2 Identifying Opportunities for Professional Development in Nursing
Nicole Simonson
Learning Objectives
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Discuss ways to engage in professional development
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Articulate how professional development affects your nursing journey
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Identify a specialty or professional organization in which to pursue certification
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Describe the importance of pursuing continuing education
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Employ the professional responsibility to remaining current in practice
Identifying Opportunities for Professional Development in Nursing
Healthcare and the needs of patients are complex and ever-changing. Nurses must have the means and mechanisms to keep up with these complexities and changes. They need to remain current and refreshed in their role, practice, and specialties, which can be done through professional development. Professional development encourages nurses to gain the knowledge and skill sets to remain relevant in practice. “Professional development” is a broad term that encompasses continued growth and learning within one’s own practice in order to advance oneself. This can oftentimes be seen as career development and professional engagement depending on the intent of the learning. Career development involves career planning and taking the necessary steps to advance oneself, whereas professional engagement occurs when one actively participates in activities such as committees and quality improvement within one’s place of employment. Each of these are vital components to your ability to advance your career as a professional nurse.
It is the professional duty of nurses to remain up-to-date and engage in growth and development. The American Nurses Association (ANA) underscores nursing scopes and standards of practice in relation to nursing practice and lifelong learning. The ANA (2021) explains that in order for nurses to remain up-to-date and competent in their knowledge and skills, they must participate in continued learning and even enhance their skills in specialty settings (p. 45). As an RN to BSN nurse, you have already contributed to lifelong learning by pursuing the Bachelor of Science in Nursing. However, your learning journey does not end there. You will be expected to engage in learning in various ways such as through your place of employment, licensing and state boards of nursing requirements, continuing advanced education, etc. It is common for places of employment to require their employees to complete regular and routine education regarding facets essential to maintaining safe, quality patient care. Similarly, licensing and state boards of nursing may also require nurses to engage in additional education to remain current and up-to-date in their practices. As a currently licensed nurse, you may already be familiar with these two means for learning.
Professional development can occur in formal and informal ways. The route in which you pursue professional development may be contingent on your goals.
Both ways allow a nurse to grow and evolve personally and professionally. Formal professional development can be seen as an intentional approach to educate and advance oneself through structured learning such as advanced education, continuing education, and certifications, whereas informal development may be acquired through observations, reflection, and daily practices. Informal development may include practices such as looking up a medication that you are unfamiliar with, engaging in research regarding a new procedure your patient will be getting, or observing a demonstration of a new piece of equipment being used in your department. These are smaller milestones of professional development but are necessary to maintain day-to-day practices. These more informal means of acquiring knowledge and education can certainly lead to one aspiring to attain more formal routes of development.
Roxanne has always completed the required education mandated by her employer, but the topics aren’t always the most interesting to her. Roxanne has an interest in wound care and would like to learn about better ways to prevent and treat wounds for her patients.
Roxanne does some simple internet searches to find out about organizations, publications, and conferences on wound care that are available to her. She discovers a peer-reviewed wound care journal called Journal of Wound, Ostomy, and Continence Nursing (JWOCN) on a nursing database search and signs up to receive monthly issues sent to her email. Roxanne learns about a local wound care conference coming up and asks her manager if there is a way the facility could pay for her attendance.
Continuing Education
Continuing education can help harness the perpetual learner within the nurse. The nurse can embody learning within all that they do. Continuing education extends to any form of professional growth and development as a nurse (Dickerson & Bernard, 2018). You may already be familiar with continuing education. Nurses may complete continuing education for various reasons, such as a requirement to practice or employment, to increase their expertise in a specific area, and for their own self-seeking knowledge. Requirements might include those of a state board of nursing in order to be licensed and to practice within a certain state. Continuing education may also be part of maintaining credentials and certifications.
Various forms of continuing education can provide the education you need to remain current in practice. Continuing education might include work in-services; attending educational meetings, conferences, or webinars; completing an activity online or reading a journal article; etc. Some continuing education activities may be associated with continuing education units (CEUs) or credits. Continuing education that encompasses CEUs will explicitly outline this within the description and information regarding learning. Credentialing and certifications often require that nurses complete continuing education opportunities that offer CEUs.
