Nurses are an essential faculty in society, and it is through them that the health care systems run with exemplary efficiency. Nursing education aims to ensure that nurses are equipped by enabling them to meet patients’ needs and function as leaders (Crowe, Ewart & Derman, 2018). According to Beeber, Palmer, Waldrop, Lynn, and Jones, (2019), for nurses to work efficiently with other professionals in the healthcare systems they need to achieve higher levels of education. Continuing Nursing education is vital as it seeks to improve a nursing practitioner’s competency and wholesomely improve the quality of service a nurse dissipates.
Options in the Job Market
There are various job opportunities, which people with a nursing degree can pursue. Some of the best options are becoming a registered nurse, an emergency room nurse, an operating room nurse, insurance firm nurse, or a registered nurse supervisor (Squires, Jylhä, Ensio & Kinnunen, 2017). In the current job market, these options seem to be the best and can provide stable earnings, personal growth, and an increased level of responsibility in life. Typically, the aforementioned career choices are also supported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, an establishment that projected that the employment of registered nurses would grow by 15% between 2016 and 2026.
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Emergency Room Nurse
An emergency room nurse supports patients experiencing significant injury or trauma. The nursing practitioners in this setting are obliged to perform assessments to determine the type and priority of care. Nursing professionals in the emergency room setting work in a myriad of stressful conditions and disaster scenarios where multiple casualties may be present (Polansky, Gorski, Green, Perez & Wise, 2017). It is also worth noting that these nurses earn about $59,476 annually.
Operation Room Nurses
Operation room nurses help patients understand medical procedures and prepare them for surgery. During surgery, they check the vital signs, sterilize, and mark incision sites, and administer medications (Polansky, Gorski, Green, Perez & Wise, 2017). The nurses also facilitate post-surgery care, including transporting patients to recovery rooms and changing their dressings.
Insurance Firm Nurse
Any registered nurse with impeccable statistics skills can occupy an analyst’s position at an insurance company. They can work as administrators tasked with the mandate to collaborate with case managers on patient approvals (Polansky, Gorski, Green, Perez & Wise, 2017). Insurance firm nurses may also pursue roles as consultants charged with the duty of designing and reviewing benefits packages.
Professional Certification and Advanced Degrees I Would Pursue
I hold a Bachelor’s degree in Nursing, but my main goal is to pursue a DNP, the doctor of nursing practice. Over the last ten years, the doctorate has evolved, and it is rapidly being pursued by many registered nurses. The DNP is tailored to shift a nursing practitioner’s focus from a patient-level to system-level approach (Edwards, Coddington, Kirkpatrick & Erler, 2018). Pursuing the DNP will allow me to have a vast experience in the ever-changing technology, interdisciplinary teamwork, and transitional science.
While a master’s degree teaches an individual how to care for a patient properly, the DNP focuses on system leadership, quality improvement, and evidence-based practiced. The endeavor also offers an alternative to research-focused programs (Edwards, Coddington, Kirkpatrick & Erler, 2018). After graduation, I found myself working in a rural health clinic, and I realized, quite quickly, how very wrong I was. Despite all my knowledge of psychiatric, I still was not providing care the right way. The issues I faced were much more significant; they were chronic and systemic. I intend to pursue my dream so that in the next seven years after I have completed a masters and DNP, I will comfortably look into emergent care issues from an experienced and knowledgeable standpoint.
Effects of Increasing your Level of Education On my Competitiveness in the Current Job Market and Role In the Future of Nursing
Completing a DNP program equips a nurse with fundamental skills that are imperative to successfully dispensing healthcare services in the contemporary ever-changing healthcare industry (Edwards, Coddington, Kirkpatrick & Erler, 2018). The DNP also prepares the next generation of nurses for the improvement of patients’ outcome regardless of where the industry is headed (Edwards, Coddington, Kirkpatrick & Erler, 2018). As an employer, it is these skills that will attract an individual and make him or her more suited for an administrative position. The skills, knowledge, and perspectives acquired through the completion of DNP endear nurses to potential employers.
