Upgrading a Nursing Career : Professional Nursing Pathways

Nursing is one of the most appealing and demanding jobs worldwide. The profession ranges from bed side nursing to nursing research. Nurses are at the front-line of the health care profession and are often the first line that meets the patient needs. Over the last few decades, nursing profession has evolved into a new phase and has advanced to higher standards. In today’s world, bed side nursing is considered to be a mere part of the many areas where nurses practice.
Direct nursing care includes collecting history, performing assessment, providing care, and delivering health education based on the patient’s health condition. In addition, nurses need to work jointly with other health care professionals to meet the health care needs of the patient. To work effectively in this challenging field, nurses need to upgrade their knowledge, skills, techniques and approach towards the patients as well as the profession. Apart from that, nurses need to improve their communication skills as they are always in contact with the patient. So, it is clear that nurses never stop learning and nursing is a continuous learning process.
Nurses today love challenges and are ready to explore the new areas in their profession. There are plenty of advanced specialty areas in nursing and nurses have sprouting opportunities to excel in the same. The initial nursing education is either a three year diploma or four year degree program (BSN) which includes both theory and practical blocks. This enables the nursing student to acquire adequate knowledge to work in the practical setting. Most of the countries require nursing students to appear for a licensure examination to qualify as a nurse. For instance NCLEX -RN/PN in the United States, CRNE/CPNRE in Canada. After acquiring the license, nurses are allowed to work as a nurse in any kind of health care settings. Nurses who are highly ambitious and those who want to conquer new areas in the profession have got ample options from which they can choose the specialty area of their choice.
Masters of Science in Nursing (MSN) is an advanced specialization degree that a registered nurse can pursue. An MSN graduate learns the application of various nursing and other theories for the delivery of evidence based nursing care, research, leadership and management and other courses based on their specialty area. MSN with different specifications like MSN in Nursing Education or Administration can work as a nursing faculty in nursing schools and as director of nursing in various health care settings. Nurses who aspire to practice advanced nursing can opt for Nurse Practitioner program or Doctor of Nurse Practice (DNP) program that allow them to address the critical needs of the patient. Their scope extends to taking patient’s history, diagnosing, writing prescriptions, treating and managing diseases.  Other specialty areas include Critical Care Nursing, Palliative Care Nursing, Community Mental Health Nursing, Gerontological/ Geriatric Nursing, Hospice Nurse, Nurse Informatics, Forensic Nursing and so on.
Critical care nurses are registered nurses who specifically work in Emergency Departments and Intensive Care Units providing nursing care to patients with life threatening conditions. Palliative care nursing is considered as a proactive care that improves the quality of care in patients with terminal illness. Hospice as well as Palliative Care nurses develop skills needed to enhance comprehensive care and support to patients confronting the end of life issues. The percentage of geriatric population is increasing leading to establishment of numerous long-term care facilities across the world. As a result, there is a greater need of specialized and experienced geriatric nurses to provide extensive nursing care for elderly and this is a high demand practice area.
All these nursing specialties have respective associations like Canadian Association of Critical Care Nurses, Hospice and Palliative Nurses Associations, Canadian Gerontological Nurses Association, American Association of Critical Care Nurses and so on. The nurse s can join the association based on their membership criteria. International Nurses also have opportunities to pursue their higher education on any of these specializations provided they fulfill the eligibility criteria. They can opt for their Nursing higher studies in Canada, USA and so on. If the nurses are interested in leadership or management areas, they can opt for Nursing Leadership and Management courses that help to improve their skills for the same. Nurses who wish to practice in advanced nursing areas have a vast pool of specialties from which they can pick their area of interest.
To summarize, in today’s world, nursing is not just a profession that focuses on treatment of patients. It has advanced its path from bedside nursing to Nursing administration & leadership, nursing research and to higher areas. Nurses play a vital role in transforming the face of health care system to a new level. Nursing is a different discipline. It is one of the main wings of the health profession. So all nurses, make use of your opportunities by upgrading and updating your nursing standards.

Reflective Practice In Nursing

To provide effective and efficient care services in medical profession is the need of the day. Reflection plays a vital role towards realizing our values. Since long many theories have been developed by the eminent writer like Bolton (2010). It helps us to compensate our mistakes and inspire us not to repeat them. Especially in nursing profession skills and knowledge both practically and theoretically are most important to deliver quality and individualized care. Therefore, it is extremely essential to comprehend how nurses can achieve client centered care through Reflective Practice.
Reflective Practice is inherent in nursing profession. It is how nurses can introspectively reflect on patient care. It is a new critical thinking regarding nursing profession. Though it has individual understanding while dealing care of the patient and their concerned family members. Reflective Practice in nursing profession is to assess the professional approach in caring of patient. It is the impression of that reflects regarding the skills and attitude of nurses which counts towards their caring treatment. At this point it reflects the feeling, how the nurses interacts and analyze the current condition of the client and develop the individualized plan of care. This is how the Nurses Professionalism is perceived by the other people.
In Reflective Practice one has to use conscious thoughtfulness and through this they can judge themselves for further improvement and become more efficient in patient care. It is how nurses show their responsibility, knowledge and skills to provide the best possible services to the patients. Johns (2004a) stated that reflection is being mindful of oneself, either within or after experience, as if a window through which the practitioner can view and focus oneself within the context of a particular experience, in order to confront, understand and move toward resolving contradiction between one’s vision and actual practice. Therefore, it is understood that Reflective Practice is an ongoing process for nurses to understand the strengths and weaknesses to improve upon further for their future success and enhance their nursing skills. Nurses are to make independent decisions to the best of their ability, knowledge and skills – self development and self awareness are the significant factors to achieve finest Reflective Practice in nursing profession.
Reflective Practice is more relevant for Health professional education and practice. It is ongoing process in nursing profession to achieve competency through Reflective Practice (Boud,1999).It improves thinking power to take corrective actions to improve in their performance. There are assortments of models of reflection described by researchers such as Johns model (2000), Kolb in (1984), Rolfe in (2001), the six thinking Hats (DeBono, 2000) and the Gibbs cycle of reflection (Gibbs, 1998). Gibbs model is the most extensively used to reflect. At the end it is concluded that Reflective Practice is essential in all the professions; however it is more important in case of  nurses who are entrusted in caring sick and ailing people.