Career Planning

Instructions

1. Professional Practice and Academic Influence. Identify your current work role and how you are involved in leadership, management and nursing administration. Discuss how your academic education as an advance practice nurse in Nursing Administration has changed your practice and influenced outcomes in your current work role. Include exemplar(s). 30 Points

2. Career Goals. Identify personal career goals:1 year, 5 year and 10 years. Include professional work goals, as well as plans for continued education, academic achievement and certification. 30 Points

APA, Organization, Title Page. Word count for content: Sections 1 & 2 = 500 – 1000 words. Section 3, open, no word count. Vitae/Resume length will vary with experience and targeted audience. 10 Points

 

Solution

 

Career Planning

Career planning helps nurses to develop plans for professional development. It also increases nurses’ satisfaction and commitment to their work (Yan et al., 2021). According to Aydin et al. (2021), nurses are increasingly making efforts to develop their skills to increase their chances of employability and attract better pay. This career planning paper will discuss how my personal professional practice has influenced academic development and patient outcomes. It will also outline my personal career goals in the next 1 year, 5 years, and 10 years.

Professional and Academic Influence

My current work role and my involvement in leadership, management, and nursing administration have positively changed nursing practice and caused positive influence on healthcare outcomes. My current role is the nurse supervisor of the liver transplant call team. I work closely with my manager and director in this leadership role. I am responsible for monthly schedules, employee evaluations, and the development of a new charting program that our transplant center uses.  According to Nurmeksela et al. (2021), nurse leaders, managers, and administrators have the capacity to influence actions and strategies that are aimed at solving organizational problems and facilitating the achievement of organizational goals and objectives.

The quality of care and patient outcomes have changed positively as a result of the lessons learned in academic education and in nursing administration. For example, my education in this program has given me the confidence that I needed to be able to approach my program director to ask for more staff and request the hiring of an administrative assistant for the liver call team.

My primary goal in this move is to promote patient safety and increase healthcare quality. Ganapati and Ritchie (2021) recognize the role that academic development plays in promoting career preparedness among nurses. The lessons learned in academic education have also given me the knowledge that I needed to put together a proposal that provided the evidence that my manager and director needed to make the right decision. My future administrative, leadership, and management roles will rely on research-based evidence to influence decision-making and inform clinical practice.

Career Goals

With a good career plan, nurses are able to develop goals that will give them direction regarding the specific actions that they should implement to achieve academic and professional growth. For example, I have developed a plan for academic and professional development that I intend to achieve in the next 1 year, 5 years, and 10 years. My personal career goals for one year would be to continue to review practice policies and procedures in order to stay current and updated on issues related to leadership and management in my specialty area.

Achieving this goal will help me grow at a personal level and prepare me adequately for the management position. My five-year career plan is to take a National Certification Exam and return to school for my Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) program. My ten-year plan is to hold a director position whether in transplant or in quality. Achieving these goals will place me in the right position to lead and influence positive changes in nursing practice and patient care.

References

Aydın, A., Oflaz, F., Karadağ, A., Ocakçı, A. F., & Aydın, A. İ. (2021). Nursing students’ career plans after graduation: Perspective from generation Y. Florence Nightingale Journal of Nursing, 29(3), 334–341. https://doi.org/10.5152/FNJN.2021.20138

Ganapati, S., & Ritchie, T. S. (2021). Professional development and career-preparedness experiences of STEM Ph.D. students: Gaps and avenues for improvement. PloS One, 16(12), e0260328. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0260328

Nurmeksela, A., Mikkonen, S., Kinnunen, J., & Kvist, T. (2021). Relationships between nurse managers’ work activities, nurses’ job satisfaction, patient satisfaction, and medication errors at the unit level: a correlational study. BMC Health Services Research, 21(1), 296. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-021-06288-5

Yan, Y., Li, L., Tang, J., Zhang, T., & Zhai, Y. (2021). Influencing factors and strategy to the career planning of operating room nurses. Nursing Open, 8(5), 2637–2644. https://doi.org/10.1002/nop2.810