Admission Essay to Doctorate of Nursing Program (DNP)

Clinical Nurse Manager

I am a clinical nurse manager of a geriatric psychiatric unit in charge of various operations. As part of my professional growth, I desire to pursue a Doctorate of Nursing Program (DNP), which, I am convinced, will help me make a greater contribution towards the growth of the profession and improvement of care provided to the patients.

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My Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) was focused on nurse management and through the knowledge that I acquired from the course, I was prepared for the leadership role that I hold today. During the BSN training, it was paramount to undertake management courses that detailed the theoretical and practical management perspectives. The education experience enhanced my knowledge of the roles that nurses play in the management of their patients, which had previously been limited to providing bedside care.

Once I understood that nurses are also required to be leaders in the health sector, I was motivated to pursue growth towards being a nurse manager since I was convinced that by achieving that level of growth, I would be able to impact my team and contribute towards the development of policies that improved care for all patients. The experience has made me pursue growth and self-development throughout my career including finding ways to enhance my communication and analytical skills, so that I could become a more versatile manager who contributes to the growth of profession.

As a nurse practitioner, I have realized that many nurses are not able to handle clinical issues immediately after their graduation or even in their early years at work. The nurses tend to struggle with decision-making concerning determining the areas of growth that they should pursue and the daily management of patients. As a nurse, I understand the critical role that mentorship plays in facilitating growth within the profession. Learning that at the beginning of their careers nurses tend to lack adequate skills to carry out their work, I started to critically analyze how I would desire to develop professionally while at the same time contributing towards the development of my colleagues. The experience also made me start perceiving nursing as a dynamic field where all the practitioners have a role to impact one another to improve the entire profession. Thus, I continue to mentor other nurses to ensure that they can achieve their personal goals while I also seek mentorship from those who have more advanced skills than I do. The experience regarding the inability of new nurses to perform some of the skills in the clinical areas made me establish a professional development plan in the unit where I work. The program includes holding discussions on how to manage various conditions in the unit.

Psychiatric Nursing Practice

My practice in the field of psychiatric nursing has enabled me to identify various strengths that I have to develop over time. My analytical strength particularly stands out as it has prepared me adequately for the DPN studies. I have carried out various evaluations on patients to make a determination as to whether they are eligible for admission to the psychiatric unit. Through the decisions that I have made regarding patient evaluation, I have garnered respect and increased trust from my colleagues and the medical practitioners too. The experience has enabled me to grow my interest in evidence-based care as applied to the area of geriatric psychiatric nursing, and hence, I have learned to allocate time to review new information and analyze its applicability to the patients in my unit. This experience has made me a better nurse as it enabled me to understand that with effort and determination, nurses can be significant members of the healthcare team and contribute positively towards care provision. The experience has also enabled me to appreciate the need to review the new evidence as is outlined in the various researches carried out in nursing care as they offer guidance on how to make better clinical decisions that benefit the nursing profession and health care in general.

The scholarly project that I intend to undertake will be on quality improvement, where I will aim at determining measures that can be applied to decrease the rate of falls among the geriatric psychiatric patients. The existing literature demonstrates that medication, environment, and patient functioning among other factors are the causal factors for patient falls (Huang et al., 2012). Therefore, the objective of my project will be to evaluate how these factors contribute towards patient falls in a geriatric psychiatric unit. The literature also indicates that nurses have a significant role to play in reducing patient falls in an inpatient setup (Kalisch, Tschannen, & Lee, 2012). Thus, the project will also seek to ascertain the role that nurses should play in the prevention of falls among geriatric psychiatric patients. The choice of the topic was based on the fact that patient falls are common in the geriatric psychiatric unit where I work and hence there is a need to ensure that the problem is adequately addressed. The falls also present a strain on the healthcare system as they result in injuries that require being treated hence raising the cost of treatment (Ungar et al., 2013).

The proposed research study will be carried in the form of a quality improvement project as it seeks to enhance the quality of care provided within the unit. There are guidelines that outline how to manage patients in the geriatric psychiatric unit but these do not seem to address the issue comprehensively. Thus, adopting a quality improvement project approach will eliminate the quality gaps that exist in practice. The entire DNP program will also prepare me to grow my research skills so that I can contribute positively to the growth or nursing as a profession.

References

Huang, A. R., Mallet, L., Rochefort, C. M., Eguale, T., Buckeridge, D. L., & Tamblyn, R. (2012). Medication-related falls in the elderly. Drugs and Aging, 29(5), 359-376. doi:10.2165/11599460-000000000-00000

Kalisch, B. J., Tschannen, D., & Lee, K. H. (2012). Missed nursing care, staffing, and patient falls. Journal of nursing care quality, 27(1), 6-12. doi: 10.1097/NCQ.0b013e318225aa23

Ungar, A., Rafanelli, M., Iacomelli, I., Brunetti, M. A., Ceccofiglio, A., Tesi, F., & Marchionni, N. (2013). Fall prevention in the elderly. Clinical Cases Mineral Bone Metabolism, 10(2), 91-5. doi: 10.11138/ccmbm/2013.10.2.091