This portfolio represents my professional growth over this academic year. It contains best practice lessons and projects, examples of authentic assessment, and evidence of how I met my professional goal of becoming a bachelors prepared nurse.

Achieving my BSN in nursing has been a goal since receiving my Associate’s degree nearly five years ago. While the first years of being a professional nurse have been engaging and enlightening as I crossed the bridge from healthcare consumer to healthcare professional, the process of attaining my advanced degree has broadened my definition of what nursing is. While my Associate’s program focused on safe patient care, my Bachelors program has encompassed the overarching goal of what it means to be a professional nurse utilizing philosophy, evidence, population health, and quality metrics as I continue in my career.

 The artifacts presented in this portfolio allow me to show my growth as a learner and a professional.

• The AMNH certificate for genetics and bioethics helped to establish the importance of considering the “unwritten” part of my patient populations. Considering a patient’s genetics is of utmost importance. The unseeable factors that create health disparities amongst patient populations are important considerations when caring for individuals and families. Understanding these factors helps to broaden my learning as a scientist and a detective as I better comprehend the things our bodies carry with them genetically, it also serves to make me a better healthcare professional. Contemplating the larger issue of bioethics and its place in our modern care is essential. While science presents to us many new possibilities in discovering our “unwritten codes,” we as professionals and learners, must understand the conflict and potential bioethical dilemmas we face as practitioners and consumers of healthcare.

• It is essential that we utilize evidence based practices as healthcare providers. My artifact of my evidence based practice paper shows how utilizing research can improve health outcomes. As healthcare becomes more expensive, it is imperative we use scientific best practices to ensure the best care for our patient populations. As a learner, the evidence based practice class helped me distinguish between different types and qualities of available literature. As a professional, passing on the importance of using quality medical information to my patient populations is essential. With the advent of 24/7 availability of internet and social media, it can be difficult to differentiate the quality of evidence presented; often “remedies” can be dangerous. By encouraging those I serve to seek out reputable, evidence based information, I can better ensure patient education. As a learner, in my role as a public health and school-based nurse, it is vitally important that I provide the students and families I work with the most up to date information. By knowing now how to weigh and judge the quality of the information I read and how to obtain it, I will become both a better consumer and provider of important healthcare information.

• In concert with evidence based practices, comes quality and safety. In the coursework for Organizational Systems and Quality Leadership, I completed the IHI modules. This coursework connects the mechanism of utilizing evidence based practices in conjunction with maintaining quality and safety in the healthcare environment. Through the modules, as a learner, I was able to comprehend the complex but essential processes of the root cause analysis and the failure modes and effects analysis. While complex, both processes help to break down failures in the healthcare system and help to comprehend why systems fail and how those failures effect the day to day tasks we perform as healthcare workers. As a professional, the successful completion and understanding of these modules was gratifying. By using scientific inquiry and detective work, I was able to identify the failures within the given scenarios and apply best practice for improvement. I look forward to using  these tools in the future to ensure that I am aware how breakdown in systems can lead to poor outcomes and how diligence and quality management are an essential key to patient safety.

• As a public school nurse, I am becoming more aware of the importance of community and population health. My Community and Population Health paper shows this. As a learner I have truly begun to understand the value of population and community health. My new role and my studies have allowed a connection between my role and my studies. As a professional recently making the transition to nursing within the public school setting to work with teenagers, I try to inspire my students to participate and take ownership in their own healthcare. My role as the provider that bridges them into adulthood provides them with a positive key to understanding the importance of their own health, and in taking personal responsibility for ongoing wellness as they bridge the gap to adulthood. In providing them with sage advice, evidence based knowledge, and helping them understand the complexities of their bodies, I encourage each and every student to become an active participant in their own care. My submission for Community and Population health illustrates my ability as a learner to identify population trends and as a professional, the ability to analyze health data and apply it to bettering community outcomes.

