Professional Development Plan For Nurses

Critical Components Of Professional Development For Nurses

How does your organization stand up to these three critical components of professional development for nurses?

While consulting a sample professional development plan for nurses might be a helpful starting point, most organizations will benefit from formalizing a professional development program and accurately tracking its results to adjust as necessary. Organizations should focus on three critical components of professional development for nurses including:

• Having dedicated resources in place
• A customized professional development plan for nurses encompassing the career continuum
• An effective measurement system process in place to identify areas of improvement for nurses

Pass Your Boards On The First Try

Passing the NCLEX is the most pertinent goal to move forward in your career as a nurse. To practice as a nurse, you have to pass your boards. All other plans build on this achievement.

The most important thing is that you dont cram. Start studying early and set up a study plan that gives you enough time to look over all the material and allows for breaks and time to yourself, especially right before the test.

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Strengthen Your Interpersonal Skills

Improve your communication skills with patients, doctors, and other nurses you collaborate with on a daily basis. The majority of nurses use many channels to communicate, including written and verbal conversations. Learn to express yourself as clearly as possible. You may also practice paying attention while listening and reading medical records carefully.

Pay attention to a patients or medical experts physical reactions when interacting with them. If you notice your patient tensing their shoulders, inquire whether theyre uncomfortable and whether there is anything you can do to assist.

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Create A Mentorship Program

Mentorship is a relationship between two people, with one person having more experience than the other. An effective mentorship relationship can retain staff, further develop experienced nurses, and aid in succession planning . After a new nurse is properly onboarded to the unit, why does the relationship with the preceptor have to end? Turn it into a mentoring relationship. This relationship allows the new nurse or mentee to have one on one time with an experienced nurse to discuss things such as career goals, work stressors and how to overcome them, and time management. This type of relationship has a positive impact on staff resilience and can boost engagement and retention of nurses .

Nurse leaders have the responsibility of providing resources and support needed by nurses to promote professional development. Some ways to achieve this are through motivational interviewing, bringing education to nurses, encouraging shared governance, promoting self-care, and creating a mentorship program. How do you foster professional growth as a nurse leader in your organization?

The Importance Of Professional Development For Nurses

The importance of professional development for nurses is that high-performing organizations recognize the significance of professional development plans for new and incumbent nurses. The National Academy of Medicine Report, The Future of Nursing 2020-2030, highlights the importance of lifelong learning and the need for a stronger, diverse nursing workforce that is well prepared to provide evidence-based care, promote the health and well-being of themselves and those they care for, and address systemic inequities.

More and more, organizations across the continuum of care are recognizing the impact of nurse competency and satisfaction on patient care and outcomes, as well as the bottom line. Furthermore, nurses should increasingly anticipate ongoing professional development throughout their careers and consider lifelong learning to be a part of a healthy work environment.

In especially trying times, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, healthcare leaders can lose sight of the important role professional development can play in terms of a support system for nurses. It becomes imperative in times of crisis for organizations to ensure their staff have the much-needed support to provide safe and effective care, especially when faced with a pandemic and managing a crisis.

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Increase Your Technology Skills

Nursing practices increasingly involve advanced technical devices and systems. Many medical facilities use electronic health records that nurses create, access or update. Your workplace may also use other technology, such as portable patient monitors or telehealth services. Familiarize yourself with these healthcare technologies so that you can understand and use all of their features proficiently. You might also set a professional goal to become capable of troubleshooting, or problem-solving, issues or errors with your workplace’s healthcare technology.

Ask Yourself About Your Nursing Career Goals

You need to know why you’re choosing your goals. For instance, perhaps you desire to travel and work internationally or need to have a flexible schedule to spend time with your family. Some things to consider before setting nursing career goals include:

• Your location: If you’re interested in traveling in the future, you may want to learn a new language, since you could work in a country that primarily speaks an unfamiliar language.

• Work setting: Work settings include hospitals, rehabilitation centers, trauma centers and other community settings. Identify which environment interests you and set your goals toward achieving that.

• Nursing features: These features range from values, beliefs, traits, abilities and strengths that interest you. Try to identify outstanding features in your potential work setting.

• Ideal career: This includes the patient population you desire to work with, such as the elderly, adults, children and infants. Research the training and skills required to work with each demographic and incorporate those into your professional goals.

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Nursing Career: 11 Examples Of Professional Goals For Nurses

The Indeed Editorial Team comprises a diverse and talented team of writers, researchers and subject matter experts equipped with Indeed’s data and insights to deliver useful tips to help guide your career journey.

