I commend you for knowing your desired MSN path you want to pursue early on in your nursing career. It sounds like you do have a great passion for teaching. As you have mentioned in your post, qualified undergraduate and graduate nursing applicants are being turned away due to faculty shortages as the top reason (American Association of Colleges of Nursing, 2020). As the demand for nurses is continually increasing, this is a genuine concern (BLS, n.d.). To produce trained nurses, committed nurse educators are a crucial necessity (Gleeson, M., 2020).
Just like you, I also had difficulty deciding which MSN track I would pursue. I struggled between the family nurse practitioner and nursing informatics track. Considering the nature of the job that I will eventually take on after graduation, was a significant factor in determining the best choice. With your willingness to provide genuine guidance and offer constructive feedback to others, you will achieve great things in your chosen MSN career path (Valiga, T. & Thornlow, D., 2018). Good luck on your academic and professional journey. I wish you the best.
References
American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN). (2020). Nursing Faculty Shortage. Aacnnursing.Org. https://www.aacnnursing.org/News-Information/Fact-Sheets/Nursing-Faculty-Shortage
Gleeson, M. (2020). Institutions Innovate to Fill the National Shortage of Nurse Educators. INSIGHT into Diversity, 94(4/5), 58–60.
United States Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). (n.d.). Table 8. Occupations with the largest projected number of job openings due to growth and replacement needs, 2012 and projected 2022. Www.Bls.Gov. https://www.bls.gov/news.release/ecopro.t08.htm
Valiga, T., Thornlow, D. (2018). What to consider when choosing a graduate nursing program. Nursing, 48, 11-14. https://doi.org/10.1097/01.NURSE.0000527614.67902.8e
Walden University MSN Core Nursing courses – Generic information for success:
- Being graduate level adult learners – It is very unlikely that you will experience the quantity of or detailed guidance as in the announcements received in this course. Being so: Read the course announcements thoroughly and completely. Read the course announcements at least daily for any updates. Going forward the Instructors may post items at any time throughout the day or night. I have unfortunately received emails throughout this course with questions for which the information was previously addressed within the announcements. Again, reading the course announcements is imperative for your success.
- The utilization requirement of APA within assignments will increase as you progress to courses that are considered “writing intense”. The APA requirement within discussions will remain as you experienced within this course. This course is not considered writing intense. Familiarize yourself with the correct usage of APA 7th edition. It is within every graded item, within every Nursing course going forward. Familiarize yourself and utilize the Walden resources for APA assistance. I have diligently posted links to those resources several times during this course.
- Use ONLY your Walden student email for communication with any Walden University representative. When communicating with your Instructor ALWAYS include your course number and section. Within this course I posted in the announcements numerous times your specific course number and section, as well asked that you include that information when emailing me. Sadly, I received emails that did not include this information, this delayed my assisting you as I had to request your course number and section. This alerts me that course announcements were not being thoroughly and completely reviewed. Going forward it is highly unlikely Instructors will respond to any email other than your Walden student email as email not in Walden origin routinely gets flagged as spam then deleted. Also be fully aware that Instructors required to respond to any email other than your designated Walden Student email.
- Be mindful if you do not participate in any Walden course during the 1st week (Day 1 through Day 7) – you will be removed from the course by Walden University regardless of your excuse. Your Instructor has no control over this – it is university policy!
- The grading of any assignment cannot proceed by your Instructor unless you submit your assignments via SafeAssign, then in BlackBoard. Traditionally a -0- score will be awarded, with no resubmission availability. At the Graduate level, you are responsible for your work being submitted per instructions AND grading rubric parameters and due date/time. Again, I strongly encourage you to submit your assignments before Day 7 to ensure yourself sufficient time to seek assistance and correct the issue. Remember SafeAssign Drafts and SafeAssign are different!
- For Discussions – There is a six (6) day period (Monday, Day 1 through Saturday, Day 6) allowed for the Discussion participation. No allowances for participation will be made outside of the six (6) Discussion active period. Any submitted post outside of the 6-day active discussion period will not be graded and you will receive a -0- score.
- Faculty cannot accept or grade any assignment or discussion through email.
- Do not wait until Day 7 to begin or submit your assignment. Assignments are due Day 7. At the Graduate level, you are responsible for your work being submitted per instructions, grading rubric parameters and due date and time. Being so = I strongly encourage you to submit your assignments well before Day 7 to ensure yourself sufficient time to seek assistance and correct any issue encountered. I have purposely made myself available to you each day including weekends and responded to you within 12 to 24 hours. Be mindful, Instructors are not required to respond to you on a daily basis. Going forward your Instructors will respond to your Contact the Instructor communications and emails within the required 48 hours’ time period.