• The summation of my coursework was my submission for Professional Roles and Values. As a learner, this class helped me solidify my nursing philosophy as an active participant for my patient population and recognize I must see them in the health continuum they are in. Increasing my knowledge of nursing regulations helps me maintain compliance with my own practice. As a professional, this class reinforced that I must bring my philosophy to my daily practice. It also helped me to recognize the importance of keeping excellent standards and effective ways to protect and maintain my license so I can continue practicing with safety and ethics for years to come.

The above mentioned artifacts show my strengths as a learner because they show through meticulous study and participating in a thorough process of learning, I am a student committed to success. My commitment to professional growth is evident in maintaining my timeline of graduation within one year of beginning the program. In the AMNH certification I show the strength of understanding genetics and bioethics in nursing practice. My evidence based practice artifact shows a dedication to the articulation of the scientific process of analyzing data. I also received an award for excellence for my submission. The IHI modules show my dedication to inquiring on how to make the practice of nursing better in quality and safety. My community and population health submission shows a strength in identification of population health trends and predisposition to certain health disparities. My final submission for professional roles and values shows my dedication to finding a nursing philosophy that meshes with my own personal practice and a professional dedication to understanding how nursing role and values promote excellence through practice and standardization.

Throughout the program at Western Governors University, I’ve faced many challenges. The first challenge I faced was conquering the digital divide. While I’ve always excelled at school, trying to advance my degree in an online environment was foreign. I was able to overcome this with encouragement and support from my student mentor. The first class, Professional Leadership and Communication for Healthcare, helped ease my fears and allowed me to work within the online framework of the program and familiarize myself with the different interfaces. By remaining open to the dynamic and fluid nature of the program, it helped to set my mind at ease. During my coursework in statistics and biochemistry, I was challenged to another level as I attempted to conquer math and science learning from home. By seeking out the course modules and slowly and meticulously working through the coursework, I was  able to assess myself at regular intervals and pass the objective assessments at my first attempt. In evidence based practice, I had the setback of choosing an incorrect article in my first task. Reaching out to my course mentor, I was able to submit and successfully pass my papers, even receiving an award for excellence. Taking on the complex processes of the IHI and FMEA modules was taxing, but through application of scenarios to the coursework, I was able to complete these tasks in one try. Another challenge was completing my roles and values paper with proper APA citations. While frustrating, by reaching out to the online resources of the writing center, I was able to submit my work and succeed. In my 229 coursework, there have been many times I’ve felt overwhelmed with getting field hours. By diligently applying myself and holding myself accountable by creating a tracking spreadsheet, I’ve been able to be my own motivator for successful completion of this arduous task.

 As I’ve progressed through the program, I believe I have effectively reached the goals of the nine nursing outcomes stated.

• Communication: The program has enabled me to further expand my communication skills and has strengthened them. Through course work and regular communication with my student mentor, I have strived to improve my communication skills in all modes. Professional Leadership and Communication for Healthcare laid the foundation for my success in this realm.

• Clinical Reasoning: Utilizing evidence-based practices, understanding their application and working through this coursework allowed me to tether excellent reasoning with scientific practice. The IHI learning modules further helped in enhancing the understanding of root cause analysis and failure modes and effects analysis.

• Accountability: The independent nature of the program allowed me to understand the true value of professional accountability. By ensuring that I completed my coursework in a timely manner, I learned the value of being accountable to myself. In my community coursework, I learned the importance of being an accountable member of my community healthcare team. My field experience helped to reinforce this.

• Knowledge Synthesis: Perhaps one of the most important portions of the program for me, the ability to collect knowledge through meticulous, scientific means and apply it to daily practice has been enlightening. By synthesizing my theory of nursing  philosophy in Professional Roles and Values, the science of utilizing empiric data I encounter, and the application of that to the unique population I serve, I have expanded my practice. The program has truly reinforced that nursing is both an art and a science.

