Nurse Education Reflection Paper

Nurse Education Reflection Paper

Nurse Education Reflection Paper

In a reflection of 450-600 words, explain how you see yourself fitting into the following IOM Future of Nursing recommendations:

1. Recommendation 4: Increase the proportion of nurses with a baccalaureate degree to 80% by 2020.
2. Recommendation 5: Double the number of nurses with a doctorate by 2020.
3. Recommendation 6: Ensure that nurses engage in lifelong learning.

Identify your options in the job market based on your educational level.

1. How will increasing your level of education affect how you compete in the current job market?
2. How will increasing your level of education affect your role in the future of nursing?

While APA format is not required for the body of this assignment, solid academic writing is expected and in-text citations and references should be presented using APA documentation guidelines, which can be found in the APA Style Guide, located in the Student Success Center.

You are required to submit this assignment to Turnitin. Please refer to the directions in the Student Success Center.

SOURCES OF EVIDENCE FOR NURSING PRACTICE

Nurses make clinical decisions based on knowledge from many sources, including coursework, textbooks, and their own clinical experience. Because evidence is constantly evolving, learning about best practice nursing perseveres throughout a nurse’s career.

Some of what nurses learn is based on systematic research, but much of it is not. What are the sources of evidence for nursing practice? Where does knowledge for practice come from? Until fairly recently, knowledge primarily was handed down from one generation to the next based on experience, trial and error, tradition, and expert opinion. Information sources for clinical practice vary in dependability, giving rise to what is called an evidence hierarchy, which acknowledges that certain types of evidence are better than others. A brief discussion of some alternative sources of evidence shows how research-based information is different.

Tradition and Authority

Decisions are sometimes based on custom or tradition. Certain “truths” are accepted as given, and such “knowledge” is so much a part of a common heritage that few seek verification. Tradition facilitates communication by providing a common foundation of accepted truth, but many traditions have never been evaluated for their validity. There is concern that some nursing interventions are based on tradition, custom, and “unit culture” rather than on sound evidence. Indeed, a recent analysis suggests that some “sacred cows” (ineffective traditional habits) persist even in a health care center recognized as a leader in evidence-based practice (Hanrahan et al., 2015).