Professional Development Goals
My primary professional development goal as a family nurse practitioner (FNP) is to improve my standard of care for patients. As this is a complex and multifaceted task, working towards it requires developing multiple skills and areas of practice. The first and obvious area is receiving more clinical practice. Second, since an FNP’s work involves patients of every age, I intend to further my education and studies into illnesses that affect different age groups and outcome disparities that are related to age. Finally, but perhaps most importantly, family practice is closely connected with social and cultural aspects of nursing, especially when caring for a family over the long term. Due to this fact, building and maintaining a relationship with one’s patients is a crucial part of an FNP’s work. Therefore, I plan to become more culturally competent throughout my education and career to be able to provide the best possible care for families from diverse backgrounds.
Alignment with Social Change
Being an FNP would give me a significant opportunity to enact social change in my community. Contacting families directly and over the long term would allow me to gain a better understanding of the social processes and disparities that exist within this community. In turn, this understanding would allow me to advocate for them or personally contribute to their resolution. Cultural competence is a crucial skill for this, as it allows the practitioner to notice, understand, and attempt to address these disparities, while a lack of cultural competence can exacerbate them (Darnell & Hickson, 2015). Therefore, I believe that practicing cultural competence, combined with the highest possible standard of care, would align with the University’s emphasis on social change
References
Darnell, L. K., & Hickson, S. V. (2015). Cultural competent patient-centered nursing care. Nursing Clinics of North America, 50(1), 99-108. Web.