• Patient-centered Care: I have always tried to keep the focus of my nursing care to those who I serve. Community and Population Health Nursing coursework enhanced my knowledge of the importance of ensuring you take into consideration the individual, family, and community for which you serve. Keeping your nursing practice relevant to those in your care allows you to give more comprehensive care. Remembering the patient is the center of your care was reinforced during my program.

• Leadership and Education: The Leadership Experience task was beneficial in synthesizing the knowledge I have acquired since starting the program. Because I have personally made such an huge leap from bedside to community health nursing, this project allowed me to experience that shift after my first year in my new role. By applying knowledge of community health nursing and using my leadership project to help promote a better healing environment in the school I work in, I feel my education and career have come to fruition.

• Inter-professional Collaboration: Because I have made the career switch to community health nursing as a school based nurse, my inter-professional communication has become essential practice. The administrators in my school building and district count on my medical judgement as the sole medical provider in my building. Building relationships with them has been the key to my successful transition in my new role. By helping them to understand how nursing fits in with education, my coursework in Leadership, Evidence-Based Practice, and Community Health Nursing have all enhanced building those relationships.

• Knowledge of Genomics and Genethics: Understanding your patient populations predisposition to certain diseases and genetic conditions is an important part of your care considerations. In my coursework for Care of the Older Adult, the certificate from the American Museum of Natural History in Genomics and Genetics helped to reinforce these principles.

• Information Technology: My coursework for Information Management and the Application of Technology helped to enable me to both utilize and better understand how information technology is an essential piece of healthcare in our modern world. The ability to recognize and synthesize large amounts of data is important and technology is the cornerstone of that process. Having this tool can enhance the patient experience and allow those practitioners who care for them a better picture of the whole patient, providing safer care.

Nurses take on many different roles at the bedside. We become counselors, friends, cheerleaders, and advocates for our patients. But beyond those tasks we serve to our individual patients and patient populations, we are responsible for so much more. Nursing truly is the blending of art and science. This program has taught me the value of the nurse in the following roles: scientist, detective, and manager of the healing environment.

 Scientist. In utilizing the most current, evidence-based practices, I perform as a scientist on a daily basis. When assessing and planning for my patient population, the fundamental application of my own scientific knowledge gained through my ADN education and subsequent five years of work as a registered nurse, I always seek the best and most effective treatments. In seeking out peer-reviewed, properly sourced articles and literature, I attempt to keep my practice the most current and up to date for those I serve. My coursework at WGU especially evidence based practice has reinforced that.

Detective. As practitioners of the nursing profession, we are often presented with complex patient pictures with unclear etiologies. Application of knowledge of pathologies, and utilizing the most up to date scientific information creates a base for the detective work we often have to perform. Countless students come into my office and say “I don’t feel good” on a daily basis. Assessing teens can be difficult. The detective work comes in listening to their signs and symptoms, using the most appropriate assessment tools (temperature, auscultation, physical assessments), and asking the right questions to guide you in the direction of a student’s true pathology are all part of being a detective. My coursework at WGU has only enhanced this role, as my classes helped me further consider population health, genetics, and genethics.

Healing environment manager. In the chaos of modern life, it can often be difficult to provide your patients with the best environment for healing. By encouraging the students I serve to seek out the most therapeutic situations for them can be challenging. For example, the sleep deprived teen may be resistant to hearing the evidence about blue lights not allowing brains to function optimally and not allowing adequate rest, but presenting them with evidence and asking them to make small, sustainable changes is where I begin. I also try to provide an environment at my school where students can ask me questions without shame. My leadership project is the fruition of this work, taking into consideration my role as a public health nurse and my community and population, and how I can best serve them as manager of their environment.

 The timing of beginning my education at WGU has been concurrent with my new role as a school nurse. This turbulent time of transition has allowed me substantial growth. The program has encouraged me to explore what it means to be a Bachelors prepared healthcare professional. As I continue along my new career path, I will always hold the lessons of the program close. Ensuring I take into consideration my patient population, use evidence based practices, best utilize technology, always consider quality and safety, and continue on as a leader in my profession, I will continue to grow as a nurse.