Nursing is a field that offers various career options to the individual that has the capability to improve their skills, potentiality to grow and ability to grasp the professional opportunities with appropriate career development plan. Thus, it is clear that in order to become a practice nurse from a student nurse it is important to understand the meaning of nursing and enhance the ability to use the learning in the clinical practice to develop skills and use the opportunity to become a professional nurse (Holloway & Galvin, 2016). In this regards proper career development plan play an important role in order to facilitate the way of becoming a professional nurse. Nursing is defined as the profession in which protection, promotion and optimizing health is most important part. Using the skills of clinical judgement, effective communication, evidence-based practice, patient centred care and cultural competency is most important in order to become a practice nurse. In this regards, the nursing students need to understand the clinical environment, different care settings and importance of specific area of practice (Alligood, 2017). It has been found that nursing practice based on a particular area such as mental health, midwife, post-operative care, paediatrician and others is effective to develop skills according to specific care field. The nursing student need to understand their area of interest and strengths and weaknesses as well. Such identification would help them to choose proper nursing area for developing career (Parahoo, 2014). On the other hand difference in practice in hospital settings and rural health settings need to be understood to provide effective care approaches according to the clinical situation (Alligood, 2017). The assignment aims to provide information about the career development in nursing. The following paper will provide brief discussion regarding the different nursing skills, importance of specific area of practice, practice in different clinical settings and effective recommendations to develop career as a practice nurse by focusing on such information.
Nursing
Nursing is considered as the largest workforce in the medical field. The profession focuses on provide care to individual, families and community as well. The central responsibility of the profession is to attain, maintain and recover health issues in order to improve the quality of life and health status across the world (Holloway & Galvin, 2016). It has been found that nurses are differentiated according to their approach to the care service such as training, patient care and practice area. In order to become a nurse a person could practice in various specialities under different prescription authority. They are allowed to practice in different settings independently (Parahoo, 2014). In order to become a nurse a person needs to complete adequate education and should have the required skills. Nurses need to undergo various diversification for specialized and advanced credentials. In this session they need to face changes in traditional regulation and roles as well (Alligood, 2017). It is the responsibility of a nurse to provide equal care to the individual while ensuring quality care and patient safety. With changes in the environment, lifestyles of the people, introduction of new disease and increasing stress, the health issues is also increasing, thus demand for health support and care is also increasing. Hence it can be said that scope of develop career in nursing field is also high. In this regards it is important to have adequate qualification and skills to become a practice nurse and serve for the people with need (Holloway & Galvin, 2016).
There are different area of practice in nursing field such as ambulatory care, mental health, burn nursing, dental practice, paediatrician, antenatal and post natal care and others. It is important to choose a particular area of practice in which a student nurse is interested. A student nurse should choose the practice area based on his or her skills and ability to perform well in that particular field. Study has indicated that identifying such specific area of practice could help the student to focus on a specific field, set proper goals and gather knowledge, degree and experience in order to achieve expected outcomes (Tiwaken, Caranto & David, 2015).
While describing about specific area of practice in nursing it has been found that neonatal practice is one of the important area of practice and a nursing student choose this field in order to become a practice nurse. Neonatal practice is an advanced practice that need at least two years of experience. The duty of a neonatal practice nurse is to provide primary, critical, acute and chronic care to the infants, neonates and toddlers to maintain their health and well-being in an effective manner. In this regards a student nurse should pose all the essential nursing skills and utilise those in the clinical practice to provide quality care (Verklan & Walden, 2014).
Pregnancy is a critical period and adequate care is required in order to remain healthy during pregnancy and give birth to a healthy child with less risk of suffering from severe disease after birth. It has been found that there are very few general people in the world that have adequate knowledge about pregnancy and health requirements during pregnancy. Due to lack of knowledge many pregnant women induced in substance abuse such as high alcohol intake and smoking. On the other and they lack proper diet and medication that are required to reduce the complications during pregnancy. Such activities affect the health of the new born babies and they suffer from various health issues after birth (Aliaga et al., 2014). The health report provided by the World Health Organization has reported that 4.2 million deaths within the first year of life in 2016, that indicates 30.5 deaths per 1000 child (who.int, 2018). Due to such health complications during first year of life the demand for neonatal care has increased. Such demand has driven the need for high recruitment in the neonatal workforce (Aliaga et al., 2014). Thus, it can be said that for the student nurse there is high scope of practice as a neonatal practice nurse and they could select this field as their future practice area to develop their career as a practice nurse.
In order to develop career in the nursing field it is important to choose a particular area of practice. In this regards it is essential that one should understand the nursing skills that are required to establish oneself as a practice nurse in the particular area of practice. Understanding the nursing skills would help to identify the strengths of a nursing student so he or she could select appropriate area of practice for becoming a successful practice nurse (Duane & Satre, 2014). Some important nursing skills are listed here.
