Personal Qualities and Attributes
Taking the next step from being a nurse to a nurse practitioner is important and will be affected by many factors that will determine whether one becomes a successful nurse practitioner. Naturally, a successful nurse practitioner embodies numerous characteristics, with some including personal strengths and qualities that one is born with, while others include attributes that can be built or strengthened when necessary to become a successful national practitioner. Some of the personal qualities and attributes that are useful to the nursing profession and especially the psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner include attentiveness, compassion, integrity, communication, empathy, time management, leadership and professionalism.
Nurse practitioner needs to have compassion for their patients and all the people they work with. Nurse practitioners and, more specifically, PMHNPs should therefore try to understand the potential suffering of patients and let the patients understand that they care and support them in their journey. A nurse practitioner should remain vigilant of any incidences of compassion burnout that can result in showing low levels of compassion to patients. NPs should always adopt perspectives that can help them to be more sympathetic with their patients.
Integrity is also an important personal attribute in the nursing profession. Integrity can help in building patient-provider trust, which is the foundation of healthcare relationships. By having integrity, nurses are therefore able to promote transparency with patients and ensure that patients have all the important information that may help to enhance their health and well-being. The lack of integrity and dishonesty can negatively affect the well-being of patients and also compromise patient safety.
Empathy is also an important personal attribute in the nursing profession. Being empathetic therefore makes up one of the most important qualities of a great nurse practitioner. Being empathetic is therefore similar to having compassion, although having empathy allows a nurse to put themselves in the patient’s situation and identify with the patients. Having empathy fosters trust between a patient and a healthcare provider and boosts their relationships.
On the other hand, there are different personal qualities and attributes that I feel will require further development to prepare for the nursing profession. These include attentiveness, communication, time management and leadership. Attentiveness is an important attribute in the nursing profession because when dealing with patient’s healthcare practitioners need to be attentive to what patients tell them and observe issues on the patient records and examinations. Improving attentiveness can also help a nurse practitioner to gain an in-depth understanding of the different health challenges of patients and provide amicable solutions to different health challenges. Communication is also another personal attribute that is needed to improve in preparation for the nursing profession. Being able to communicate with colleagues and patients and even with the management in a healthcare facility can make nurse practitioners be more successful in their practice. This is because healthcare delivery requires an interdisciplinary team that is involved in providing adequate health care services to patients. Poor communication skills can bring challenges in the healthcare environment and lead to the creation of dangerous patient encounters.
Time management is also an important skill that is needed to improve in preparation for the nurse practitioner role. Increasing workload demands and numerous patients have made it important for nurse practitioners to manage their time effectively. Managing time effectively is therefore essential for a nurse practitioner both in outpatient and inpatient settings. Effective time management can therefore help a nurse practitioner to achieve more in a limited time.
Finally, leadership is an important trait that I will need to work on improving in preparation for the nursing profession. A nurse practitioner is one of the health care team leaders who need to combine several characteristics, including having confidence, effective communication skills and integrity to guide team members to achieve the best outcomes for patients.
Definitions
Cultural Competence
In my view, cultural competence is the ability of an individual to interact and effectively understand people from other cultures. For an individual to effectively have cultural competence, they need to have a deep understanding of their own culture and also be willing to learn about the worldview and cultural practices of others. To have cultural competence, individuals also need to ha
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