Professional Nursing Practice: Portfolio, Standards, Membership

This article discusses professional nursing practice, including portfolio, standards, and membership. It explains the benefits of using a professional portfolio and the importance of following professional standards. It also suggests joining the Australian College of Nursing to expand competencies related to mental health nursing.

Running head: PROFESSIONAL NURSING PRACTICE
Professional nursing practice
Name of the student:
Name of the University:
Author’s note

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1. Professional practice portfolio
1.1 Description:
A professional practice portfolio is an organized document that provides an insight into
nurse’s record of current nursing competencies, experiences gathers so far in practice and key
professional learning and development. It gives an overview of current and past working role
and responsibilities and other activities related to professional development. It can also be
defined as nurse’s documentation of skills, competencies, professional achievements and
professional experience in the nursing field. It enables nurse practitioners to provide evidence
regarding competencies and experience gained through enrolment in specific health care
institution. It is an appropriate approach to showcase ongoing professional knowledge and
education to achieve employment goals. Chamblee et al. (2015) explains that professional
portfolio is an appropriate tool to demonstrate commitment and progress towards advanced
practice. Hence, it can be defined as an individualized document that displays
accomplishments and career planning.
The key components of a professional practice portfolio include the following:
 Biographical information
 Summary of education and professional licensure
 Employment history
 Reflection statements on professional strength and weakness
 Performance review
 Professional awards
 Personal philosophy of nursing

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 Support for evidence based practice
 Case histories related to nursing related activities and skills
 Professional development plans and activities (Chamblee et al., 2015) .
1.2 Argument:
There are multiple reasons behind the use of professional practice portfolio. These includes
establishing career goals, illustrating specific area of expertise, showcasing professional practice,
developing knowledge and skills, planning future career opportunities and applying in a reputed
hospital (Chamblee et al., 2015) .
Use of a professional portfolio is associated with many benefits and advantage for nurses.
One of the prominent benefits is that this document enables them to demonstrate their capability
and progress towards professional nursing practice. Casey et al. (2017) argues that professional
practice portfolios is a mechanism to maintain continuing professional competence required in
advanced nursing practice. Registered nurses in many countries have the obligation to complete
minimum set hours of continuous professional development (CPD) to become a registered nurse.
Hence, use of professional portfolio provides nurse with the opportunity to provide details of the
CPD course undertaken and this provides them the opportunity to maintain profile for continuing
licensure. It also enables nurse to identify areas of improvement. Therefore, it acts as the
catalysts that encourage nurse to plan future activities based on critical review of past
performance.
Another advantage of using professional portfolio is that it supports nurse to engage in
critical reflection on clinical practice. The practice of developing portfolio is an approach to
enhance analytical and critical thinking among nursing students. Ticha and Fakude (2015)

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investigated about the perception of fourth-year nursing students regarding their experience of
compiling portfolios and the study revealed that this exercise was associated with increase in
self-esteem, confidence and critical thinking among student nurse. The process preparing
portfolio also developed their ability to engage in self-directed learning. Hence, by looking to
analyze the pros and cons of their action, they were able to understand the areas in which they
were lagging behind and the area in which they need further training. However, certain
challenges in the use of portfolio have also been documented in studies. For example, some of
the challenges in the use of portfolio include time constraints and lack of support from
supervisors. As nursing students find it burdensome to complete different component of the
portfolio, providing appropriate supervision to such students might help to increase motivation
level of students related to the use of professional portfolios. Haggerty and Thompson (2017)
also supports that timing of using portfolio is important as introduction of portfolio during exams
and assessments creates barriers for students as they could not find time to use the portfolio
appropriately.
1.3 Management and leadership:
Nursing is a dynamic and challenging profession that requires inspiring leaders. Currently
there is increased focus on identifying and developing nurse leaders so that complex care
situations can be handled with maturity (Scully, 2015). This requires the nurse to display both
management and leadership competencies. Leadership competencies in nursing involves the
communication and relationship building competencies, interpersonal skills, human resource
management skills, financial management skills and system thinking skills. These competencies
enable graduate nurse to advance into leadership role (Waxman et al., 2017). However, the
difference between management and leadership competencies is that it included management

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related skills but not the skills to motivate others. Nursing leadership is a wider responsibility
that focuses on effective handling of complex clinical situation as well as behaviour of
employees and staffs. However, nursing management is related to fulfilment of organization
objective. It does not rely on trust and commitment to achieve key vision. It can be said that
management competencies are required to control processes and outcomes, whereas leadership
competencies are required to motivate employees to engage in innovative ways of practice and
develop the quality of care (Pihlainen, Kivinen & Lammintakanen, 2016).
Development of leadership and management competencies can be evidenced in a
professional practice portfolio by statement on actions done that reflect leadership skills. Nursing
students gives details on past role in clinical practice that helped them to display leadership
competencies. For example, critical thinking and system thinking competencies related to
leadership role has been explained by nursing students in portfolio by reflective account of
situations in which their action played a role in eradicating emergency situation or avoiding
conflict in care delivery (Bradley, 2016). Good understanding regarding leadership and
management competency facilitates nursing students to prepare their portfolios in a professional
manner and comprehensively display leadership competency to desired recruiters. A situation
where nurses participated in decision making with health care professionals to influence care of
patient could also explain management or leadership competencies in staffs. Cope and Murray
(2018) gave the evidence that portfolio have given clinical nurse leaders the opportunity to
inform their employers about specialized skills like quality improvement, patient safety and
teamwork.
2. Professional standards
2.1 Description of situation:

