What a two-minute presentation should put first changes with the patient's age, argues this reflection on a timed NU569 seminar, written after an older adult's case ran over. Searches like "nu 569 unit 5 assignment example", "nu569 unit 5 sample" and "nu569 unit 5 example" land here.
Two Minutes, and the Medication List Still Unread: A Reflection on What Leads a Presentation at Each Age
[Student Name]
Purdue University Global
NU569: FNP I Clinical - Lifespan Health Focus
Unit 5 Seminar Reflection
[Instructor Name]
[Date]
Both patients are composites presented in the seminar; no real person is described.
The Presentation as Delivered
Our seminar gives each student two minutes to present a patient from clinic, timed, and then the facilitator stops us. I presented Mrs. [A.], 81. I began with her chief complaint, three weeks of lightheadedness on standing, then her history of present illness in the order she told it: worse in the mornings, once nearly falling in the kitchen and catching herself on the counter, no chest pain, no palpitations, no loss of consciousness. I moved to her past history, hypertension, osteoarthritis, hypothyroidism, then to her review of systems. I was reading her examination findings when the timer sounded.
The Moment It Was Cut
Our facilitator asked one question: "What medications is she on?" I had nine on my page. The fourth was [amlodipine], and her dose had been doubled four weeks earlier, a week before the dizziness began. Her orthostatic readings, a fall of [24] mm Hg systolic on standing, were on the next line. Everything that would have changed the listener's thinking was in the part I never reached. A systolic fall of at least 20 mm Hg inside the first three minutes upright meets the consensus definition of orthostatic hypotension (Freeman et al., 2011), and a recent increase in an antihypertensive is one of the most common causes in older adults. Antihypertensives and other drugs that lower pressure are among the medications the Beers Criteria flag for their contribution to falls in older adults (American Geriatrics Society Beers Criteria Update Expert Panel, 2023).
A Classmate's Presentation
The next student presented a 9-month-old boy at a weight check. In the first twenty seconds, she gave his age, that he was born at term with a normal birth weight, that he had dropped from the 50th to the 15th percentile for weight over three months, and that he was breastfed with solids introduced at six months, mostly purees, three times a day. By the time she reached his examination, everyone in the room was thinking about feeding and intake, which was where her assessment went. She finished with thirty seconds to spare.
I was struck by how different our openings were. She did not begin with a chief complaint in the usual sense. She began with the facts that most change the differential for a 9-month-old: birth history, growth trend and feeding. I began with a chief complaint and followed a template that put medications near the end.
The Principle
Our facilitator named the principle: the opening sentence carries whatever most changes the differential for that age. For an infant, that is usually birth history, growth and feeding. For a school-age child, development and school function may lead. For an adult with an acute complaint, onset and red flags. For an older adult, the medication list and function often matter most, because drugs cause or worsen so many of the problems older adults present with, and because a change in function, a near fall, is itself a finding.
A classmate mentioned the SNAPPS model, in which the learner summarizes the case briefly, narrows the differential and probes the preceptor with questions, as a way to keep presentations focused on reasoning rather than on reciting every section in order (Wolpaw et al., 2003). The discipline is the same: put first what the listener most needs.
I had treated the presentation template as a list to complete. The two-minute limit showed me that it is a hierarchy, and that the hierarchy changes with the patient's age.
The Revision
I rewrote my opening and timed it aloud at eighteen seconds:
"Mrs. A. is an 81-year-old woman with three weeks of lightheadedness on standing and one near fall, which began a week after her amlodipine was doubled; she takes nine medications, and she has a 24-point orthostatic drop in systolic pressure."
Everything that followed would have been in service of that sentence: the rest of the history to exclude other causes, the exam, and a plan to reduce the amlodipine and recheck. Writing the revision taught me something about preparation as well as delivery. To write that sentence, I had to decide what I thought was going on before I presented, rather than hoping the listener would work it out from a complete recital. The template had let me postpone that decision. Deciding first also changed what I did in the room with her the next time: I checked the orthostatic readings myself and asked when each medicine was last changed, because I now knew those answers would lead.
I have since used the same approach twice in clinic, and my preceptor has stopped interrupting to ask about medications.
References
American Geriatrics Society Beers Criteria Update Expert Panel. (2023). American Geriatrics Society 2023 updated AGS Beers Criteria for potentially inappropriate medication use in older adults. Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, 71(7), 2052-2081. https://doi.org/10.1111/jgs.18372
Freeman, R., Wieling, W., Axelrod, F. B., Benditt, D. G., Benarroch, E., Biaggioni, I., Cheshire, W. P., Chelimsky, T., Cortelli, P., Gibbons, C. H., Goldstein, D. S., Hainsworth, R., Hilz, M. J., Jacob, G., Kaufmann, H., Jordan, J., Lipsitz, L. A., Levine, B. D., Low, P. A., ... van Dijk, J. G. (2011). Consensus statement on the definition of orthostatic hypotension, neurally mediated syncope and the postural tachycardia syndrome. Clinical Autonomic Research, 21(2), 69-72. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10286-011-0119-5
Wolpaw, T. M., Wolpaw, D. R., & Papp, K. K. (2003). SNAPPS: A learner-centered model for outpatient education. Academic Medicine, 78(9), 893-898. https://doi.org/10.1097/00001888-200309000-00010
How this NU569 Unit 5 example is structured
Before, during and after organize the reflection, with SNAPPS (Wolpaw, Wolpaw and Papp, 2003) as the lens applied in the middle. The first section is honest about preparation: the author rehearsed the history in the order it was taken, which is the order a written note uses and a spoken one cannot afford. The second analyzes where the minutes went, estimated from the author's own recording, and shows that seventy seconds of review of systems pushed out the step SNAPPS calls narrowing the differential. The third compares the two presentations, arguing that the classmate succeeded because an infant's opener has conventional anchors while an older adult's must be chosen case by case. The last section rewrites the opener and states a limit: some older patients arrive with one clear problem, and front-loading their medications would waste the seconds saved.
Get an NU569 Unit 5 example written to your instructions
Seminars differ in what they rehearse, so describe what happened in yours, or paste the written alternative if you took that route, along with the Unit 5 rubric. The sample reflection follows that session's shape with a composite case and a rewritten opener. It reaches you within 24-48h, and the first one is free. The paper above is an original model document written by our desk, not a submitted student paper and not an official Purdue University Global document.
NU569 Unit 5 questions, answered
What is SNAPPS, and do I need to use it?
It is a learner-led model for presenting to a preceptor: summarize briefly, narrow the differential, analyze it, probe the preceptor with questions, plan management, and select an issue for self-study. Wolpaw and colleagues described it in 2003. Use it if your section teaches it; otherwise any named presentation structure your faculty prefers serves the same purpose in the reflection.
How long is a two-minute presentation in words?
Roughly two hundred and fifty to three hundred spoken words, depending on pace. That is why most of the history cannot fit, and choosing what to include becomes the skill being assessed. Timing a read-aloud draft is the simplest check. A reflection that reports the actual time, as the sample does, gives the grader something concrete to weigh.
Can the reflection criticize my own presentation heavily?
Yes, as long as the criticism is specific and leads somewhere. Graders reward honest analysis of what went wrong, such as time spent in the wrong place, when it ends in a concrete revision. Self-criticism that stays general, calling the presentation weak or disorganized, reads as filler. Pair each weakness with the change you made and show the changed version.