Registered Nurse Application: Cover Letter and Key Selection Criteria

This nursing assignment presents a student's application for a Registered Nurse position at Summer Health, comprising a cover letter and responses to key selection criteria. The cover letter introduces the student and highlights their interest in the role, emphasizing their commitment to patient-centered care and adherence to nursing bioethical principles. The key selection criteria responses, structured using the STAR method, demonstrate the student's skills in patient-focused care, self-education, team collaboration, and adaptability, referencing the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia (NMBA) standards. The assignment showcases the student's clinical experience, communication skills, and ability to work within a multidisciplinary team to achieve optimal healthcare outcomes. References to relevant research and nursing standards further strengthen the application, providing evidence of the student's competence and suitability for the role.

Running head: NURSING
NURSING
Name of Student
Name of University
Author note

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COVER LETTER
[Student name]
[Address]
[Recruitment manager name]
Summer Health
[Address]
14.03.2020
Application for position Registered Nurse Early Graduate Program
Respected sir,
I have recently come across the new opening at Summer Health and I am very excited
to take this as my opportunity to serve to the diverse cultures and communities suffering from
multiple disorders in Australia as to grow as a registered nurse at Summer Health.
As a nurse, I have been always very critical to incorporate all the nursing bioethical
principles of beneficence, totality, integrity, autonomy, non-maleficence into my patient
centered care oriented nursing. Throughout my career till now, I have demonstrated effective
collaboration, therapeutic and professional communication, relationship building, decision
making, critical thinking, problem solving, clinical reasoning and effective cultural
competence skills in compliance with national nursing standards of Australia. I have worked
across a diverse range of clinical specialties that would surely add value to the nutrsing team
at Summer Health.

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Hopefully, you will have a look at my portfolio by check my nursing skills with the
requirements and hoping to hear from you soon.
Yours sincerely,
[Student name]
KEY SELECTION CRITERIA
1) A patient focused approach to care
S situation As a nurse, I have always focussed to address
the individual needs of the patients and
addressed each patient that I have attended
based on his or her clinical, social and
biopsychosoical needs. According to nursing
standard 6 of Nursing and Midwifery board
of Australia (NMBA) – it is very critical to
provide safe, appropriate and a very response
and quality nursing care which I have always
complied with a nurse (Takashima et al.,
2019).
From my initial posting days in the intensive
coronary care unit, I was attending a patient
named Mr. Steve who had a balloon
angioplasty in the left coronary artery and
once, once I administered him with the

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antihypertensive that was due for the day,
thirty minutes after, he started to feel uneasy
as he told me and looked agitated.
T task As a registered nurse, my role was to provide
a person centred care to the admitted patient.
A action I checked the cap of the medication to see if
any wrong medication was administered but
was not and as the patient became
increasingly uneasy. I checked the vitals were
bit high. He was taking his son’s name
continuously. I quickly realized this might be
a panic attack and checked the patient history
from the case file and found that the patient
has a diagnosed manic disorder. I calmed him
down providing with water and helped him
with breathing techniques (Håkansson et al.,
2019)
R results The sudden neuropsychological depression
was corrected by my quick and apt nursing
action according to NMBA nursing standard
6 and also NMBA nursing standard 1 –
which directs thinking critically analysing the
nursing practice in the care scenario.
2) A positive approach to ongoing self-education and skill development

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S situation Learning is an ongoing process and critically
evaluating the process of client centred care
delivery and learning through reflection from
it, is vital to nursing practice and according to
NMBA nursing standard 3 (Brody, 2017),
learning plus skill development as a nurse is
a vital way of maintaining capability for a
nursing practice (Ossenberg, Mitchell &
Henderson, 2019).
I was attending subject named Peter - a case
of diabetes mellitus being treated in the
general medicine ward. He was from a Torres
strait islander background and was tough to
communicate with.
T task As registered nurse working in a team and I
had a supervisor to guide me as well, I task
was to administer the medications to the
patient at the right time, as prescribed.
A action As it was really very difficult to understand
his language and that is why, applying the
nursing principles of autonomy, beneficence,
totality and integrity that is vital to each case
– was seemingly difficult in the nursing of
this case. Having difficult in building rapport
with the subject that was also affecting my

