Nursing Informatics: Career Reflection on BSN Career Paths

This essay, focusing on nursing informatics, provides a reflective analysis of a nursing career using Gibbs' Reflective Cycle. The student, pursuing a BSN, explores the advantages of higher education, emphasizing the improved patient care and increased responsibilities associated with a BSN degree compared to an RN. The reflection highlights various career options like Public Health Nurse, Care Coordinator, and Nurse Manager, with a preference for a Public Health Nurse role. The essay underscores the importance of lifelong learning, patient-centered care, and the potential for career advancement through master's and doctoral degrees. The student references several studies to support the points made, including the impact of education on patient care and career prospects. The essay concludes by emphasizing the benefits of advanced education for providing efficient patient care and expanding job opportunities.

Running Head: NURSING INFORMATICS
NURSING INFORMATICS
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Authors Note

1NURSING INFORMATICS
The reflection of the advantages and scopes of nursing career is carried out using Gibbs’
Reflective Cycle. The reflection is done intentionally to identify and analyze the process of
examining and interpreting the opportunities and gaining experience and improve and learn.
Gibb’s Reflective Cycle consists of six stages namely Description, Feelings, Evaluation,
Analysis, Conclusion and Action Plan.
It is very important for nurses to receive higher education to progress in their career.
Researchers reveals that highly educated nurse can help the hospital community to be ensured
about the type of care that the patients will receive (DeWitty, Huerta & Downing, 2016). Highly
qualified nurse can provide high quality, person centered care and implement the required
interventions necessary for a particular patient.
Since, I am pursuing BSN; I will be able to gain expertise in fields of nursing as
compared to RN nurse. An RN with BSN has more responsibilities and can indulge in
management roles. They receive better rewards for their labor along with higher salaries and
more benefits (Eyikara & Baykara, 2017). This reward will definitely lead to the hike in the
number of people pursuing nursing as their career with a doctorate degree. Higher the degree of a
nurse, the nurse will gain more expertise in various fields and patient care techniques.
Nurses are engaged in a lifelong learning. There are various types of patients with
different forms of ailments requiring different types of patient centered care. Nurses should
always be open to any kind of learning procedures (Shin et al., 2015). They get to learn from the
patients as they take new strategies to cure each patient. Each patient has different requirements
to be fulfilled and nurses need to approach those from the patient perspectives. Education is not
the only method to perceive learning. The improvement in the quality of care is also a process of

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learning. There is also a scope of improving practice skills and knowledge regarding patient
outcomes.
Since I am pursuing BSN degree, I have more number of career options in my life. I can
choose my profession as a Public Health Nurse, Care Coordinator, Case Manager, School or
Pediatric Nursing, Health Educator, Quality Coordinator, Nurse Manager and many more
(Bloomfield et al., 2015). I would like to choose my profession as a Public Health Nurse. They
have an important role in the prevention and maintenance of health care. I can also work as a
disease prevention nurse and educate the children and the pregnant mothers for health conditions
and importance of sanitation. The issues can nutrition and community resources can also be
resolved through education.
Increasing my level of education can make me approach the public with more number of
prevention strategies and options for better and improved lifestyle. Increasing my level of
education from BSN to masters and then to doctorate would make me more knowledgeable and
it would provide me more scopes and increased number of job options. I would have better
chances of being selected in the professional world due to my higher degree and increased salary
options. I would be able to understand the patient and their requirements more efficiently and
would be more efficient in providing palliative care to the patients.

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References
Bloomfield, J. G., Gordon, C. J., Williams, A. M., & Aggar, C. (2015). Nursing students’
intentions to enter primary health care as a career option: findings from a national
survey. Collegian, 22(2), 161-167.
DeWitty, V. P., Huerta, C. G., & Downing, C. A. (2016). New careers in nursing: Optimizing
diversity and student success for the future of nursing. Journal of Professional
Nursing, 32(5), S4-S13.
Eyikara, E., & Baykara, Z. G. (2017). The Importance of Simulation in Nursing
Education. World Journal on Educational Technology: Current Issues, 9(1), 2-7.
Shin, H., Sok, S., Hyun, K. S., & Kim, M. J. (2015). Competency and an active learning program
in undergraduate nursing education. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 71(3), 591-598.