Moreover, having DNP demystifies that a nurse has finely tuned skills that can act as a framework for the delivery of efficacious patient services (Edwards, Coddington, Kirkpatrick & Erler, 2018). A nurse that has attained a DNP has the edge over other interviewees. Having a DNP also opens up job opportunities in non-traditional settings such as public health departments, technology companies, think tanks, and non-profit organizations (Beeber, Palmer, Waldrop, Lynn & Jones, 2019).
After obtaining my DNP, I intend to become a consultant on health policies and health system organization for technology startup companies. I would also like to become a developer for curriculums that could be used by different nursing practitioner programs.
Relationship of Continuing Nursing Education to Competency, Attitudes, Knowledge, and the ANA Scope and Standards for Practice and Code of Ethics.
Competency
Principally, by pursuing higher levels of nursing education, a nurse becomes more competent, and it improves the quality of services that he or she dissipated. A master’s program teaches a nurse how to treat a patient, while a DNP program will teach them how to enact change on an organizational level. The bottom line is further learning betters the quality of the dispensed treatment and the functioning of the healthcare system.
Attitudes
Attitudes are affected and are controlled when a nurse pursues higher nursing education. One of the essentials that are covered by the DNP program is “interprofessional collaboration for improving patient and population health outcomes” (Squires, Jylhä, Ensio & Kinnunen, 2017). The course helps nurses recognize that each proferssional has a different attitude; hence, it equips them with the skills needed to handle differences in perception. The essential teaches nurses how and when to work with other professionals and makes them better by promoting positive attitudes.
Knowledge
Continuing nursing education makes nurses more knowledgeable in areas that include but not limited to clinical diagnosis of diseases, administration of treatment regimens, and the entirety of the patient care process. Further education also improves a nurses competency in system-level approaches (Squires, Jylhä, Ensio & Kinnunen, 2017). The bottom line is by continuing nursing education; the programs feature areas of concentration like pediatrics, women’s health, and adult-gerontology, from which nurses can choose to take a deeper dive into a specific aspect of health care (Squires, Jylhä, Ensio & Kinnunen, 2017). Pursing further education make a nurse an expert in a specific area, an endeavor that is consistent with the United States health sectors’ quest for quality patient care.
In conclusion, continuing nursing education is essential to a nurse as it enables him or her to deliver impeccable patient-care services. I think continuing nursing education should be mandatory because the healthcare system is ever-changing, and the staff ought to be able to realign their skills based on the prevailing demand. Moreover, if there are more DNP graduates, then it can be inferred that better services are rendered in hospitals and other healthcare settings. In this regard, nurses should endeavor to learn as a means to better their skills and expand their scope of knowledge on administration of treatment regimes, patient care, and healthcare management.
References
Beeber, A. S., Palmer, C., Waldrop, J., Lynn, M. R., & Jones, C. B. (2019). The role of Doctor of Nursing Practice-prepared nurses in practice settings. Nursing outlook .
Crowe, S., Ewart, L., & Derman, S. (2018). The impact of simulation-based education on nursing confidence, knowledge and patient outcomes on general medicine units. Nurse education in practice , 29 , 70-75.
Edwards, N. E., Coddington, J., Erler, C., & Kirkpatrick, J. (2018). The Impact of the Role of Doctor of Nursing Practice Nurses on Healthcare and Leadership. Medical Research Archives , 6 (4).
Garafalo, L. (2016). Continuing nursing education and outcomes: Making a difference inpatient care. The Journal of Continuing Education in Nursing , 47 (3), 103-105.
Polansky, P., Gorski, M. S., Green, A., Perez, G. A., & Wise, R. P. (2017). Nurses leading change to advance health. Nursing Outlook , 65 (6), 746-752.
Squires, A., Jylhä, V., Jun, J., Ensio, A., & Kinnunen, J. (2017). A scoping review of nursing workforce planning and forecasting research. Journal of nursing management , 25 (8), 587-596.
