What are your professional aims? How can you apply what you have learned in your coursework to your practicum setting?

Preparing for Professional Transitions
Consider the following scenario:

Marcus recalls the beginning of his career, when he started as a nurse at Grand View Hospital. He had heard the organization was soliciting proposals from various companies so they could weigh the pros and cons associated with adopting a new health information technology system. He has been curious about the request for proposal (RFP) process ever since. Now, as he looks forward to new professional opportunities, he would like to ensure that he develops the skills and expertise needed to formulate an RFP.

What are your professional aims? How can you apply what you have learned in your coursework to your practicum setting? How will you leverage your experiences in the practicum to facilitate your development as a nurse leader-manager or informaticist?

In this Discussion, you reflect on your aspirations and consider the transitions that may be required to achieve them. You identify professional development objectives and evaluate opportunities for achieving them through your experiences in the practicum.

Think about the professional role changes you have been undergoing or that you may undertake following completion of this MSN program.

Review the information related to professional development and role change in the Learning Resources, and conduct additional research as necessary to address any questions or concerns you may have.

Consider the following questions:

What types of professional positions interest you? Are they significantly different from the types of positions you have held in the past? If so, how?

What challenges are you likely to encounter as you transition into a new role?

What resources could help you to manage this change? Consider your inner resources (e.g., drawing on previous experiences, stress management), resources available to you through your relationships with others, and institutional supports.

Consider how you could use this Practicum Experience to apply what you have learned and enhance or acquire specialization skills and knowledge, regardless of whether you intend to change roles or stay in your current position for the time being.

Review the NURS 6600 Course Outcomes listed in the Syllabus. Determine how your experiences in the practicum could help you to achieve one or more of these outcomes.

Review the information in the Introduction to the Practicum (in this week’s Practicum area) and the School of Nursing Practicum Manual as necessary to ensure you have a clear understanding of the practicum requirements.

Review the suggestions for developing effective learning objectives provided in the Learning Resources.

Think of two or three objectives that could help guide your professional development during your practicum. These objectives, referred to as your practicum professional development objectives, must be:

Specific

Measurable

Attainable

Results-focused

Time-focused

Reflective of the higher-order domains of Bloom’s Taxonomy (i.e., Application level and above)

Select one or more practicum professional development objectives to focus on for this Discussion. (You may continue to hone these objectives as you work on this week’s Application Assignment.)

Reflect on how you could achieve each objective through your Practicum Experience.

Post an explanation of your professional aspirations and how you intend to use the Practicum Experience to promote career change and/or enhance your performance. Describe at least one objective to facilitate your professional growth, and explain the steps you could take to achieve the objective(s) during your Practicum Experience. Support your response with examples from the literature.

Read a selection of your colleagues’ responses.

Respond to at least two of your colleagues on two different days, using one or more of the following approaches:

Suggest strategies for using the Practicum Experience to deepen or broaden their knowledge.

Offer suggestions for refining their practicum professional objective(s).

Required Readings

Note: To access this week’s required library resources, please click on the link to the Course Readings List, found in the Course Materials section of your Syllabus.

Cipriano, P. F., & Murphy, J. (2011). The future of nursing and health IT: The quality elixir. Nursing Economic$, 29(5), 286–289.

Note: Retrieved from the Walden Library databases.

“Technology tools will continue to revolutionize how we plan, deliver, document, review, evaluate, and derive the evidence about care” (p. 289). This article examines how nurses can use information technology to transform nursing and redesign the health care system. It focuses on the use of technology to promote quality and notes that technology can also be used to address challenges in education, research, leadership, and policy.

McKimm, J., & Swanwick, T. (2009). Setting learning objectives. British Journal of Hospital Medicine, 70(7), 406–409.

Note: Retrieved from the Walden Library databases.

This article clarifies the terminology associated with learning objectives and explains how learning objectives relate to professional development and the transformation from novice to expert. It also introduces common pitfalls when setting learning objectives and provides suggestions for avoiding them.

Murphy, J. (2011). The nursing informatics workforce: Who are they and what do they do? Nursing Economic$, 29(3), 150–153.

Note: Retrieved from the Walden Library databases.