A medical professional smiles at someone during a conversation in a hospital corridor.

As an individual with a desire to pursue a career in nursing or a current nurse who wants to advance in their nursing career, setting both long-term and short-term professional goals can inspire you to attain overall career success. To achieve these career goals, nurses often need to create a professional development plan, which entails specific career goals and a timeline to define what they desire to achieve by that deadline. After that, nurses can identify strategies to motivate them to work toward fulfilling these goals.

In this article, we go over examples of long- and short-term professional nursing career goals and why it’s important to set professional goals as a nurse.

Earn An Advanced Degree

It is always wise to further your career. If you have an associates degree, work on a bachelors degree. A bachelors degree allows you to work in magnet status hospitals and also acquire management positions.

Another option is advanced practice. This path requires either a masters degree or a Ph.D. This allows the nurse to have a more one on one care relationship with the patient.

Nurse practitioners can choose almost any specialty they would like, have much better hours, and a very nice pay raise. Some nurses decide to go on to be a physicians assistant as well or even a doctor. Here are the most common paths for advanced practice:

• Nurse practitioner
• Physician Assistant

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Upgrade Your Nursing Competencies

Every unit in the hospital is somewhat specialized. Become a specialist at what you do by being involved in the procedures your unit has to offer. Are there in-services you could attend? Any check-offs you could get under your belt? Does your unit offer classes to advance your knowledge for specific procedures?

Take as many classes as possible and shadow other nurses.

Professional Development Tips And Resources During Nurses Month

Professional development is important for any professional career. Lifelong learning helps foster a positive healthcare environment for both nurses and patients. But how can nurses participate in professional development and expand on their career experiences?

The ANA and Herzing University invite you to explore ways to prioritize your professional growth this nurses month , so you can continue making a difference in your community while growing in your role!

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Customized Professional Development For Nurses Throughout The Career Lifespan

Nursing professional goals vary across the career lifespan. A one-size-fits-all approach limits an organizations workforce capabilities, especially when it comes to identifying areas of improvement for nurses.

Nursing professional development leaders have a challenging task to meet the basic needs of the organization by preparing new nurses to be ready for safe, independent practice, while simultaneously ensuring competency of all staff nurses. Providing meaningful opportunities for continuing education, and developing future leaders requires developing a meaningful strategy focused on each of these opportunities.

At all phases in a nursing career, first experiences do matter. If the experience or perception of the newly hired nurse is one where he/she feels ill prepared or unsupported, the risk of turnover can most certainly increase. Whereas, an onboarding experience that goes beyond the traditional one-size-fits-all model to personalize a development plan based on assessed proven competencies, skills, and personality traits is likely to increase engagement and job satisfaction.

Increasing nurse staff development and professional growth

Many organizations offer learning opportunities to their clinical workforce. It is essential to ensure nurses are aware of these opportunities, especially newly licensed nursing professionals.

Meeting the needs of continual learning

Here are a few ways organizations are meeting the continual learning needs of their clinical workforce:

Sample Nursing Paper On Professional Development Plan

Professional Development Plan

Introduction

The path to professional development can be a challenge if not pursued with care. The choice of a career in itself is a concern that many people find difficult to go through. In my decision to be an MSN trained nurse, I had some professional goals and interests, and undertaking the training has been opening my mind to even greater possibilities. My goal to pursue nursing from a practice perspective only has been changing with time and exposure, and I can say that I am slowly shifting towards nursing education. In this paper, my professional development plan is presented. The professional development plan includes a clear statement of professional goals and objectives, my intended career path in nursing, and the influences that I consider key in my path to becoming a professional nurse educator and nurse practitioner. Such a plan is required for every professional to realize structured rather than random growth.

Area of Focus

Professional Goals

Influences

Analysis

Leadership Role

Development Plan

Reflection and Conclusion

References

Ali, R.A., Benjamin, K., Munir, R., & Ahmed, N.S.O. . A review of informatics competencies tools for nurses and nurse managers. Canadian Journal of Nursing Informatics, 14. Retrieved from http://cjni.net/journal/?p=5370

WHO . Nurse educator core competencies. World Health Organization. Retrieved from https://www.who.int/hrh/nursing_midwifery/nurse_educator050416.pdf

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Get Time For Your Business/job Or Sports

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Section Ii If I Have A Possible Shortcoming Relating To Teamwork It Could Be That:

I am not at ease unless meetings are well structured, controlled and generally well conducted

I am inclined to be too generous towards others who have a valid viewpoint that has not been given a proper airing

I have a tendency to talk a lot once the group get onto new ideas

My objective outlook makes it difficult for me to join in readily and enthusiastically with colleagues

I am sometimes forceful and authoritarian if there is a need to get something done

I find it difficult to lead from the front, perhaps because I am over responsive to group atmosphere

I am apt to get too caught up in ideas that occur to me and so lose track of what is happening

My colleagues tend to see me as worrying unnecessarily over detail and the possibility that things may go wrong

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Examples Of Nursing Smart Goals

Now that you understand the SMART goal definition, its time for some examples:

• Become a nurse practitioner within 3 years: This goal is concrete and has a timestamp. The nurse will have a firm understanding of what they want to achieve and when they want to achieve it.

