the rough cut done by Thursday.

My idea for the Soundscape 3 podcasting assignment was to describe the walk to the forum at the University of New England. Most of my classes take place at the forum as well as my practice everyday. Therefore I thought it would be a good idea to talk about what I see. On another note, the forum is the furthest place to walk to from the main campus. And a lot of students don’t enjoy the walk. So I wanted to talk more about how interesting the walk is rather than how dreadful it is. 

I first started with what I see, hear, and smell when I walk out of my dorm building. Being so close to the water, I can feel the wind almost every day. And the smell of the fresh salt water either high or low tide, is always refreshing. The pub is always open and I can see students with the coffee in hand, and the smell coming from the door constantly opening and closing from the commas door. With it finally being spring and the snow is finally melting, the leaves are becoming green and the birds are chirping so loud I can hear it from inside. The crowd of students all walking to early classes, and the traffic of the commuters trying to get a parking spot is something that I see on the daily. 

When I get to the point of the walk where I walk under the bridge, it’s always my favorite, I love this portion of the walk because of the creativity that UNE has put into the campus. But once I get to the forum my morning walk has been completed and my day has started on the right note. The music from the soundscape 3 podcast is “bird-chirping-on-trees”, “bike-chain-peddling”, and “outside-river-with-people-chatting” from Freesounds.org.