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My Professional Identity

When I consider my professional identity, I see myself as belonging to two professional groups. First, I identify as a Registered Nurse. Within this category, I want to be viewed as intelligent, caring, autonomous and clinically adept. These traits are important to me because nurses are situated in positions of immense trust and responsibility that is not to be taken lightly. Secondly, I identify as a manager. In this area, I want to be someone who leads with integrity, honesty, and reliability. These qualities are important because they are the assets I appreciate in those who have supervised me. In my experience, employees have more support in their leadership team when they feel management is transparent, altruistic and leading by example, especially through times of change and growth. In order to be true to the above qualities that are important to me, I try to represent them in my everyday behavior. When I contemplate my social media presence, I realize how important my professional identity is to me. I am always careful that any items I share do not violate the Nova Scotia College of Nurses Social Media Practice Guidelines (NSCN, 2020), my organization’s policies and procedures, or the professional identity I want to preserve.

“Nursing is a profession rooted in professional ethics and ethical values, and nursing performance is based on such values.” (Poorchangizi, B., et al, 2019). My professional values have developed and changed over my years of experience. My values, as a novice nurse, focused more toward achieving clinical competence and autonomy. As I honed my skills, gained more knowledge and became a leader within the health care system, these values remained important to me, but I began to see the “bigger picture.” Being a professional became more about accountability, adaptability, and self-awareness. In my current role, I am accountable to a variety of stakeholders (government, my organization, employees and the patients we serve), and to my own personal standards for the job I do, the way I conduct myself and by seeking feedback to further my professional development. Adaptability has become a very important value of mine, especially considering the current landscape. I learned, during my time as an emergency room nurse, that being able adapt effectively to a rapidly changing environment is important, not only for the provision of clinical care, but to avoid becoming overwhelmed with the challenges you are faced with. “Self-awareness is the ability to see yourself clearly and objectively through reflection and introspection” (Ackerman, C., 2021). I consider self-awareness to be a crucial value because I see it as the path to personal and professional growth. When you can honestly analyze your strengths and weaknesses, you learn how to approach challenges in an efficient way. Being able to identify your learning needs, allows you to have a focus for your professional development.

In my position as Clinical & Quality manager for EHS LifeFlight, I am directly responsible for education, the quality of the program, and the program’s accreditation. The work I do influences the front line clinical care and safety of patients. This is achieved by overseeing education delivery, data trending, and engaging stakeholders. Part of my role involves collaboration with the other divisions of my organization (Emergency Medical Care Incorporated) to enhance the efficiency and safety of the delivery of prehospital emergency care. I am also involved in policy development, strategic planning and organization wide recruitment. I bring a unique perspective to the table, as I was a front line clinician in both prehospital emergency care, as well as in the emergency department. In the quality part of my portfolio, I prepare reports for high-level distribution (senior management, executive directors and government). These reports contain clinical data trends, mission activity, and operational occurrences that are utilized to inform program development and growth.


References

Ackerman, C. E. (2021, June 12) What is Self-Awareness and Why is it Important? [+5 Ways to Increase it] PositivePsychology.com. https://positivepsychology.com/self-awareness-matters-how-you-can-be-more-self-aware/





Poorchangizi, B, Borhani, F., Abbaszadeh, A., Mirzaee, M., Farokhzadian, J. (2019) The Importance of Professional Values From Nursing Students’ Perspective. BMC Nurs 18(26) https://doi.org/10.1186/s12912-019-0351-1



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