Class 1 Unit 9 Assigment

SELF-DIRECTED LEARNING PLAN

The Self-Directed Learning Plan (SDLP) is a process and document to chronicle your accomplishments and learning steps through the MSN program and beyond as they relate to your professional goals.

The SDLP will help you to identify and target the array of competencies you need to reach your professional objectives and to help you organize your Kaplan MSN learning experience to suit your career objectives.

The SDLP will be a section of your Program Portfolio, so take some quality introspective time to consider strengths and areas of development relevant to your career objectives.Knowing your strengths and areas to develop, you can begin a plan to find out what you need to do to achieve your career goals. We encourage you to continue to reflect on the identified areas throughout the MSN program. If you feel strength or development area is no longer relevant, you may add another to take its place. At any time, you may also add additional areas.

Your Name: M A Date: 07/01/2017

Anticipated Nursing Role: Family Nurse Practitioner with a focus on Pediatric

Professional Goal (3-5 years) from now: My long-term goal (7-10 years) is to open my own practice offering primary care to patients across populations suffering from common to acute to chronic illnesses. In this case, my 3 to 5 years professional goals must fit in this plan. They include completing my MSN program, getting my FNP licensure and finding suitable settings, preferably a busy hospital offering all-round FNP services from which I can garner ample experience to enable me open my own practice. This implies not just hands on care, but leadership/managerial skills that would be critical in helping me direct healthcare services delivered in my practice.

Knowledge that prepares a graduate student for an advanced nursing role:

Knowledge of background in humanities and sciences, as it pertains to NP. This is needed as NPs prepared at graduate/master’s level should be ready to integrate genetics, organization sciences, biopsychosocial fields, public health and scientific findings derived from FNP research to continually improve delivery of nursing care in various settings. Knowledge of healthcare systems at national, organization, unit and departmental levels, as well as, organizational and personal leadership is critical to enable an FNP direct safe, cost conscious and quality patient care at a personal and organizational level. Considering that, FNPs must deal with complex issues and deliver comprehensive care, knowledge of integrating and translating research into practice is needed to enable NPs use best-evidence practice to resolve dire patient and clinical settings problems. NPs must also have the knowledge of how healthcare technologies and informatics are used to enable them communication efficiently, coordinate care, use patient technologies to increase efficiency in care delivery and improve overall care outcomes. This also goes for knowledge of advocacy and healthy policy to be able to engage themselves in policy development at organizational and political level to advance NP practice, as well as, knowledge of population health to understand the conditions and dynamics of patients that the FNP delivered care to. More so, knowledge of clinical prevention and inter-professional collaboration is needed, including how to communication, for inter-professional teams and lead them. This also goes for knowledge of how to formulate patient-centered and comprehensive care plans (Hamric,  Spros,  & Hanson, 2013).

Skills that prepare a graduate student for an advanced nursing role:

Specific skills that will be needed for the NP role include advanced decision-making, diagnostic reasoning and health assessment skills. This also goes for skills for implementing and prescribing therapeutic interventions, both pharmacological and non-pharmacological. This also goes for proper communication skills to communicate appropriately with other health professionals and to patients. This also goes for analytical skills to help analyze the complex issues in the clinical settings, and collaborative skills to enable delivery of comprehensive care through collaborating with other healthcare providers. This also goes for flexibility to propel through the changing FNP practice, work-life-balance to make one productive, as well as, a healthcare facility by preventing burnout, time management skills, organizational skills, and extremely important, the advanced clinical skills to allow delivery of quality/advanced care to patients (National Organization of Nurse Practitioner Faculties, 2012).