Effective communication is one of the most important features of nursing profession. Effective communication is the best way to understand the health issue of the patient. Effective communication helps a nurse to reduce the difficulties in assessment and involve the patient in the assessment in an effective manner (McCabe & Timmins, 2013). In order to provide adequate care it is important to establish therapeutic relationship with the patients and the other health professionals as well. In this regards it is important to provide respect to the dignity, culture, views and values of individual through communication. It helps to engage with the patient and gather adequate information about the patient to introduce effective care strategies for the particular patient (Duane & Satre, 2014). On the other hand communication helps to access team support and collaboration. In addition it reduces the risk of miscommunication and malpractice as well (Riley, 2015). Thus, it is important to have adequate communication skill for a nursing student to become a practice nurse.
Nursing profession contains a fast-paced environment where it is necessary to take proper decision to start the adequate treatment quickly. In this case some of the decisions may be earthy and routine whereas other decisions are crucial and critical as well. Such decisions could affect the health condition of the patient and could lead to the life threatening situation. Thus it is important for a nursing professional to take right decision when he or she faces life or death situation (Duane & Satre, 2014). This is because a delayed decision could be wrong and could delay the treatment which could affect the patient’s fate. Thus, it is important to understand the whole situation and identify required strategies and take quick decision while ensuring the quality of service and patient safety (Alligood, 2017). Thus, decision making skill is another important requirement which is required to fulfil in order to become a practice nurse.
Cultural competency refers to the capability of a nurse to provide care service that could meet the cultural, social and linguistic requirements of all patients. The skill of cultural competency helps the nurses to provide equal care to the patient of all cultures. In nursing career the nurses should provide care to the people coming from different cultural and social background. Thus, the skill of cultural competency helps them to understand the views, perspectives and values of the patients with different cultural background from their own culture. Hence allow the nurses to approach care which is culturally safe and acceptable for all (Duane & Satre, 2014). Thus, it can be said that cultural competency is an important skill that a student nurse should pose to become a practice nurse.
It is important in nursing profession to identify the central problem of the patients, determine the best way to address the problem, introduce effective methods to implement the strategies identified to solve the problem and in order to fulfil all such requirements it is important to utilise the critical thinking skill of a nurse. The critical thinking skill in nursing allow the nurses to reflect on their practice so that they could identify mistakes if occur. Such identification would help them to introduce adequate interventions to avoid such mistakes in future and improve their practice (Chan, 2013). Thus, it is important to have critical thinking skill to utilise it in clinical practice and improve the practice in an effective manner.
Emotional intelligence is another important nursing skill. It helps to identify the emotions of others, use the emotion in transitional conditions and manage emotions in order to achieve the goal. Study has indicated that nurse with excellent emotional intelligence also poses strong self-awareness and interpersonal skill as well. They are more adaptable and empathetic. Such characteristics help them to connect with patient easily and meet their psychological requirements (Duane & Satre, 2014). Thus, it is important to have emotional intelligence for a person to become a successful nurse.
One of the most important experience of a nurse is to exposure to different clinical settings. The different clinical settings allow them to understand the various human side in nursing. Placement in different clinical settings is the opportunity to utilise the theoretical learnings in the practical nursing practice and gather knowledge to develop their practice and improve various nursing skills. Thus, the clinical environment of practice is considered as the most influential element for gathering knowledge and gaining different nursing skills in order to develop career as a practice nurse (Tiwaken, Caranto & David, 2015). Sometimes it becomes difficult for a nursing student to provide equal quality service in different clinical settings such as rural health practice, practice in a private sector, practice in public health care organizations and practice as a community nurse practitioner as well. In this regards it is important to understand the difference in health service in different health care settings and different country as well (Parahoo, 2014).
The perception and strategies for rural health service is different for different countries. I Australia, the remote areas and rural people are considers as the population that are economically, culturally and socially distinct from the population of other metropolitan areas. The health service is delivered by the public, private and community health workers. The health service is depends on the quantitative and qualitative health needs of the people residing in such remote areas. The health workers mainly focus to the adequate resources to provide effective service. In some cases the rural health service lack adequate resources, in such cases the nurses need to use their experience and skills to provide quality health service to the population (Clark et al., 2013). On the other hand, in UK rural areas are considered on the bass of poverty, housing, employment and transport access as well. The health risks for the rural population have been described as the changes in the pattern of population, infrastructure, health access, air quality and community support (Kenny et al., 2013). Thus, it can be said that definition of rural population or rural health service is different for different places or countries. Hence the health needs are also different. Study has identified that social condition, culture, pattern of population, environment, education, income, employment and resources available in the country influence the service of the nurse in rural health practice (Tiwaken, Caranto & David, 2015). In Australia, there are two different populations such as indigenous and non-indigenous. Thus, there health requirements are also different. Based on such requirements a practice nurse should provide care service to individual (Kenny et al., 2013). Hence, it is important for the nursing student to become able to understand the requirements of different population and provide care according their needs in order to become a practice nurse.
