Examining Nursing Specialties
You have probably seen one or more of the many inspirational posters about decisions. A visual such as a forked road or a street sign is typically pictured, along with a quote designed to inspire.
Decisions are often not so easily inspired. Perhaps you discovered this when choosing a specialty within the MSN program. This decision is a critical part of your plan for success, and you no doubt want to get it right. This is yet another area where your network can help, as well as other sources of information that can help you make an informed choice. Examining Nursing Specialties
To Prepare:
Reflect on your decision to pursue a specialty(Mental Health/psychiatric) within the MSN program, including your professional and academic goals as they relate to your program/specialization.
Examining Nursing Specialties
Making career choice decision is one of the most challenging task that most students face during their academic journey. Personally, making a conclusion to pursue a master’s degree in nursing and specifically Psychiatric-Mental Health Nurse Practitioner was not an easy task. My aim was however making a career choice that would help me reach as many patients as possible moreso, from my community. After I received an acceptance letter to pursue an MSN course, some of the recognized courses according to the model of consensus were certified registered nurse anesthetist (CRNA), certified nurse practitioner (NP), Clinical nurse specialist (CNS) and the certified nurse midwife (CNM) (APRN-CNS, 2020). This paper aims at looking the nursing specialty course and the encountered challenges faced while making the choice.
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Among the above mentioned Masters of nursing programs, I decided to choose the certified nurse practitioner and specifically Psychiatric-Mental Health Nurse Practitioner. It is a program that nurtures nurses towards assisting populations, families and individuals towards development of health programs and policies while at the same time offering education concerning health to the people (Chapman et al., 2018). It was however not easy to make the conclusion of pursuing the course leaving the rest. The main factor that guided me towards choosing Psychiatric-Mental Health Nurse Practitioner was the fact that I was brought up in a poor and marginalized area where health services were not readily available. Healthcare providers were scarce and hence we used to walk for longer distances to seek for healthcare services. I was brought up in a community where I witnessed the deaths of many people due to lack of healthcare services. There were only three clinicians in the area who also lacked enough equipment to cater for the health needs of people during emergency cases. By that time, most healthcare providers opted to work in developed areas such as the cities. I therefore made this choice to ensure that healthcare services are well distributed in all the regions.
As stated above, I went through several challenges before realizing on what wanted to pursue. The fast challenge is that all the four programs were good for me. My target was satisfying the communities and populations where the four programs would have actually made me achieve my goal. It was therefore a great challenge choosing a single one of them leaving the rest. The second challenge that I faced was understanding the roles of an APRN in a population focus. My understanding was that every APRN must practice within a healthcare setting which was not the case. My focus was practicing at population level as an APRN. There were various driving factors that specifically geared me towards choosing Psychiatric-Mental Health Nurse Practitioner. As I was growing up during my adolescent stage, I witnessed multiple cases of suicide from youths and adolescents due to stress and depression. The cases were however triggered by lack of mental health clinicians in the community who would respond to such incidences. I therefore decided to pursue the course to help respond to the cries made by the people from the community.
The American Psychiatric Nurses Association (APNA) is one of the professional organization affiliated to Psychiatric-Mental Health Nurse Practitioner. It was an organization that was formed in the year 1986 with an aim of education and service provision to its members (Oleck, 2021). The association is currently composed of more than 13500. The members are either post-graduate students or qualified nurse professionals. For one to become a member of the association, a subscription is usually made where the payments are made on a monthly or yearly basis. The American Association of Nurse practitioners is the other organization affiliated to the Psychiatric-Mental Health Nurse Practitioner specialty. It is however a broader organization whose main focus is nurse practitioners from all specialties. According to Kleinpell et al (2019), it is through an invitation where a person can receive a membership honor from the association. Examining Nursing Specialties
In a recap, career choice in is one of the difficult task in the field of nursing but seems to be simple to many especially in the field of nursing. MSN programs are equally good hence a person has to critically think of what they want to achieve in future before making a choice. One must also consider the areas where they want operate in future. In my case, being brought in a background where healthcare services were inadequate geared me towards pursuing certified nurse practitioner program. Moreover, witnessing multiple suicidal cases at youth and adolescent stages made pursue a Psychiatric-Mental Health Nurse Practitioner to help respond to the cries from community people.
References
APRN-CNS, P. J. F. P. (2020). Graduate Nursing Education. Clinical Journal of Oncology
Nursing, 24(6), 613-616. https://DOI:10.1188/20.CJON.613-616
Chapman, S. A., Phoenix, B. J., Hahn, T. E., & Strod, D. C. (2018). Utilization and economic
contribution of psychiatric mental health nurse practitioners in public behavioral health
services. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 54(6), S243-S249.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.amepre.2018.01.045
Oleck, L. G. (2021). Psychiatric-Mental Health Nurses: Activating Our Voices—Who We Are,
What We Do, What We Need. Journal of the American Psychiatric Nurses
Association, 27(6), 507-508. https://doi.org/10.1177/10783903211054853
Kleinpell, R. M., Grabenkort, W. R., Kapu, A. N., Constantine, R., & Sicoutris, C. (2019). Nurse
Practitioners and Physician Assistants in Acute and Critical Care: A Concise Review of
the Literature and Data 2008-2018. Critical care medicine, 47(10), 1442–1449.
https://doi.org/10.1097/CCM.0000000000003925