- As a graduate level student, Instructors will not reach out to you to ensure your assignments/discussions are completed and submitted correctly. As a graduate level adult learner, it is your responsibility to ensure that your discussions and assignments are completed and submitted timely and correctly. As an adult learner, you need to take the initiative and reach out to your Instructor immediately when you encounter an issue. You were offered an online orientation by Walden University – Did you participate in that orientation? If not, I strongly suggest you contact your advisor and make arrangements.
- If you experience technical issues, please utilize your resources and contact the Walden Customer Care Team or Walden IT for assistance. Going forward you will encounter several PowerPoint presentations, Walden Templates within your future courses at Walden University, as well be required to submit multiple items with a single submission.
- Understand the Time Zones at Walden University and the applicable conversion. Your course calendar is in Eastern Time as is the time/date stamp of submission/participation for your discussions and assignments. Going forward all of your future Nursing courses require that your Discussions, any Quiz or Assignment will continue to be due submitted in Mountain Time.
- Have a computer and Internet backup plan. What will you do if your computer crashes or your Internet is not working? Computer/Internet/work issues are your responsibility. Allowances will not be made due to these issues causing a lack of participation or missed deadline, rather a -0- score will be awarded. Save your work on a flash or hard drive. Know where you can go to access the Academic Skills Center as it is an excellent resource to assist in your success.
- For Assignments – Only prior communication with AND Instructor approval will late assignments be considered for grading. Assignments submitted late will be deducted 4% daily until Day 5 OR may deduct the entire 20% regardless of time/day of late submission. This is at the discretion of each Instructor and will vary course-by-course. After Day 5, in any course, the assignment will be scored a -0-.
- Be familiar with how to access and utilize the Walden resources. I posted the most useful and frequently utilized resources numerous times within the course announcements.
- Ensure your discussions have a substance, depth and breadth, critical analysis, and reflection element within the grading rubric. In short – if your discussion Main Post does not closely compare to the discussion exemplar located within the course resources and announcements posted within this course your grade will be drastically reduced.
- Know who and where to submit any documentation if necessary, for allowances for any late or missed assignments. Remember Instructors are not permitted to accept any medical documentation.
- Know who your advisor is and how to contact them.
- Know where and how to locate your student feedback. This course is 6 weeks in duration – In Week 5 I received emails inquiring as to “I see my grade but don’t know why points were deducted” – It was sadly apparent the feedback being provided was not being reviewed by those students. Your numeric score and student feedback are in different locations – this was addressed in the course announcements. If you cannot locate or have not located your student feedback for discussions and assignments – I strongly encourage you to contact the Customer Care Team as you have missed a tremendous amount of information.
A Sample Answer 6 For the Assignment: NURS 6003 Discussion Examining Nursing Specialties Sample
Title: NURS 6003 Discussion Examining Nursing Specialties Sample
I began working in the emergency department a year into my career as a nurse. When I began working there, some of the most helpful people were the nurse educators. They assisted clinically and took the time to explain the reasons we performed different tests on people, gave them different medications, and assisted on how to perform detailed assessments. The emergency department that I work in has a high acuity, as well as high volume, so for them to take the time to explain helped tremendously in my orientation process. There was one educator in particular who was very hands on, answered any and all questions I had, and taught me how to think critically. She was the person who helped me how to think like a critical care nurse, working in the high paced environment.
This was when I decided that I wanted to become a nurse educator. I knew that before I pursued this career choice I would need to become an expert in the field. Nurses with a high-level professional knowledge and skills are needed for appropriate education and training of nursing personnel (Satoh et al., 2020). I worked on the floor as a staff nurse as well as a nurse preceptor to sharpen my skills, and to begin to learn how to teach newer nurses as they begin their journey in the emergency department.
One of the difficulties I found in making my decision was if I should continue to pursue the education track, or if I should look into the administration track. Ultimately, I decided to go with the Masters of Nursing with a concentration in Education because I felt this was more suitable for my future career. I have recently taken on the role of assistant nurse manager, but as a clinical role, I feel that the education track will help me be able to teach young nurses the way a nurse educator would. It will also help me keep the staff engaged, facilitate learning, and assist others in developing their learning techniques.
My career goal are to excel in my new role as an assistant nurse manager, and to teach nursing students during their clinical rotations. I can do both of these things by getting the most out of my education at Walden University.