If you are not familiar with CEUs, some places to start are with professional organizations such as ANA and the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses. Companies that focus on CEUs include edX (https://www.edx.org/search) and Nurse.com (https://www.nurse.com/). You can narrow your learning and continuing education to a specific topic, whether it is leadership, communication, triage, care of the ventilated patient, etc. The topics for growth and development are endless.
Roxanne was able to register and attend a wound conference not too far away. There she discovers various ways to participate in continuing education. She also finds out that some of the sessions at the conference offer CEUs. Roxanne is excited to learn this as she knows she can receive acknowledgment in her annual employee evaluation for both attending the conference and obtaining the CEUs. Additionally, she is able to increase her knowledge and her clinical and professional practice regarding wound care.
At the conference, she learns about the most up-to-date wound care products and treatments. She also becomes familiar with some reputable wound care and wound ostomy care organizations such as the Wound, Ostomy, and Continence Nurses Society (WOCN) 
and the Journal of Wound Care (JWOC) for some continuing education. Roxanne realizes that both sites provide a variety of current, evidence-based practice education on wound care. Not all the information, educational resources, webinars, etc., grant CEUs. Roxanne reads the descriptions provided on the educational pieces and notes that some are not CEUs, but she is eager to gain additional knowledge anyway. Not only can Roxanne engage in CEUs through these sites, but she can also share the professional opportunities with her colleagues.
Certifications
Certifications are a natural next step in professional development. Certification allows a nurse to be recognized for certain knowledge and skills that they might possess or have acquired. Certifications range in topic from medical-surgical nursing certification to any specialized topic that can be devised of personal or professional interest, either way, a certification can be a boost to your resume and overall professional development.
Several organizations and accrediting bodies offer certifications, so it is important that you do some research to determine which credentials best meet your needs. If you are looking to use a certification to advance yourself professionally, you might want to investigate which ones are recognized by your employer. Some common places to begin your search include the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC) Certification Program, the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses, the Board of Certification for Emergency Nursing, the Wound Ostomy Care Nurse Certification Board, and the Pediatric Nursing Certification Board.
Criteria for certifications vary by organization but typically have some sort of eligibility requirements. Eligibility requirements may include a number of years as a nurse, type of work experience, minimum education level, active nursing license, and successful completion of a nationally administered exam (Huston, 2020). Additionally, specific certifications may request the number of hours practiced. Fees are associated with certifications, but they may vary in cost. Check with your employer for the possibility of having part or all of a certification reimbursed upon its successful completion. Lastly, certifications have a renewal schedule that can range from one to five years. When inquiring about a certification, it is important to read the details to ensure you meet eligibility requirements and to know your commitment to maintaining certification.
Roxanne learns about some of the various wound care certifications from the nurses she meets at the wound conference.
At one of the sessions, she learns how important it is to have a certification in wound care. For instance, wound care nurses positively affect patient outcomes. Patients who have a wound care nurse are noted to show improved healing by 20% in lower extremity ulcers and 40% in surgical wounds (WOCN Society, 2022). She is curious how a certification in wound care could benefit her patients, her facility, and her career.
Roxanne networks with some of the certified wound nurses at the conference and asks them about the different types of certifications. It is important to discuss the different types of certifications with the employer as not all are necessarily recognized by employers. She learns about the professional development opportunities available to certified wound nurses and the demands of the certification. Roxanne understands the certification may not be something that she can pursue while she has her Associate Degree in Nursing (ADN), but knowing it might be an option after she earns her BSN helps motivate her to finish her degree.
Remaining Relevant in Practice
The above sections are ways to stay current and fresh within your nursing practice. To add to this, a professional nurse must consider the use of evidence-based practice (EBP). The ANA (2021) promotes EBP through Standard 14, “Scholarly Inquiry” (p. 100). As a baccalaureate-prepared nurse, you have learned a great deal of EBP and how to utilize what the evidence states as best practices. EBP consists of a combination of the best evidence available in research, clinical expertise, patient preferences, and clinical circumstances (Lunden et al., 2021). It is important to not lose your ability to use EBP as healthcare, science, and technology are constantly evolving and changing. Nurses should not only be versed in EBP but also able to integrate and synthesize EBP in nursing practice. EBP helps support improved quality patient outcomes and safety of all. Click on the hyperlinks in the table below to see examples of EBP within nursing practice.