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During one of my nursing clinical placement, my clinical facilitator handed me to a 55 year
old patient, who had been transported to the ward following a surgical procedure. The patient
was on epidural catheter with morphine to control post-operative pain. I was on night shift and
the handover nurse was in a rush to go back due to some emergency at home. She just informed
in a rush that the patient need to be provided Demerol every three hours for pain management
and handed me the medication order for the patient.
As per the six rights of medication administration, I followed all systematic steps to maintain
medication administration safety and did not rushed to just provide the order medication to
patient. This practice of following professional standards in practice and being accountable for
the safety of patient helped me to prevent major health risk for patient. As per the six rights of
medication administration, I matched the patient name with that of the order. However, while
working to ensure that the right drug was prescribed to patient, I realized that the handover nurse
failed to notice an important warning in the medication order. The pre-printed medication order
stated that no narcotics or sedatives should be given to patient during and after 12 hours of
epidural medication. Being responsive and alert while implementing my nursing responsibilities
helped to avoid health risk for patient. This is said because if I had followed the nurse’s order of
prescribing the medication without reviewing the medication order, this would have lead to
major respiratory issues and even death for patient. Hence, a critical situation of unnecessary
patient safety error was avoided through my ability to be accountable and responsible in my role
as a nurse.

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Critical discussion:
The above situation in my clinical placement reflects that I had the skills and capability to be
accountable towards safety of patient. By taking the approach to systematically follow all steps
of the six rights of medication administration, I was able to avoid a major health risk event for
patient. The standard 3 of the NMBA (Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia) standards of
practice for registered nurse mentions that nurses should maintain the capability for practice.
This involves the responsibility of registered nurse to be accountable for the safety of patient and
responding in a timely manner to the health and well-being of other in relation to practice
(NMBA, 2016). Hence, by taking the approach to review medication order and ensure that the
medication mentioned by the handover is safe for patient, I played a role in maintaining well-
being for patient. This situation demonstrates my skills related to accountability and taking
action to promote health of patient. Accountability is the ability to protect client and other staffs
from the adverse effect of negligent and unsafe practice and Battie and Steelman (2015) supports
that accountability is an important component of patient safety. Nurse should be accountable for
the safety and continuity of care.
By taking the action to fulfil the six rights of medication administration and carefully
reviewing all written statements in the medication order, I played a role in fulfilling
responsibility inherent in my role. The six rights of medication administration is the quality
indicator for safe medication administration. During nursing education program, nurses are
trained to practice the six rights of medication administration which includes right patient, right
drug, right dose, right time, right route and right documentation. The significance of
implementing the six rights in clinical practice is that it is accurate in identifying any medication
safety issues (Smeulers et al., 2015). By taking the responsibility to follow current guidelines

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and standards related to medication administration, I demonstrated my commitment towards safe
and just practice. The benefit of following professional guideline is also understood from my
clinical experience as it helped me to yield positive outcome for patient and reduce unnecessary
pressure during care delivery.
Hence, my action of systematically recording and reviewing documentation process,
conducting assessment and fulfilling the basic tenets of medication administration safety is also
relevant to NMBA standard 4. It states that nurse should conduct holistic assessment and assess
the resource available to inform planning (NMBA, 2016). My action of reviewing medication
order is in relevance with this standard. It also reflects positive attitude towards following
guideline and this is also important because poor perception about medication safety guidelines
also acts as a barrier for many nurse during medication administration (Yung et al., 2016). For
this reason, they engage in incomplete medication documentation and environmental distractions
leading to medication errors (Hemingway et al., 2014). Therefore, being accountable and
responsible is a professional attribute that is critical for a professional nurse to transition to
advanced nursing role.
3. Professional membership
3.1 Report peak professional nursing organization
I am interested in serving mentally ill patient and becoming a professional mental health
nurse. In accordance with my career path, I feel the Australian College of nursing is an important
professional nursing organization that will guide me towards my goal. This organization can
support me in building my competency for mental health nursing by offering different short term
courses and continuous professional development (CPD) opportunities. The requirement for

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achieving membership of this organization includes signing online. Once I avail the membership
at ACN, I can get the opportunity to network with other members, engage in online discussions
and join various online and CPD course. In the area of mental health nursing, ACN provides
CPD course on mental health first aid training, mental health update and other importance
developments in the specialty field. Online CPD module at ACN focus on providing knowledge
related to legal and ethical requirements of care in mental health, method for conducting suicide
risk assessment, explaining nursing role in relation to mental health challenges and identify
psychosis (Australian College of Nursing (ACN), 2018). Hence, by joining CPD in this
organization, I will be able to expand my competencies related to mental health nursing. The
CPD offered is relevant to my career path as I will be required to handle complex cases of patient
with challenging mental health behaviour. The institute will provided me the opportunity to
develop my skills related to mental health nursing and develop special skills to handle diverse
patients with complex mental health issues.

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References:
Australian College of Nursing (ACN) 2018. Mental health. Retrieved
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Battie, R., & Steelman, V. M. (2015). Accountability in nursing practice: Why it is important for
patient safety. ACORN: The Journal of Perioperative Nursing in Australia, 28(4), 14.
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ype=pdf
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