A professional organization that will help me advance my career is the Emergency Nurses Association, or ENA. The ENA is a professional organization that represents emergency nursing addressing issues relevant to emergency care, provides education, issues a peer-reviewed journal, and publishes professional guidelines (2021). Joining the ENA is a simple process and is available for both nurses and nursing students. The membership fee for a registered nurse is $115 annually. One will have the option to pay in four installments or in full. This organization will help as a nurse educator stay up to date with all of the latest research in emergency medicine.
References
Emergency nurses association (ENA). enaorg. (2021, December 3). Retrieved November 18,
2021, from https://www.ena.org/.
Satoh, M., Fujimura, A., & Sato, N. (2020). Competency of academic nurse educators. SAGE
Open Nursing, 6, 237796082096938. https://doi.org/10.1177/2377960820969389
Lopes Write Policy
For assignments that need to be submitted to Lopes Write, please be sure you have received your report and Similarity Index (SI) percentage BEFORE you do a “final submit” to me.
Once you have received your report, please review it. This report will show you grammatical, punctuation, and spelling errors that can easily be fixed. Take the extra few minutes to review instead of getting counted off for these mistakes.
Review your similarities. Did you forget to cite something? Did you not paraphrase well enough? Is your paper made up of someone else’s thoughts more than your own?
Visit the Writing Center in the Student Success Center, under the Resources tab in LoudCloud for tips on improving your paper and SI score.
Late Policy
The university’s policy on late assignments is 10% penalty PER DAY LATE. This also applies to late DQ replies.
Please communicate with me if you anticipate having to submit an assignment late. I am happy to be flexible, with advance notice. We may be able to work out an extension based on extenuating circumstances.
If you do not communicate with me before submitting an assignment late, the GCU late policy will be in effect.
I do not accept assignments that are two or more weeks late unless we have worked out an extension.
As per policy, no assignments are accepted after the last day of class. Any assignment submitted after midnight on the last day of class will not be accepted for grading.
Communication
Communication is so very important. There are multiple ways to communicate with me:
Questions to Instructor Forum: This is a great place to ask course content or assignment questions. If you have a question, there is a good chance one of your peers does as well. This is a public forum for the class.
Individual Forum: This is a private forum to ask me questions or send me messages. This will be checked at least once every 24 hours.
Important information for writing discussion questions and participation
Welcome to class
Hello class and welcome to the class and I will be your instructor for this course. This is a -week course and requires a lot of time commitment, organization, and a high level of dedication. Please use the class syllabus to guide you through all the assignments required for the course. I have also attached the classroom policies to this announcement to know your expectations for this course. Please review this document carefully and ask me any questions if you do. You could email me at any time or send me a message via the “message” icon in halo if you need to contact me. I check my email regularly, so you should get a response within 24 hours. If you have not heard from me within 24 hours and need to contact me urgently, please send a follow up text to
I strongly encourage that you do not wait until the very last minute to complete your assignments. Your assignments in weeks 4 and 5 require early planning as you would need to present a teaching plan and interview a community health provider. I advise you look at the requirements for these assignments at the beginning of the course and plan accordingly. I have posted the YouTube link that explains all the class assignments in detail. It is required that you watch this 32-minute video as the assignments from week 3 through 5 require that you follow the instructions to the letter to succeed. Failure to complete these assignments according to instructions might lead to a zero. After watching the video, please schedule a one-on-one with me to discuss your topic for your project by the second week of class. Use this link to schedule a 15-minute session. Please, call me at the time of your appointment on my number. Please note that I will NOT call you.
Please, be advised I do NOT accept any assignments by email. If you are having technical issues with uploading an assignment, contact the technical department and inform me of the issue. If you have any issues that would prevent you from getting your assignments to me by the deadline, please inform me to request a possible extension. Note that working fulltime or overtime is no excuse for late assignments. There is a 5%-point deduction for every day your assignment is late. This only applies to approved extensions. Late assignments will not be accepted.
If you think you would be needing accommodations due to any reasons, please contact the appropriate department to request accommodations.
Plagiarism is highly prohibited. Please ensure you are citing your sources correctly using APA 7th edition. All assignments including discussion posts should be formatted in APA with the appropriate spacing, font, margin, and indents. Any papers not well formatted would be returned back to you, hence, I advise you review APA formatting style. I have attached a sample paper in APA format and will also post sample discussion responses in subsequent announcements.