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medication administration – I talked about
the matter with my supervisor and she told
that she is happy that I have self-learnt about
my communication gaps. I attended the staff
development session that improved my
cultural competency and communication skill
as well (Martin-Carreras, Cook & Kahn Jr,
2019)
R results This addressed the rapport building process
with the patient and I complied not only with
NMBA nursing standard 3 but also with
nursing standard 7 that focuses to evaluating
the clinical outcomes to inform the very
nursing care and practise.
3) A flexible, innovative team oriented approach to service delivery
S situation As nurse, I have realized and learned it is
very important to have the right skills to
collaborate with a multidisciplinary team and
to have team oriented approach to guide the
patient centred care delivery and this in
accordance with NMBA nursing standard 2
that aims to develop professional and
therapeutic relationships (Ratsch, Sewell &
Pennington, 2019) and also in terms with

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Nursing standard 5, that is to the nursing care
within the multidisciplinary care team
(Zatzick et al., 2018).
In a gastrointestinal surgery of a patient
chronic obstructive pulmonary disease
complication, I was a part of team that had a
surgeon, two nursing assistants, one
anaesthesia specialist and his assistant. He
aesthetician’s assistant had to leave the case
midway as he had an emergency call from
another department.
T task My role was to assist the surgeon in his
procedure and guide the other nursing
assistants to help me and the surgeon carry
out the surgical and assistive procedures.
A action Understanding the needs, I immediately
delegated one nursing assistant to pump the
ambu bag that was initially being done by the
aesthetician’s assistant.
R results As a nurse, I met the team collaboration
parameter, applying quick thinking and
critical evaluation skills and showed a quality
demonstration of NMBA standards. The
surgical procedure was carried out smoothly,
without any complication.

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4) A positive approach to change and diversity
S situation NMBA nursing standard 4 focuses at doing
comprehensive assessments and standard 7
focuses at evaluating the outcome to better
the nursing care (Carthon et al., 2020)
I was attending a patient named Mrs.
Stevenson who had emphysema and was an
elderly patient. She had a fall when under my
care, that injured her mildly.
T task I cared for her in the general ward with
pharmacological and non-pharmacological
(exercise) management.
A action I took a neurological assessment of subject
immediately and found out the subject had
both balance issues and self-care deficits.
Performing the psychological assessment, as
she continuously had anxiety attacks – I
found out she had a history of childhood
trauma of physical abuse by her mother. I
immediately modified my treatments as
needed, including the activities of daily life
training, ambulatory care and balance

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training. I started talk therapy with the
subject and gave stress reduction techniques
to mrs. Stevenson. I collaborated with a
clinical psychologist.
R results The clinical outcomes were positive provide
the diverse nursing care provided for clinical
care change.

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References
Brody, H. (2017). Patient-centered care or drug-centered care: the influence of
pharmaceutical marketing on medical science and public health. In Philosophical
Issues in Pharmaceutics (pp. 109-124). Springer, Dordrecht.
Carthon, J. M. B., Brom, H., Poghosyan, L., Daus, M., Todd, B., & Aiken, L. (2020).
Supportive Clinical Practice Environments Associated With Patient-Centered
Care. The Journal for Nurse Practitioners.
Håkansson, J. E., Holmström, I. K., Kumlin, T., Kaminsky, E., Skoglund, K., Höglander,
J., ... & Summer, M. M. (2019). " Same same or different?" A review of reviews of
person-centered and patient-centered care. Patient education and counseling, 102(1),
3-11.
Martin-Carreras, T., Cook, T. S., & Kahn Jr, C. E. (2019). Readability of radiology reports:
implications for patient-centered care. Clinical imaging, 54, 116-120.
Ossenberg, C., Mitchell, M., & Henderson, A. (2019). Adoption of new practice standards in
nursing: Revalidation of a tool to measure performance using the Australian
registered nurse standards for practice. Collegian.
Ratsch, A., Sewell, F., & Pennington, A. (2019). Developing and testing a matrix to achieve
ready-everyday nursing standards (RENS): an observational study protocol. BMJ
open, 9(8), e031499.
Takashima, M., Burmeister, E., Ossenberg, C., & Henderson, A. (2019). Assessment of the
clinical performance of nursing students in the workplace: Exploring the role of
benchmarking using the Australian Nursing Standards Assessment Tool
(ANSAT). Collegian, 26(4), 502-506.

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Zatzick, D., Russo, J., Thomas, P., Darnell, D., Teter, H., Ingraham, L., ... & Sandgren, K.
(2018). Patient-centered care transitions after injury hospitalization: a comparative
effectiveness trial. Psychiatry, 81(2), 141-157.