The Assignment:
- With the resources specific to the MSN specialization and the, Walden University. (n.d.). Master of Science in Nursing (MSN), shared in this module, write a paragraph or make a Nursing Specialty Comparison table, comparing at least two nursing specialties that include your selected specialization and second-preferred specialization.
- Write a 2- to 3-paragraph justification statement identifying your reasons for choosing your MSN specialization. Incorporate feedback you received from colleagues in this Module’s Discussion forum.
- Identify the professional organization related to your chosen specialization for this Assignment and explain how you can become an active member of this organization.
*My selected specialty is Family Nurse Practitioner and my 2nd preferred specialty is Adult-Gerontology Acute Care Nurse Practitioner. Please use the following link to compare both specialties. Please use as a cite.
Adult-Gerontology NP Competencies Work Group. (2016). Adult-gerontology acute care and primary care NP competencies Links to an external site.. https://cdn.ymaws.com/www.nonpf.org/resource/resmgr/competencies/NP_Adult_Geri_competencies_4.pdf
*The specialty I chose is Family Nurse Practitioner. Please incorporate the following feedback:
Hi Crystal,
I like how you described the role of a Family Nurse Practitioner. I share your goal of becoming a provider that improves patient outcomes. I am also glad you did not face many obstacles on your journey here. When choosing an organization to be a part of, I initially looked at the American Association of Nurse Practitioners (AANP) but decided to go with Texas Nurse Practitioners (TNP) organization instead as it was more appealing and specific to my state. “Nurses should seek membership in organizations that will best fulfill their professional and personal goals” (Echevarria, 2018). I remember reading both organizations’ mission statements, and my goals aligned more with TNP’s objectives. “There are more than 100 nursing organizations, each representing a subgroup of the profession, all of which aim to unite for advocacy around the mission of that organization” (Cherry et al., 2019). I agree with this statement as it can be challenging to browse through many websites choosing which one to be a part of. At the same time, it is wonderful to see all the different aspects of nursing representation. The organizations present lots of overwhelmingly good information on their websites. However, Echevarria (2018) provides deciding factors in choosing a professional organization which include, what is the nurse looking to achieve with this membership, which association captures and promotes their current work, and lastly, can the organization prove to give nurses a voice in the healthcare field to yield positive outcomes. With these criteria in mind, I will look more into AANP again and gauge if it will be a good fit for me.
Hello Crystal,
I, too, am also on the family nurse practitioner track in school. I am glad to hear that you could get through without any major challenges in your decision-making for school. It is also noted that there is a decrease in primary care providers and shortages projected to hit in the year 2025 (Finneran and Kreye, 2019). As FNPs, we can step into those vacant roles and provide primary care to those of all ages in need. The American Association of Nurse Practitioners is the same organization I looked into. You can start with a student membership for only $55 as you start your journey and get wonderful benefits until you finish school (American Association of Nurse Practitioners, n.d.). I think a resource like that will be beneficial on the journey of endless learning and research that goes into our career choice.
Hi, Crystal.
It is interesting to hear that you did not struggle to make a sound decision in regard to which specialty you wanted. This shows the level of focus you had, and the passion that was driving you was really powerful. Am sure the decision you made of becoming a Family Nurse Practitioner is the right one. Nurse Practitioners are essential key members of the multidisciplinary health care team who also provide transitional care and care coordination. Transitional Care is defined a set of actions designed to ensure the coordination and continuity of health care as patients transfer between different locations or different levels of care within the same location. Representative locations include (but are not limited to) hospitals, sub-acute and post-acute nursing facilities, the patient’s home, primary and specialty care offices, and long-term care facilities (Coleman, 2003). Care coordination is often encouraged as a means to improve quality of care and control costs associated with chronic illness (National Chronic Care Consortium, 2007). When Nurse Practitioners are working with certain population of people, nursing transitional care and care coordination models emphasizes patient education, engagement of patients and families in prevention, self-care, and adoption of health information technology to improve access to information (Robinson, 2010).
*The professional organization related to my specialty is the American Association of Nurse Practitioners. The website is https://www.aanp.org/. The following takes you to how to become a member: https://www.aanp.org/membership. Please use as a cite.