Professional Identity in Nursing

Professional Identity in Nursing

Professional identity encompasses the beliefs, behaviors, expertise, ethics, and competencies shared by a group of skilled occupations (Fitzgerald, 2020). By applying relevant professional knowledge in practice, professional qualities and characteristics impact an individual’s potential to be successful and efficient in an ideal situation. Professional identity in nursing relates to an individual’s moral sense of oneself and relationships with others. It is directly impacted by nursing discipline standards, norms, and principles created by governing bodies, which influence a professional’s cognition, actions, and emotions while upholding best practices for the nursing profession. Professional identity is crucial in nursing because it allows practicing professionals to connect significance to their jobs while also developing a feeling of self and belonging within the field.

In simpler terms, nursing professionalism identity refers to the characteristics that give specific meaning to nursing practice. Accountability, empathy, respect for others, compassion, cultural sensitivity, and ethical conduct are traits that contribute to professional nursing identity. They influence a nurse’s behavior when caring for patients and completing routine chores in a hospital setting. A strong professional identity allows nurses to consider their values and relate to the behaviors expected of a nurse by their profession, their colleagues, and their patients. Because they determine the backdrop of professional and interpersonal concerns, these characteristics impact the quality of care offered to patients.

Accountability in the nursing profession aids in establishing and growing trust, reducing fear, and improving employee performance and morale and should thus serve as the foundation for developing a culture of support, confidence, and devotion to excellence (Aldridge, 2021). Nurses must be accountable in practice as their professional organization expects. When professionals are held responsible, they may learn from their mistakes and constantly improve their operations, improving the quality of treatment. Empathy enables nurses to establish trusting relationships with their patients by allowing them to focus on the patient’s needs. It improves interaction and disclosure of facts because patients feel that the nurses understand how patients are feeling, allowing them to tackle their patients’ requirements in a more precise manner that meets individual needs. It also aids in increasing adherence to medications, increasing patient happiness, and decreasing medical errors and mishaps.

The compassionate caregiver remains sensitive to the patients’ suffering and distress and approaches patient needs with a strong desire to improve their outcomes (Griffin et al., 2021). Whenever patients are in pain or distress through psychological or emotional strain, compassion makes them more relaxed, and they may freely and readily convey their needs to the nurse. It provides patients with appropriate emotional support, lowering their agony and increasing their desire to live, promoting medication adherence. Ethics and cultural sensitivity help nurses perform their duties without bias, and they can operate within any setting, offering quality care.

In practice, nurses develop attributes of professional identity by basing their operations and procedures within the set standards and theoretical philosophy of nursing, which outlines what they are expected to do or not do. Therefore, as a nurse practitioner, I intend to achieve these attributes by obeying all standards set for practice and active involvement in all possible professional organizations. I also plan to seek further training and education to enhance my skills and expertise in upholding professional standards. My educational background and achievements have shaped my professional identity by instilling the necessary skills and expertise for practice; it enabled me to understand the significance of professionalism. My goals for continued professional identity are to enhance my experiences and abilities to operate in a culturally diverse environment, which will involve exposure.

References

Fitzgerald, A. (2020, July). Professional identity: A concept analysis. In Nursing forum (Vol. 55, No. 3, pp. 447-472).

Aldridge, M. (2021). Leadership and Management in Professional Nursing Practice.

Griffin, C., Oman, K. S., Ziniel, S. I., Kight, S., Jacobs-Lowry, S., & Givens, P. (2021). Increasing the capacity to provide compassionate care by expanding knowledge of caring science practices at a pediatric hospital. Archives of Psychiatric Nursing, 35(1), 34-41.

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Creating Your Professional Identity
Competency

Determine the attributes that help form the professional nurses’ identity.
Apply principles of professional identity and professionalism.

Professional Identity in Nursing

Scenario

As a nursing student, you have a vision of your core values and expectations as a professional nurse. In this assignment, create a plan to guide you as you form your professional identity.

Instructions

This formation will include the following:

Describe the meaning of nursing professionalism identity
Identify the most important professional identity characteristics/attributes
Explain how you will adapt these characteristics/attributes in the clinical setting
Reflect on your educational journey and describe how this shaped your professional identity.
Create your goals for continued professional identity formation during your career as a nurse.
Provide stated ideas with professional language and attribution for credible sources with correct APA citation, spelling, and grammar.