POSITIVE SOCIAL CHANGE
Nursing, at its very core, is a profession rooted in social change and growth. As a nurse returning to school to further your education, you can learn to enhance your practice to become a “Walden Scholar of Change.” The nursing professional holds a responsibility to serve the interests of people and society. As part of this responsibility, nurses are bound by Nursing’s Social Policy Statement. Consider how your own professional practice can expand in shaping the future of nursing, improving the profession, and enhancing the quality of the health care that nursing delivers.
Assignment: 2-to-3-page Paper
• In this Assignment, you will discuss how furthering your nursing education, with a focus on social change, will enhance your current practice and supports your future career planning. Nursing’s Social Contract entails expectations between the nursing profession and society to elevate the health of society.
• Choose 2 of Nursing’s Social Contract elements and discuss how they are foundational to your nursing practice. Elements include caring service; privacy of the patient; knowledge, skill, and competence; hazardous service; responsibility and accountability; progress and development; ethical practice; collaboration; promotion of the health of the public; etcetera.
• Address your future career planning. How do you intend to make a difference by confronting a current challenge in health care where you live, in your profession, or on a global scale?
• Support your responses with at least two scholarly sources from the Learning Resources and/or outside sources. Reference in proper APA format.
Sample Solution
Furthering my nursing education with a focus on social change will enhance my current practice and support my future career planning. I plan to specifically hone in on the skills related to health promotion, health education, community organization, policy development, advocacy efforts, and resource management (Norman & Kelleher 2017). With this knowledge I can become more proactive in addressing issues that arise in my patients’ lives such as limited access to healthcare services due to economic or geographic constraints or difficulties managing their chronic conditions due to cultural beliefs. Moreover, developing these skills will help me be an effective leader when working collaboratively with other healthcare providers like physicians or public health specialists.
By increasing my understanding of how social factors impact patient care decisions I can provide better quality of care by actively engaging patients in their own healthcare process while also attempting to reduce disparities between different population groups (Kaiser Family Foundation 2004). For example if I am aware of the fact that individuals living within certain communities may have unique needs because of language barriers then I can advocate for translators so that everyone is able to receive the same level of care regardless of any potential limitations they may face. Additionally focusing on social change allows me to understand broader societal issues like poverty or homelessness which are directly connected with poorer clinical outcomes (Kawachi et al., 2002), lending itself well towards helping me develop innovative solutions for improving people’s overall quality of life.
Ultimately furthering my nursing education with a focus on social change not only enhances current practice but ensures that I am prepared for whatever arises in the future when it comes to providing optimal care based upon individual circumstances and needs. By having this additional body of knowledge at hand I am better equipped with both technical know-how and soft-skills needed for successfully navigating complex situations while advocating effectively on behalf of those under my charge.