Your initial discussion post should be a minimum of 200 words and response posts should be a minimum of 150 words. Be advised that I grade based on quality and not necessarily the number of words you post. A minimum of TWO references should be used for your initial post. For your response post, you do not need references as personal experiences would count as response posts. If you however cite anything from the literature for your response post, it is required that you cite your reference. You should include a minimum of THREE references for papers in this course. Please note that references should be no more than 5 years old except recommended as a resource for the class. Furthermore, for each discussion board question, you need ONE initial substantive response and TWO substantive responses to either your classmates or your instructor for a total of THREE responses. There are TWO discussion questions each week, hence, you need a total minimum of SIX discussion posts for each week. I usually post a discussion question each week. You could also respond to these as it would count towards your required SIX discussion posts for the week.
I understand this is a lot of information to cover in 5 weeks, however, the Bible says in Philippians 4:13 that we can do all things through Christ that strengthens us. Even in times like this, we are encouraged by God’s word that we have that ability in us to succeed with His strength. I pray that each and every one of you receives strength for this course and life generally as we navigate through this pandemic that is shaking our world today. Relax and enjoy the course!
Hi Class,
Please read through the following information on writing a Discussion question response and participation posts.
Contact me if you have any questions.
Important information on Writing a Discussion Question
- Your response needs to be a minimum of 150 words (not including your list of references)
- There needs to be at least TWO references with ONE being a peer reviewed professional journal article.
- Include in-text citations in your response
- Do not include quotes—instead summarize and paraphrase the information
- Follow APA-7th edition
- Points will be deducted if the above is not followed
Participation –replies to your classmates or instructor
- A minimum of 6 responses per week, on at least 3 days of the week.
- Each response needs at least ONE reference with citations—best if it is a peer reviewed journal article
- Each response needs to be at least 75 words in length (does not include your list of references)
- Responses need to be substantive by bringing information to the discussion or further enhance the discussion. Responses of “I agree” or “great post” does not count for the word count.
- Follow APA 7th edition
- Points will be deducted if the above is not followed
- Remember to use and follow APA-7th edition for all weekly assignments, discussion questions, and participation points.
- Here are some helpful links
- Student paper example
- Citing Sources
- The Writing Center is a great resource
Making the choice to further my education is a decision that will change the course of my future professional career. Even more so, choosing a specialty is a choice that will directly impact my career. I chose to pursue family practice because it opens the door to a broad range of career options. Family nurse practitioners (FNP) can of course practice in a primary care clinic setting and view patients across the lifespan (AANP, 2019).
My decision to choose the FNP track within the MSN program derives from my desire to have general knowledge about the treatment of patients from infants to seniors. Having this knowledge will provide me with a wide range of options for future employment. Currently, my goal is to work in a cardiology clinic. However, if I decide to take my career in a different direction being in family practice will prepare me for many future career options.
The American Association of Nurse Practitioners (AANP) is a general nursing organization. The AANP can provide resources for continuing education, job postings, information about NP certification boards, and much more useful information (AANP, 2019). I feel that membership in this organization can assist me in meeting my professional and personal goals (Echevarria, 2018).
If I chose to further specialize in my nursing practice one day, I would plan to look for nursing organizations that reflect that specialty. Being in a nursing organization specific to one’s area of practice can play an important role in dealing with challenges within that specialty (Truant & Chan, 2017).
Healthcare is one of the rapidly changing and advancing sectors. As such the sector is driven towards the provision of quality services to its clients. The nursing profession is at the center of all the changes and implementations in healthcare institutions aimed at bettering the service quality to patients (Boehm et al, 2019: Kristensen et al, 2015). The responsibilities of nurses require them to continuously advance in terms of knowledge and skills developed (Price & Reichert, 2017). As a graduate nurse, a thorough thought process led me to enroll in an MSN program specializing in psychiatric nursing practice.
The choice to specialize in psychiatric nursing was challenging as there are several options, all aimed to better patient outcomes. My choice was motivated by an observation that I made over time as a nurse. There is a steady increase of mental health cases among both adults and children that took my attention. I am excited about helping patients with mental conditions and being a part of a team that works to eradicate or minimize mental health problems and their associated effects. Psychiatric nursing is a challenging field that requires dedication. I am ready to handle all the challenges involved. Besides, as an undergraduate, I spent most of my training sessions in the psychiatry unit because it felt more like what I wanted compared to other departments.
In the development of my professional career, I intend to join professional bodies and that will work to enable my application of psychological knowledge to better my practice. Specifically, I will join the American Psychiatric Association (APNA) because they play a role in the advancement of mental health nursing and practice (American Nurses Association, 2016). Joining this association will help me uphold and improve values such as integrity, transparency, and inclusivity among others that will help me to provide quality care for mental health patients. It may not be an easy journey to achieve my career goal, but I will put my effort into achieving the best.
