Selecting a Nursing Field

Discuss about the Professional Development Career Plan.

Student nurses regularly entrain in their professional job and achievements with improper knowledge of career plan and they find difficulty in finding the way forward. Professional career development plan plays an instrumental role in the improving the job satisfaction for the nurses and achieving the desired professional goals in terms of knowledge, monetary satisfaction and professional position (Glass, 2007; Taylor & Reyes, 2012). It has already been established that nurse students achieved more confidence, self-motivation and sound in shaping their career plan with following the professional career development plan (Waddell et al., 2015). I wish to develop my professional career development plan (Appendix 1) to set objectives and streamline my actions for professional improvement and achievements. My interview with residential nurse (RN) helped me to gain more insight of professional development (Appendix 2).

This stage of my career is the searching phase and this helps me to decide on the field of nursing which gives me maximum satisfaction of job and where I can provide best holistic nursing to the patients. As my sister is a nurse, I got opportunity to regular visit and observe in mental illness patients. This experience built interest in me about the care of mental illness people. I made appropriate decision about the choice nursing field considering long term goals, my interests, my capability and strength. Through my interview with RN, I got confidence that, my selected field in nursing is challenging and with lot of scope for professional development. Experience of my leader RN, in the same field helped to understand the importance and opportunities in mental illness people care. Insight about the importance of first year from RN, made me more realistic and active for developing my professional development career plan.  Certificate in training assessment education for the Clinical Nurse Educator, helped me to get more theoretical and practical aspects of mental health care. In this training programme, I understand opinion of different people about the mental health care. During the interview with RN, I understand few critical aspects of mental health care and RN shared her experiences. This sharing of evidence based nursing has more value in nursing rather than solely dependent on the textbook based learning (Youngblut and Brooten, 2001).  Most of the people have practice of selecting nursing specialization after completion of graduation, however I selected it at very early stage and this would help me to build my career in more planned and professional way. Interview with RN, helped me to set goals and create opportunities in the mental health care (Waddell and Bauer, 2005). From RN, I understand that career development is very dynamic process and nobody should keep it stagnant.

With the advice of RN during interview, I started acquiring more skills about mental health care, visited different experts in the field, developed skills to provide holistic care to people with mental illness, understood personnel centered care, attended different training programmes and conferences to get more insight in the mental health care. All these activities not only helped me to improve my techniques and skills for nursing care but also helped to present my strong portfolio and build my effective curriculum vitae, which are integral part of the professional career development (Kalb, 2008). Chiaburu et al., (2006), mentioned about the expansion of self environment in terms of skills, opportunities and portfolio development for the growth of professional career development. These skill development activities also help to increase knowledge, maintain continuous learning and update on the current activities in the nursing. This is the fundamental requirement for the competency standard of the registered nurse and professional development of nursing practice (Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia 2006).

Skill Development and Portfolio Building

The capability to react successfully to assigned tasks in the stressful and adverse situations can be augmented by improving the skills and knowledge (Hodges et al., 2008; Tusaie & Dyer, 2004). To achieve this fate, I should take higher education. I should pursue Bachelor in Nursing with Clinical Honours for improvement in knowledge, skills, evidence based practice and as a result to improve professional portfolio. This would also help me to get exposure to different cases in nursing practices, to assess myself on regular basis and directing my efforts towards improvement. This bachelor programme would help me to articulate career, comprehend situations in which practice to be implemented, evaluate my weakness and strengths and establishing professional career plan which would have significant effect and practical implementation (Waddell et al., 2009). To make my career plan more focused, I would pursue master degree in mental health. This would help me to self manage professional career and take more responsibility and provide excellent nursing practice to people (Gowan et al., 2000; King, 2004). It is well know that self management of the career has positive impact on the professional satisfaction of the career, improvement in self efficiency of work, increased productivity, improved self determination and adapting the dynamic nature of the respective field. These factors are responsible for the ideal professional development career plan (Taylor & Reyes, 2012). During interview RN leader appreciated my plan of pursuing bachelor and master degree in mental health. RN also increased my confidence by mentioning that these professional educational qualifications would help me for building effective curriculum vitae and application for the nurse in mental health facility.

