Sample Resume : High Quality Patient Care

There are three routes to entry level nursing, and two of these routes are at a collegiate level. Both of these collegiate level programs provide enough information for the graduate to take and pass the NCLEX-RN exam. However, there are critical differences between both programs that researchers have discovered eventually affect nursing care and outcomes of patients.

For centuries the development of nursing knowledge has been influenced by numerous theorists and their respective theories. These theories have influenced, and continue to influence, nursing education, practice and research. (Johnson & Webber, 2005)

The advanced practice nurse (APN) brings the combined training and experience received in school and the clinical practice to enhance patient care. Clinical decisions require problem solving, critical thinking, ethical judgment, and evidence-based practice to ensure patients receive the best care (Pearson, 2013). This unique set of skills allows the APN to determine areas needing further study to improve patient outcome. This paper will introduce the author’s phenomenon of interest and primary philosophic viewpoint for providing patient care, discuss an alternative or opposing philosophic viewpoint to patient care, and summarize the four patterns of knowing in nursing identified by Barbara Carper in 1978.

Patricia Benner, a well-known nursing theorist who published From Novice to Expert, theorizes how a nurse should progress through their career. Benner’s theory explains what stage of nursing one is in based on your education and the amount of time one has worked in a specific nursing field. She describes the five stages of the theory: novice, advanced beginner, competent, proficient, and expert. While this theory has its limitations, it is beneficial to the well-being of both the nurse and patient and that is proven by real world clinical practice.

An ongoing debate for the requirements to become a Registered Nurse (RN) has been unsettled. Several different educational pathways lead to an RN licensure; however, the minimum educational requirements must be standardized at the baccalaureate level for several reasons. Spetz and Bates (2013) published that a growing number of hospitals prefer hiring nurses with a Bachelor Science in Nursing (BSN) as this increases the status of the nursing profession (p. 1). Associate Degree in Nursing (ADN), as well as a certificate on-the-job training Diploma are two other educational pathways to become an RN, which can be disadvantageous to the nursing profession in several ways (Tollick 2013; Spetz and Bates 2013). If entry-level nurses

Associates prepared nurses are able to sit for the NCLEX as well as bachelors prepared nurses. They are both able to practice and perform many of the same skills and procedures. Their differences in clinical competencies are few, but their differences in critical thinking, decision making, communication, leadership, and management techniques and abilities, are many. The bachelors prepared nurse has received a higher and more in depth level of education in their field. This additional study and preparedness gives the bachelors prepared nurse the ability to understand not only the “what” and “how” of their clinical procedures, but also the

There are different types of knowledge and different ways of knowing. Four fundamental concepts of knowing in nursing highlighted by Caper (1978) are empirical, personal, ethical and aesthetic. He divided knowledge into two forms which are tacit and explicit. Tacit is insights and based on experience and not easily visible and expressible, difficult to share and communicate with others which is highly personal. Empirical sources of knowledge depend upon an individual’s manner of observing and responding to events in the outside world (Higgs et al, 2004). Whereas explicit is formal and based on rationality and easily can be expressed, shared, communicate which are highly universal principles. Rationalism comes from within the individual and

The first pattern of knowing in nursing presented is the Empirics: the science of nursing. Carper (1978) described this empirical knowing as factual evidence and proven medical research or documentation used for patient treatment. This empirical knowledge is vastly related explanations and predictions from facts and things that have been proven. This author believes that most of this scientific evidence or knowledge stems from books and clinical experiences gained in healthcare facilities under the leadership of trained educators or licensed medical providers. This author believes this because as a nursing student, she will learn nursing techniques such as inserting foley catheters, and doing injections first by observing the nursing

Nursing is a crucial field, which affects the lives of people. The public does not have enough information pertaining those who practice nursing this led to the introduction of nursing licensure to protect the public from unqualified persons. This license sets qualifications and competence of nursing professionals. Compared to state nursing licensure, national nursing licensure advocates for a more effective practice for nurses. It reduces or lessens nursing shortage by promoting mobility of the nursing professionals. National nursing licensure has a number of advantages over individual state nursing licensure. These include enhanced patient access to quality nursing care, improved discipline and information distribution amongst the states, physical and electronic provision of care by competent nurses, and ease of employers to more movable and proficient nurses (Fraziea, 2012).

National Council Licensure Examination (NCLEX) is an examination administered by the National Council of State Boards of Nursing, Inc. to graduate nurses in the United States before they can obtain a practicing license. An NCLEX test blueprint is a document produced by NCSBN, which contains a summation of what is assessed in the NCLEX examination as well as the core values of nursing practice. The blueprint serves as a guide for aspiring nurses and nursing student who need to learn the basic requirements of nursing and nursing examination. The blueprint is valuable in exam preparation and as a study guide.

Advanced Beginner is the next stage in Patricia Benner’s model. Nurses considered to be in this stage have had enough real life experiences to note different aspects of a situation. They base their assessments of patients on previous experiences similar to the current patient they are providing care for (Benner, 1984). Nurses performing at this

Carper's Way of Knowing- In 1978, Barbara Carper, Professor of Nursing at Texas Woman's University, proposed patterns of healthcare knowing in a journal article in Advances in Nursing Science. Her rationale was that there needed to be a guide that would act as a developmental tool for nurses so that they could share their experience and enhance the goals of patient management, education, and further research (Carper, 1978). Like Jean Watson's Theory of Caring, many experts in the nursing field

With a consistent change in modernizing medicine, along with the continuing advancement in technology, continuing education in nursing is essential for a variety of reasons. The nurse’s main concern is providing safe, efficient, and effective patient care with positive patient outcomes. This paper will examine the differences in competencies between nurses prepared at an associate-degree level versus a baccalaureate-degree level, in order to provide an evidenced-based understanding of the variation in the educational preparation of nurses.

Patricia Benner described the first stage as the novice nurse who is taught general rules to perform tasks without any, or very few, clinical experience. This rule-governed behavior is limited and inflexible (“From Novice to Expert”, 2013). Most nursing students are in the novice stage while they are completing their educational requirements (Cherry & Jacob, 2014). Although they have some exposure to clinical experience, it is limited and under the guidance of a nursing instructor rather than in a “real world” setting. According to Cherry & Jacob (2014), once the nursing student graduates, he or she will begin the progression into the advanced beginner stage (second stage). The advanced beginner nurse is able to make some judgment calls based on having experience in actual situations and performance is adequate. During this stage, the nurse begins to formulate principles to guide actions (“From Novice

Before the NCLEX exam was established, each state created its own nursing regulations and exams to determine the competency of nursing students (“NCLEX-RN® Examination”, 2016). In 1941, the National League of Nursing created a better exam that was adopted by all states, in order to streamline the process, and the test was called the State Board Test Pool Examination (“NCLEX-RN® Examination”, 2016). Locations to take the exam were very limited and had to be big enough to accommodate many people at once, since the test was only offered twice a year, and in order to take it, student nurses had to register about six months in advance by mailing in their approval to test (Johnson & Kappel). The exam was given using paper and pencil, and for every thirty-five students, a retired nurse was hired as a proctor (Johnson & Kappel). The questions were the same for all the students in order to make testing fair, and students had to wait for weeks before their results arrived in the mail (Johnson & Kappel). The test was officially named the NCLEX in 1982 after the National Council of State Boards of Nursing took over the responsibility of the test nationally a few years beforehand (Johnson & Kappel). The total number of questions on the test before 1982 was 720, before being reduced to 480 and then 370 questions (“NCLEX-RN® Examination”, 2016).