Reference no: EM133782369 , Length: word count:6000
Transition to Professional Practice
Assessment: Professional Portfolio (Reflective Journal and CPD)
Aim:
The aim of this Professional Portfolio assignment is to demonstrate your engagement and learning with the course content. This assessment will enable you to prepare for professional practice as a Registered nurse. By providing evidence of continuing professional development you will meet the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA) and the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia (NMBA) requirements for entry to the register.
This Professional Portfolio assignment consists of two parts: Part A is a reflection of your clinical experiences and learning in relation to the course content; and Part B is a continuing professional development (CPD) plan.
Part A Professional Portfolio - Reflective Journal (2000 words)
This part of the assessment requires you to reflect on previous and current clinical placement experiences, preferred future clinical specialty AND the content of this course.
Envision for a moment, you have just been offered a job as a Graduate Registered Nurse at your current clinical placement venue or a chosen clinical specialty area. With this in mind, use reflective practice and draw upon your learning from the content from this course, to write a reflection on how you will prepare for your first year of employment as a Graduate Registered Nurse.
Reflective Journal: Please use the following sub-headings
Introduction (150 words)
Introduce the professional portfolio, its purpose and what it will contain. You may like to (briefly) report your clinical experiences, where you hope to work and any relevant professional details (e.g. work experience, other qualifications/certificates, prior clinical experiences). Also identify the structure of Part A (reflective journal).
Critical evaluation (450)
This section requires that you reflect on your studies in the undergraduate nursing program to critically evaluate your knowledge, skills, attitudes, behaviours and resilience for transition to professional practice. Discuss one aspect (e.g. knowledge, skills, attitudes, behaviours, resilience) for transition that you have focused on developing. Discuss why this aspect has been of particular focus, how you have tried to develop this attribute and whether you feel it has improved. Please provide supporting evidence collected from two formative exercises undertaken in this course.
Placement reflection (600 words)
Using the Gibb's reflective cycle, reflect on your learning needs to successfully work as a Graduate Registered Nurse at your current or previous clinical placement venue or a chosen clinical specialty area by including the following (provide equal word count to each point):
- Describe your learning needs for the chosen area of nursing practice;
- Discuss your thoughts and feelings about the experience;
- Evaluate your experience by discussing the positive and negative aspects;
- Analyse your experience to make sense of the situations;
- Conclude what you learned and what you could have done differently; and
- Develop an action plan, or general changes you might find appropriate to ensure success working as a Graduate Registered Nurse at your current clinical placement venue or a chosen clinical specialty area.
Leadership in nursing (400 words)
Using the reflection provided above, discuss the role of the registered nurse in providing clinical leadership, delegation and supervision to help address learning needs of self and others. Please also discuss the factors that promote effective leadership and teamwork in nursing.
Working as a Graduate Registered Nurse (400 words)
Consider that you are now working as a Graduate Registered Nurse in your chosen specialty area. Discuss how your scope of practice as a Graduate Registered Nurse will differ from a Registered Nurse Student and how you will ensure that your practice is safe, evidence-based and person-centred. Please provide a referenced discussion.
Part B Continuing Professional Development (CPD) Plan (equiv. 4000 words)
This part of the assessment requires you to design an early career plan to support transition to professional practice and meet continuing professional development requirements of a Registered Nurse. Using the placement reflection in Part A, develop an individualised continuing professional development (CPD) plan for your first year of practice, as a Graduate Registered Nurse.
The Continuing Professional Development (CPD) Registration Standard sets out the minimum requirements for CPD for nurses and midwives (NMBA 2016a). To meet this registration standard, you must complete a minimum of 20 hours of CPD per registration period (NMBA 2016a). The NMBA requires you to engage in CPD activities and encourages you to spread these activities over the course of the year (NMBA 2016b). You must keep records of your CPD for a period of five years from the date you completed the CPD (NMBA 2016a). All CPD records must be available for audit or as part of an investigation arising from a complaint (NMBA 2016a). The NMBA has developed a self-directed CPD evidence record that you can use for planning and recording your CPD (NMBA 2016c).
Using the NMBA self-directed CPD evidence template, develop your CPD plan as a Graduate Registered Nurse. Your CPD plan should identify 20 hours of CPD. Your plan should document:
- ‘Identified learning needs' with clear links to the Registered Nurse Standards for Practice (2016).
- An ‘action plan' to meet the identified learning needs.
- The ‘type of activity' you plan to undertake to meet the identified learning needs, the rationale for the type of activity you listed.
- A short description of the planned activity.
- A reflection statement of how the CPD activity will facilitate your transition to professional practice.
- Evidence that you will be used to demonstrate satisfactory completion of the CPD activity.
- Anticipated CPD hours each activity will take.
Referencing
The content of the Professional Portfolio must be supported through referencing of current literature and must include a reference list and intext citations. You will be assessed on referencing so make sure to follow the APA 7th referencing style.
Overall writing and presentation
This Professional Portfolio must be saved and submitted as word documents, using the templates provided. Part A: Reflective journal must be presented using academic writing (i.e. sentence and paragraph structure). You will be assessed on the overall writing and presentation, so make sure that you follow the academic writing guidelines. Please refer to the academic writing guidelines.
Word limit: 6000 words (equivalent)