Nursing Professional Development Plan

Van Gogh once said “your profession is what you’re put here on earth to do, with such passion and such intensity that it becomes spiritual in calling”. That is what nursing is to me. A passion that started early in life. During my senior year in high school, I completed the nursing assistant course over a holiday break in order to begin working as a certified nursing assistant at a local hospital and nursing home. I continued serving others, in this capacity, while I pursued higher education earning my Bachelors of Science in Nursing from Clarkson College. After graduation, I began my career as a Registered Nurse at Sacred Heart Hospital. Over the last nine years at Sacred Heart, my experience grew as a staff nurse on a Cardiology Step-down Unit,

Unfortunately I have no related work experience in a heathcare office or facility; however, I hope to start working in a heathcare office or facility within the next 2 years. 2 years from now the career goal that I have set for myself is to be graduating as a Licensed Pratical Nurse (LPN). After graduation I would like to start working in at a hospital as a licensed pratical nurse while also continuing my education with nursing.

It is important to integrate the concept professionalism into your nursing career because it allows you to flourish personally as a nurse but more importantly allows the patient to receive the care they deserve. Throughout the course of one’s nursing career there will be many slips and falls. Mistakes will happen but we as nurses are able to reflect and learn from them in a

A career trajectory is a formalized plan for a successful transition into a career path that an individual has chosen. Likewise, the goal of nursing is to improve health through the advancement of knowledge therefore, improving the safety, effectiveness, and the access for healthcare. In combining these two definitions, a career trajectory in nursing advancement is to allow for clarity of direction and expected outcomes in a career by meeting the goals to advance in the healthcare field. In order to build a successful career as an advanced practitioner an individual must consider the requirements of the position and make strategic decisions in order to facilitate progression towards this goal (Feetham & Doering, 2015).

I have worked in every area of the hospital and nursing homes in my nineteen years of clinical practice as a nurse. I have excelled and enjoyed the care that I have provided over the years. I have been a charge nurse wherever I have worked and enjoyed brainstorming and critically thinking through what needed to be done for a patient when they were not doing well. I have prevented many code blues and have been a preceptor to many excellent nurses.

Over 33 years of nursing experience ranging from staff nurse to nurse administrator, in the areas of long-term care, psychiatric nursing, managed care, disease management, and case management. A flexible and practical team player, with excellent organizational and time management skills.

In furtherance of a lifelong desire to become an advanced practice nurse, I herewith articulate my professional development plan (PDP) based on Walden University’s program of study (POS), in alignment with my personal and professional goals. I welcome this opportunity to begin the development of professional portfolio of evidence documenting my course of nursing practice. I am equally hopeful that this will be a springboard for recording my career progression as an electronic portfolio (e-portfolio). The e-portfolio gives added benefits of conciseness, confidentiality, portability, and ease of access over traditional paper portfolio. Also, it gives the benefit of career mapping to organizations intent on helping to shape and advance my professional career path (Thompson, T. 2011). I intend to leverage upon these benefits to showcase my competencies, professional attainment, and lifelong learning as I articulate my value to the healthcare industry.

I currently work at The Queen's Medical Center - Punchbowl Campus, working the night shift as a Medical/Surgical/Telemetry RN with the Float Pool. After being out of school and currently practicing as a bedside RN for over 12 years (and as a retired Army Nurse), I've decided to go back to school to broaden my knowledge in nursing (theory and research). Upon completion of this program, I hope that it'll help open up other nursing career opportunities that were not available to me as an Associate Degree RN. While waiting for this program to start, I've also completed several courses in Healthcare Administration; hopefully, the combination of these two programs/degree may also open up other opportunities in the administrative portion of the healthcare industry.

Nurses develop professional skills through a process called “Professionalization.” Ghadirian uses four factors to describe this; cognitive dimension, attitudinal dimension and psychomotor dimension. They then further describe the cognitive dimension as the “professional knowledge” a nurse must have (2014). Without knowledge of illness or the human body, a nurse can not practice professionally. Ghadirian then suggests that even with extensive professional knowledge, a nurse can not be professional without the ideals and ethics of a nurse, or the ability to provide care (2014). A nurse can not be professional without all the dimensions. A nurse must have the values of a nurse, knowledge of a nurse and the ability to provide care.

My professional goal is to become the most effective clinician I can be. This means having the professional latitude to diagnose, prescribe, and manage the overall care of a patient. It also means having a strong skill set that will remain relevant and adaptable in the changing market of healthcare (as mid-level practitioners rise and the number of physicians staffed decrease). As someone who is driven to manage and multitask I am drawn to the autonomy and independence that a nurse practitioner is granted. I thrive in situations that require leadership.

I, Megan Farrell, am currently a Licensed Practical Nurse at a treatment center that works with prisoners. I accepted a clinical positon here as a graduate, but plan to work in a hospital setting once I have become a Registered Nurse working in the Intensive Care Unit. I quickly worked my way up the latter from the clinic nurse to the Chronic Care nurse and I am quite passionate about further educating my patients and ensuring they understand the importance of treatment compliance. I have spent countless hours educating and giving encouraging guidance to successfully manage chronic conditions.

The nursing area of practice that I work in is emergency medicine / critical care. I am an emergency room charge nurse for one of the ambulatory emergency rooms for Kentucky One Health Care. I am responsible for Monitoring and evaluation of patient care through direct consultation, resolving obstacles and eliminating barriers that frustrate both patients and staff. The charge nurse functions as air traffic controller to ensure an efficient, stream-lined process that keeps the patient informed and decreases overall length of stay in hopes of elevating patient satisfaction scores.

I recently became certified as a psychiatric and mental health nurse. I serve on our unit practice council helping to find solutions to unit specific issues. I have also served on the hospital wide nurse’s week committee, and a fall prevention committee.

The professional development plan for nursing graduates is a program that was started by the government with the aims of creating a smooth transition from the student experience to workplace experience. Despite having learnt several ethical and professional contents, the professional development plan ensures that, all the graduate nurses have a smooth transition that ensures they deliver quality and standard services as expected of them (Gordon & Franklin, 2003). Under the nursing professional plan, the nurses are supposed to bring together personal and professional skills in order to improve the quality of the nursing practice in the country.

As a competent registered nurse, my career goal is to become a healthcare quality improvement leader, a position that would enhance my commitment in promoting patient safety. I not only believe in enhancing the capacity of other care providers, but also in improving the quality of the healing environment for the benefit of both patients and their care providers. This means not only promoting collaboration with the multidisciplinary teams, but also building the necessary healing partnerships with our patients. To enhance the quality of the healing environment, I aspire to continue analyzing researches for evidence based practices and advocating for their actualization. I will continue focusing my time and energy in encouraging other nurses to improve their skills through formal education, so they can empower themselves as advocates of quality improvement for the benefit of their patients and coworkers.