NURS FPX 6080 Assessment 6 Professional Identity and Capstone Planning

Q.1 As a master’s level nursing student, consider how your concentration or courses and practicum have contributed to the development of your identity as a nurse. What would you like to achieve in your next steps of career development?

I have been inspired to be a nurse because of my role as a graduate nurse at the master’s level – I have a lot of different competencies as a nurse, such as clinical judgement, leadership, and evidence-based nursing. These learned practices have given me ideas to offer patient-centered, multi-disciplinary, and quality improvement nursing practices. I’m therefore freed of my focus on task work to focus on critical thinking and leadership. Some specific courses have provided me with skills to develop my ability to analyze the health informatics, health care system and patient safety issues. Career plans that I think I would like to explore in the future are pursuing a career with getting to know more about being a nurse practitioner in a leadership role.

Q2. How can nurses’ professional identity be based on diversity, equity, and inclusion?

DEI is also reflected in nurses’ professional identity, as one should demonstrate respect and competence towards patients from a different culture. To address this challenge, nurses need first to see if they have any implicit or explicit biases around DEI and then identify the problem. Further, they should develop an understanding of other cultures’ health care perceptions. The second characteristic that resonates with DEI and communicates nurses’ professional identity is equal access to health care for all people. In this instance, it is important they don’t discriminate against patients based on things such as their nationality, skin colour, gender, age, etc. Inclusivity is the third characteristic that is a part of nurses’ professional identity and links to DEI.

Q3. Reflect on a patient-centered experience that you had where you utilized the concepts of diversity, equity, and inclusion. In that experience, how did you enable the patient to make his/her health choices?

When it came to patient-centered care, I was given some attitudes towards medical procedures, and the DEI approach was applied when dealing with a patient from the culturally diverse community. Effective communication was done by communicating in simple language to the patient(s) and checking to see if the patient(s) understood what was communicated using the teach-back method. Also, a focus on the culture of the patient was considered, and other family members were added where necessary. On a patient empowerment note, patients were informed about several possible treatment procedures, and the choice was left for the patient to make a decision according to his or her opinion.

Q4. What can you do to motivate colleagues to maintain the conversation of racial and social justice and be professional ‘role models’ when it comes to implicit bias in your workplace?

Leaders’ active involvement is necessary when attempting to influence behavior that will provide justice in society and in race relations. This could be modeled through the use of dialogue sessions regarding employee bias, during team meets, trainings, and reflections. This will allow me time to get my staff members to think more about how they may be biased. If I am a leader, I will encourage the behaviour as ‘just, ‘and then  promote the cultural competence and mentoring minorities in a positive way through dialogue. In addition to the three types of motivation discussed, policy development and quality improvement efforts to improve social justice are other types of motivation.

Q5. What subjects would be of interest to you for your MSN capstone project? Summarize the opportunities that you had to participate in your specialization courses. Think about your desire(s) in nursing and anything you would like to try to solve or work through.

Some of the areas I would want to focus on when pursuing an MSN capstone project would be ones that could help the patient be safer, how quality is driven in healthcare services, and health disparities. There are certain areas where I would like to research for my MSN capstone project, such as Infection Control in a hospital, implementing best practices, and training the hospital staff members. I find the area of infection control to be challenging, because it would enable me to apply all the knowledge I have gained throughout my classes, as well as exciting, because I would be helping in combat. There are other areas that are fascinating in the healthcare field, such as health informatics.