In addition the scope of practice as a rural practitioner is different across the world. For example, in UK 17.6% population resides in rural area (Radford & James, 2013). On the other hand in Australia 45% indigenous population lives in remote area (Cheshire, 2016). 17.99% people belongs to rural area in Canada (Irvine et al., 2014). Whereas, 36.47 rural population has been reported in Ireland (Guinnane, 2015). Thus, increase in the rural population increase the need of rural health service. Hence it can be said that need for rural health practitioners will be greater in the population with high rural population (Kenny et al., 2013). Such knowledge is important to develop career as rural health practitioner.
On the other hand, the nursing student could practice as a nurse in a private hospital or in a public hospital as well. Working in such hospital settings is not consistent across the globe. The private health care organizations and public hospitals in a country need to maintain the rules and regulations provided by the government and the individual health care organization as well. In this regards, the central responsibilities of a nurse that is providing equal care to individual while ensuring quality of the service and patient safety is similar for the nurse across the globe, however, the rules are different for the nurses in different countries (Tiwaken, Caranto & David, 2015). In Australia the nurses need to follow the rules of Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia (nursingmidwiferyboard.gov.au, 2018). On the other hand in UK Nursing and Midwifery Authority are the responsible authority for nurses (nmc.org.uk, 2018). Thus, it is important for a student nurse to have the ability to adapt the environment and conditions for nursing practice in different place across the world.
Training is the most important part that helps a student nurse to become a practice nurse. In the training session the student nurse learn about the different nursing skills, ethics, rules and regulation, effective assessment process, diagnosis and how to take care of a patient based on specific health issue (Herrmann, Woermann & Schlegel, 2015). In this regards the in Australia there are training for three different nurses such as nurse practitioner, enrolled nurse and registered nurse and they are trained for the whole life span (nursingmidwiferyboard.gov.au, 2018). On the other hand, in UK, the training of nurse based on a particular area of practice such as mental health, paediatrician, antenatal, postnatal and others (nmc.org.uk, 2018). Such training environment is also impact on the student nurse. The training session helps the nurse to learn how to use the nursing theories in the clinical practice. If they are not trained properly about the nursing skills they will not be able to perform their duties effectively. Such training influence the productivity of the nurses (Billings & Halstead, 2015). Thus, it is important to choose proper training and learn about the field in which a student nurse is interested such as neonatal care in order t become a practice nurse.
Conclusion
From the above discussion it can be concluded that, nursing is one of the most important and largest workforce in medical field. With increasing health issues the need for health service has also increased. Thus, there are huge scope for the nursing students to establish themselves as practice nurse. In this regards the student nurses need to understand the responsibility of a nurse such as providing equal care to the individual and ensuring quality of service and patient safety as well. It is important to select a specific practice area. It has been found that due to lack of knowledge about health requirements during pregnancy most of the pregnant women fail to maintain health and well-being. Such situation affects the health of the newborn. Thus, infant mortality rate is so high across the globe. With increasing health issues, demand for health service for infants is also increasing. Thus, there are high scope to become a neonatal practitioner. The neonatal nurse practitioner provides care to infant, neonatal and toddlers in order to provide healthy life and maintain well-being. In this regards it is important to have adequate nursing skills such as communication, cultural competency, decision making, critical thinking, emotional intelligence and others. In addition the nursing students should have the ability to practice in different clinical settings. Furthermore, they should access adequate training as the training session impact their practice and enable them to provide service in different clinical environment. Such factors need to be considered in order to develop career in nursing.
In order to become a neonatal practice nurse it is important to take some proper steps and introduce effective strategies. Firstly, the student nurse need to complete the certificate course such as graduation in nursing. Then the students may continue their study to achieve diploma in nursing from a reputable university so that they could deployed themselves to a private or public health care organization (Wilkes, Cowin & Johnson, 2015). Secondly, the student nurses should access adequate training in order to adapt the nursing skills. They should join workshop for improving their communication as well and they need to be accessed training for the specific field such as neonatal practice (Liaw et al., 2017). Thirdly, they need to gather adequate information about nursing and experience as well to perform their duties in an effective manner (Bloomfield et al., 2015). Such strategies need to be implemented appropriately in order to transit from a student nurse to practice nurse.
References
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