Accomplishments that prepare a graduate student for an advanced nursing role:

Accomplishments required to prepare for the NP role include completing a Master’s degree, with the specialty being NP, getting licensed/certifiedand having sufficient practicum experience of the NP core roles and responsibilities to allow one to start practicing. Ultimately, the major accomplishment is understanding and having the ability to perform NP core roles and responsibility with proficiency and precision, including formulating comprehensive care plans, prescribing medication, making proper diagnoses, directing care, as well as, providing care to patients of different population and in different settings under scope of practice. This is in addition to developing a solid personal nursing philosophy that acts as a frame of reference throughout the NP career. Most importantly, a major accomplishment must be developing at a personal level by allowing the education process nurture a character/personality attuned to nursing. This implies developing compassion, self-confidence and all other attributes that would make an NP stand out in the delivery of care (Kaakinen, Coehlo & ‎ Steele, 2013).

Strengths to Leverage

Step 1:The most effective and satisfied people align their work with their natural strong points.Identify 3-5 of your key strengths (see Column 1 below); these could be a competency, skill, ability, knowledge area or personal characteristic.Think about how you can leverage those strengths to be effective in your work, achieve your professional goals, and become a leader in your profession.

Step 2:At the beginning of each course in your MSN program, answer the following question either using this template or a narrative format. What do you expect to learn in this course that will help you leverage your strengths? (See Column 2 below) Be as specific as you can, e.g., assume that a strength is your analytical ability.

Step 3: Answer the following questions either using this template or a narrative format.Did you learn what you expected to learn? (See Column 3 below) Was there information or insights that helped you that you didn’t expect to learn at the outset of the course?What changes or additions, if any, will you make to your SDLP based on learning in this course?

Areas to Develop

Step 1:We all have strengths, but we also have areas on which we need to improve.As related to your career goal, identify 3-5 areas to develop (see Column 1 below); these could be a competency, skill, ability, knowledge area or personal characteristic.Think about how you can improve in these areas so that you can achieve your professional goals and become a leader in your profession.

Step 2:What do you expect to learn in this course that will help you to develop in the identified area? (See Column 2 below)

Step 3:Answer the following questions either using this template.Did you learn what you expected to learn? (See Column 3 below) Was there information or insights that helped you that you didn’t expect to learn at the outset of the course?What changes or additions, if any, will you make to your SDLP based on learning in this course?

Reflection

What do you expect to learn in this course that will help you achieve your academic and professional goals? (Your reflection should be at least one well developed paragraph.)

I believe this course is critical in my professional and academic goals, as it helps form the foundation of my solid career in FNP. The course will help me garner critical knowledge and skills that will help me garner hands-on/clinical skills, management and leadership competencies critical in offering safe, efficient and effective care. On clinical skills, I will be able to acquire advanced knowledge and skills on how to conduct comprehensive patient assessments, diagnose clients, offer diagnostic tests and use complex decision-making and problem-solving skills to arrive at the correct diagnosis and design a comprehensive, holistic care plan for patients. In the case of leadership and management, I will be able to garner knowledge and skills to help me leverage different leadership styles, attributes and abilities as per situations to lead others effectively towards delivering care. In the case of management, I will be able to garner skills and knowledge of budgetary and resource allocations, and interconnectedness of care across systems among other issues. Although these are critical to my professional and academic goals, I believe that I will garner knowledge and experience in other NP areas to improve of my FNP competencies to be in a position to attain my goals. The course will help me attain my MSN degree and this basically imply that I can get licensed as an FNP to start practicing in different challenging settings, preferably a large hospital in which I can learn how to deal with complex cases, as well as, direct care.

References

Hamric, A. B., Spross, J. A., & Hanson, C. M. (2013). Advanced practice nursing: An integrative approach, 5th Ed. New York, NY: Elsevier Health Sciences.

Kaakinen, J. W., ‎ Coehlo, D. P., & ‎ Steele, R. (2013). Family health care nursing: Theory, practice, and research. London, LND: F. A. Davis.

National Organization of Nurse Practitioner Faculties. (2012). Nurse practitioner core competencies. Retrieved April 22, 2016 from https://www.pncb.org/ptistore/resource/content/about/2012_NP_Core_Competencies.pdf

Self-Directed Learning Plan 1