• Earn a Bachelor of Science in Nursing within 4 years: With the goal of obtaining a BSN, a nurse is able to grow and expand career opportunities. This goal works because its specific and has a deadline.

• Become a nurse mentor within 1 year: Finding an opportunity to mentor another nurse is a great way to help improve your job satisfaction and help someone else. This is a great SMART goal because its attainable, realistic, and time-sensitive.

• Earn a certification in the next 2 years: Nurses who pursue certification have a better chance of moving up the ladder or being able to switch to a different specialty. For example, Informatics is a fast-growing field so obtaining your Informatics Nursing Certification would be a great way to advance your career.

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Supporting New Graduate Nurses

At Seattle Childrens, our goal is to provide expert care for our patients and a healthy and safe work environment for our staff. For new graduate nurses, we create opportunities for continual growth as they begin their nursing career. The Nurse Residency Program is one of those opportunities: a one-year program that prepares each new graduate for their role as a pediatric nurse.

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Continue To Learn Every Day

Healthcare is an ever-changing and evolving field. Even after your training, there are many opportunities to learn.

Make learning about your profession a lifelong practice. Its easy to learn something new in nursing each and every day. That is the reason why this point belongs to the short-term goals in nursing.

Find opportunities every day to learn something new about nursing, and youll reach one of your goals every single day.

Image: Cathy Yeulet/123RF

Align Professional Goals With Personal Goals

When developing your professional goals as a nurse, its important to investigate your personal goals as well. Sometimes, these two things conflict. Aligning personal and professional desires can bring you a greater sense of joy and increase motivation. Whats the sense of working so hard to achieve a goal if it wont make you happy?

In order to make sure your personal and professional goals agree with each other, ask yourself the following questions:

• What do I want out of life?
• How will my work affect the relationships in my life?
• What makes me happy?
• What are the pros and cons of my professional development goals?
• What are the pros and cons of my personal goals?
• What resources are available to me?

When your personal and professional goals align, you are more likely to lead an enriched life. Try to write your goals in ways that capture your life passions.

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Benefits Of Having A Pdp

When you create a professional development plan it will:

• support you to set professional long and short-term goals
• help to focus on your accomplishments, strengths and development needs
• ensure alignment of goals to NMBI code of professional conduct and ethics and other relevant policies and guidelines
• support organisational goals and objectives
• contribute to the delivery of safe quality care and improved patient experience
• help you to show that you as a nurse or midwife are maintaining your professional competence and development

How To Set Smart Goals

• Be specific: When crafting your goals, include details that allow them to be clearly defined. Goals lacking concrete details cause a lack of focus on what needs to be accomplished. For example, say you are mapping out goals paving the future of your career as a nurse. Simply writing that your goal is to advance in your career is too vague. Try something like: I want to obtain my Master of Science in Nursing degree.

• Make it measurable: To achieve your short and long term goals, its important to know how to measure your progress. This allows you to stay motivated and keep on going.

• Keep it attainable: Not everyone can become the president of the American Nurses Association. Its important to set goals that showcase your capabilities. Though its important to have ambition, you dont want a goal you cant possibly achieve. You want to create a practical goal that you can accomplish in the timeline you choose .

• Be relevant: Make sure you set goals that align with your needs, desires, and short- and long-term goals. Ask yourself if you have the resources required to achieve it.

• Make it timely: Creating goals wont work if they dont have time stamps or deadlines. For example, if you want to get your MSN, choose a date you want to finish it by. Choosing a date will give you a sense of urgency and help motivate you to get it done.

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Maintain A Healthy Distance

Many nurses struggle with keeping their nurse life and personal life separate. It is vital to balance your career and your personal life. Maintaining a healthy life outside of work and not being consumed by a job and career has to be a professional goal.

Being able to balance both career and personal life will help with your nursing career. It will keep you motivated to take on new challenges.

These career goals are long-standing goals that might take time to accomplish.

Next are career goals that are achievable much faster.