Nursing practice requires integrated efforts of all the stakeholders. In this scenario support and cooperation of leader and all the colleagues is very important factor not only for getting job after the completion of graduation but also for professional development, promototion in the job and retention in the job (Thorpe & Loo, 2003). Appraisal and feedback from all these stakeholders would help understand my strengths and weakness, reaching small term goals, improving skills and also to promote my interest and set the long term goals. Rambur et al., (2005) identified that social involvement and cooperation are the important strategies and processes for the professional career development and achieving the career satisfaction. They also suggested implementing strategies to retain career over the retention of the job because there is more satisfaction in the career as compared to the job.

After acquiring all the knowledge and skills of the nursing, I will be working in the mental health facility in my society as a Clinical Nurse Specialist. I will be specifically focusing on the mental issues for the people because this issue is very prominent in the people as convincing people with mental illness is one of the challenging task both for the nurses and family members (Bartels and Naslund, 2013).     

In summary, with all these properly developed and well studied events for the career development, I am sure I will be able to achieve my goal for the holistic nursing care of mentally ill people.

References:

Bartels, S. J., and Naslund, J. A. (2013). The Underside of the Silver Tsunami – Older Adults and Mental Health Care. New England Journal of Medicine, 368, pp. 493-496. 

Chiaburu, D. D., Baker, V. L., and Pitariu, A. H. (2006). Beyond being proactive: What (else) matters for career self-management behaviors? Career Development International, 11, pp. 619–632. 

Glass, N. (2007). Investigating women nurse academics’ experiences in universities: The importance of hope, optimism, and career resilience for workplace satisfaction. Annual Review of Nursing Education, 5, p. 112. 

Gowan, M. A., Craft, S. L. S., and Zimmermann, R. A. (2000). Response to work transitions by United States army personnel: Effects of self-esteem, self-efficacy, and career resilience. Psychological Reports, 86, 911–921.

Hodges, H. F., Keeley, A. C., and Troyan, P. J. (2008). Professional resilience in baccalaureate prepared acute care nurses: First steps. Nursing Education Perspectives, 29, pp. 80–89. 

Kalb, K. A. (2008). Core competencies of nurse educators: Inspiring excellence in nurse educator practice. Nursing Education Perspectives, 29, pp. 217–219. 

King, Z. (2004). Career self-management: Its nature, causes and consequences. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 65, pp. 112–133. 

Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia 2006, ‘National competency standards for the registered nurse’, Codes and Guidelines, Melbourne Victoria, Retrieved on 23 September 2016, from website <https://www.nursingmidwiferyboard.gov.au/Codes-Guidelines-Statements/Codes-Guidelines.aspx>. 

Rambur, B., McIntosh, B., Palumbo, M. V., & Reiner, K. (2005). Education as a determinant of career retention and job satisfaction among registered nurses. Journal of Nursing Scholarship, 37, 185–192. 

Taylor, H., and Reyes, H. (2012). Self-efficacy and resilience in baccalaureate nursing students. International Journal of Nursing Education Scholarship, 9(1), pp.1–13. 

Thorpe, K., and Loo, R. (2003). The values profile of undergraduate nursing students: Implications for education and professional development. Journal of Nursing Education, 42, pp. 83–98. 

Tusaie, K., and Dyer, J. (2004). Resilience: A historical review of the construct. Holistic Nursing Practice, 18(1), pp. 3–8. 

Waddell, J., and Bauer, M. (2005). CPD for students: Building a career in a professional practice discipline. Canadian Journal of Career Development, 4(2), pp. 4–13. 

Waddell, J., Donner, G. J., and Wheeler, M. (2009). Building your nursing career: A guide for students (3^rd ed.). Toronto, Canada: Mosby. 

Waddell, J., Spalding, K., Canizares, G., Navarro, J., Connell, M., Jancar, S., Stinson, J., Victor C. (2015). Integrating a Career Planning and Development Program into the Baccalaureate Nursing Curriculum: Part I. Impact on Students’ Career Resilience. International Journal of Nursing Education Scholarship,24(12), pp. 162-73. 

Youngblut JM and Brooten D. (2001). Evidence-based nursing practice: why is it important? AACN Clinical Issues, 12(4), pp. 468-76.