Competencies and the Walden Mission, Essay Example

AACN Competencies and the Walden Mission, Vision, and Outcomes

After studying The Essentials of Doctoral Education for Advanced Nursing Practice (The American Association of Colleges for Nursing, 2006), I realized there was a great deal of overlap between the competencies listed in this document, the Walden Vision, Mission and Goals statement and my own academic and professional goals.  One main area of overlap involves the essential area of being grounded in science and research no matter what your future goals may be.  The AACN Essential I is labeled as “Scientific Underpinnings for Practice”.   A strong foundation in scientific study and research in the field of nursing is important as is the ability to draw upon it and translate findings into practical applications in health care.  This is expressed in the Integrity section of Walden’s Mission Statement as follows: “Walden University believes that the inquiry/action model fosters critical thinking and underpins research and discovery for . . .  scholar-practitioners (doctoral students). This model provides the framework for teaching, learning, and assessment” (AACN, 2006).

These two objectives also match my goals.  My Professional goal are learning how to diagnose, counsel, provide treatment and teach effectively.My academic goals are to learn science-based theories and concepts in order to:

• Determine the nature and significance of health and health care delivery phenomena,
• Describe actions and advance strategies to improve health care delivery
• Develop, deliver, and evaluate theory-based health care

In order to achieve my goals I will need a firm foundation in the scientific literature and be able to analyze, integrate and apply the finding of future studies in health care and academic settings.

Today the role of nurses is truly multidisciplinary.  In addition to patient care, nurses are involved in consultation with schools, public agencies and policy makers, follow-up treatment, patient education illness prevention, research, and training.  While attempting to provide numerous types of services and play a variety of different roles it is important for nurses to keep in mind their position as role models for inducing social change.

In order to promote positive social change, one must first have a firm foundation in scientific theory, research and practical applications.  Once that is in place, it is possible to apply individual goals to the advancement of social change.  In terms of my goals, two that fit particularly well with working towards social change are teaching effectively and describe actions and advance strategies to improve health care delivery.

In order to truly promote social change a nurse must work towards effectively teaching patients other practitioners and students about such aspects of health care as ethical treatment, rights and responsibilities, privacy, dignity and diversity (Kelley, Connory, Kunz, & Salmon, 2008).  In order, to better understand how to focus on these aspects myself and then teach them to others, I will be keeping a journal that I will use to record observations about examples of these facets of health care that I have seen implemented, ways that  these aspects could have been employed in various professional and academic situations, questions I have about how best to implement and teach these priorities and asking professionals I work with to answer them, and research on cases and studies that provide information about the implementation and teaching of these healthcare objectives.

In order to maintain a focus on social change and become used to behaving in a way consistent with this outcome, I will need to not only learn how to better provide health care services I will need to be knowledgeable enough to be able to describe specific actions and advance effective strategies to improve health care delivery (Kemppainen, Tossavainen, & Turunen, 2013).  This will incorporate aspects of policy making, advocacy, multidisciplinary knowledge and research.  This goal also overlaps with teaching others and focusing on the scientific underpinnings of nursing practice. In order to develop these skills, I will obtain practicum experience that will provide experience in these different areas.  I will look to my professors and professional mentors to provide suggestions and advice regarding how to locate practicums that incorporate as many of these factors as possible.

References

American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN). (2006). The essentials of doctoral education for advanced nursing practice. Washington, DC: Author.

Kelley, M. A., Connory, A., Kunz, K. E. & Salmon, M. E. (2008). Social Responsibility: Conceptualization and Embodiment in a School of Nursing. International Journal of Nursing, 5(1). Retrieved from http://nursing.emory.edu/_includes/docs/sections/lccin/social_responsibility.pdf

VirpiKemppainen, V., Tossavainen, K.  and Turunen, H. (2013). Nurses’ roles in health promotion practice: an integrative review. Health Promotion International. Retrieved from http://heapro.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2012/08/10/heapro.das034.full#cited-by

Walden University. (2011). Student publications: Vision, mission, and goals. Retrieved from http://catalog.waldenu.edu/Retrieved from https://www.aacn.nche.edu/education-resources/PhDPosition.pdf