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Examples of EBP |
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Clinical Practice |
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Nursing Leadership & Management |
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Education |
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Public Policy |
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One-way nurses can remain relevant in EBP is through certifications and continuing education. Just like receiving your nursing license and degree, both certifications and continuing education are supported by EBP and research. Other ways to engage in EBP are through quality improvement initiatives at your place of employment and by joining committees. By increasing your involvement through quality improvement initiatives, you will be part of making positive changes at your workplace. These positive changes support best practices and improvement in patient safety and quality outcomes. Additionally, through these initiatives, you may be recognized for your contributions.
Another way to increase your knowledge of EBP is by joining or creating a nursing journal club, which is similar to a book club but specific to a given nursing journal. A group of nurses and/or healthcare professionals can come together around a specific journal to discuss the most current topics in EBP and research. Journal clubs allow nurses to connect to research in a collaborative way with their peers (Dugan, 2019).
References
American Nurses Association. (2021). Nursing: Scope and standards of practice (4th ed.).
Dickerson, P. S., & Bernard, A. (2018). What’s in a word? Understanding terms in continuing nursing education and professional development. The Journal of Continuing Education in Nursing, 49(1), 19–25.
Dugan, J. E. (2019). “Keeping you in the know”: The effect of an online nursing journal club on evidence-based knowledge among rural registered nurses. CIN: Computers, Informatics, Nursing, 37(4), 190–195.
Gallagher-Ford, L., & Connor, L. (2020). Transforming healthcare to evidence-based healthcare. The Journal of Nursing Administration, 50(5), 248–250.
Huston, C. J. (2020). Assuring provider competence through licensure, continuing education, and certification. In C. J. Huston (Ed.), Professional issues in nursing: Challenges and opportunities (5th ed., pp. 287–300). Wolters Kluwer.
Lunden, A., Kvist, T., Teras, M, & Haggman-Laitila, A. (2021). Readiness and leadership in evidence-based practice and knowledge management: A cross-sectional survey of nurses’ perceptions. Nordic Journal of Nursing Research, 41(4), 187–196. https://doi.org/10.1177/2057158520980687
Wound, Ostomy, and Continence Nurses Society. (2022). What is a WOC? Retrieved from https://www.wocn.org/healthcare-providers/the-value-of-a-woc-nurse/
Ability to have continued growth and learning within one’s professional practice that would facilitate advancement.
Ability to plan one’s career and take the necessary steps for career advancement.
Ability to actively participate in activities within one’s place of employment such as committees and quality improvement.
Professional nursing organization that provides nurses nationally with support and opportunities for growth. https://www.nursingworld.org/
undergraduate-level degree for registered nurses (RNs) usually over 4 years, that introduces nurses to topics such as patient care technology, research, health promotion, safety and quality within the healthcare system. The BSN degree incorporates more than basic nursing duties including evidence-based practice, management, and public health.
A means to pursue additional learning activities, whether informal or formally in nature.
The state’s regulating body that outlines and enforces a set of nursing standards of practice that lie within nursing scope of practice. State Board of Nursing also determines requirements and qualifications that need to be met in order to be licensed and practice in the state.
A title or credit for meeting minimum qualifications and requirements. For example registered nurse (RN) is a credential.
Provides learners with credit, recognizing the amount of time and resources it may have taken to complete set learning opportunity.
Demonstrate knowledge and expertise in a given topic or specific area of nursing.
a subsidiary of the American Nurses Association. ANCC's credentialing programs certify and recognize individual nurses in specialty practice areas. ANCC recognizes healthcare organizations that promote nursing excellence and quality patient outcomes while providing safe, positive work environments. In addition, ANCC accredits healthcare organizations that provide and approve continuing nursing education and accredits transition to practice programs and prepares nurses for new practice roles.
an undergraduate degree, usually over 2 years that allows students to gain core knowledge and clinical skills in the field of nursing. An ADN degree is focused on the clinical tasks that a nurse provides, such as monitoring patients, maintaining their records and performing other basic healthcare procedures.
Provides the foundation of what is considered best practice through analysis and synthesis of data within practice combined with scientific research.
a process aimed to improve safety, effectiveness, and experience of care through a systematic approach including planning, designing, testing, and implementing changes using real time measurement for improvement.