My Personal Values and Interests - Essay Example

Personal portfolio Name University Affiliation 1. PERSONAL VALUES a) What is important to you in your work and personal life? Introduction There are a number of things that I consider to be important in my work and personal life. The first aspect I consider in the course of my work is time. I personally take any single minute of my time to be a very important asset to me and to my clients or the patients I’m serving. I not only consider time to be important during my work but also in my personal life. The fact that I’m one individual who is required to attend to my professional duties and at the same time required to accomplish my personal duties, makes me to value any little time I have. Thus, my involving professional duties have made me to be an individual who is cautious with time management so that I can balance my duties in my daily busy schedule. b) What personal and professional knowledge and skills have you adopted? As a professional nurse, there are a number of personal and professional skills I have adopted since I entered this field. One of my personal skills I have adopted is being motivating. Since my professional deals with patients most of whom have lost hope and are discouraged, I use the motivating skill to make the patients ignite their hopes despite of their discouraging health conditions. I guide and counsel the heart broken patients until they find a reason why they have to live again. Moreover, I have adopted the spirit of selfless service; my profession is more of serving, thus I realized that for my work to be easier, I had to devote myself in serving others even if it means I deny myself personal luxuries. c) What are your strengths and what are your limitations? Personally, I have a number of characters that I consider them to be my strength and weakness like other people. First, I’m a fast learner, this means that I’m an individual who grasp the concept taught too fast, this is due to the aggressiveness and keenness I tend to have when reading books or attending a lesson being taught in class. When being involved in practical work lesson, I grasp the concepts fast because I like being an active member in participation when a certain practical lesson is in progress. I ask questions where I feel that I doubt. This character of being active, keen and aggressive makes me to be a fast learner. Another character that I consider to strength to me is that I have excellent communication skills. I tend to be fluent when I’m communicating especially to my patients, the fact that I can speak fluently and write correctly places me at the positive side. As that is not enough, I personally I know more than three languages and I can speak and write without any problem. I know Arabic language which is my country’s official language and I know English too and other local languages. Thus, this places me in a position in which I can work in different regions of the world apart from Arabian countries Johns, C. (1995). This is a big strength because I’m able to interact with people even in Australia where I’m taking my studies from. Being multilingual actually would help me at a great deal in this profession because Nurses deal with patients from different parts of the world. One of my weaknesses is that I don’t like working in a stressful environment. Actually my nursing profession needs people who are able to persevere any condition but me I get bored to do stressing duties and working with people who often stress me at my work. I like my working environment to have harmony, peace and cordial relationship with my seniors. Another limitation is that I don’t like doing one duty repeatedly. I like when my duties are often shifted so that I can work in different sections and environment to have vast experience in different areas. Therefore, I do not like to be subjected to monotonous work. d) What knowledge and skills require further development? As a student of nursing, I know there are various skills that I haven’t mastered well to execute my duties fully. I feel that I still need further coaching in diagnosing various ailments. This is because most of the diseases tend to have similar symptoms and signs, thus it becomes hard for inexperienced person like me to know exactly the kind of the ailments the patient is suffering from. For example Malaria and Flu tend to have common signs such as high fever; cholera and typhoid also have the same signs such as severe abdominal pains and diarrhea. Therefore, diagnosing such ailments that have almost the same signs and symptoms becomes a big problem to the new nurses like me. Thus, I feel that I need more drilling in this area of disease diagnosis. Another area I feel I need more knowledge and skill is medication generic and trade names. Drugs tend to have almost similar generic and trade names; this becomes a problem when prescribing drugs to a patient because I become confused in which drug is the correct one. Moreover, these medicines are often a mixture of various ratios of the chemicals in milligrams or millitres. For me to grasp the knowledge of the ratios I need more coaching in this area. 2 PERSONAL INTERESTS a) What have you liked and disliked about your past and current position (work engagement) Before I joined this field of nursing, I thought is a profession that would not allow me to meet with my friend and family as we were used to because of its involving duties. However, one thing I came to like after joining it was that In spite of the busy schedule, I find enough time to get to interact with friends and family members. I do this when I’m off-work because nurses we work in shifts. We have the night shifts which run fro four days and the day shifts which also go for four days. In addition, we usually have work leave of two days in a fortnight. This time is quite enough to share with the family and friends and make fun. In addition, when I’m at work especially during the night shift when the work is less, we do share a lot with my fellow nurses at the hospital. I interact with experienced nurses who have been in this field for a long period and they often advise me on various professional and casual issues that I may encounter in the course of my duties. Therefore, these venues of interaction have made me to like my duty so much unlike in the past when I doubted if really I could have enough time to do so. Another thing that I like in my current engagement is that I get moved when I interact with the patient either when I’m attending to him/her or when I’m guiding and counseling and the patient actually appreciate me what I have done. My joy comes when a patient compliments me for my services to him/her. I get encouraged to work more and more, this brings me job satisfaction and I congratulate myself to have chosen a wonderful profession. One thing I disliked when I was taking my diploma course was that we were actually taken to do practical in the hospitals. We attended to patients like the registered nurses on daily basis. At the same time we had to attend to practical lessons in laboratories in the college plus the class work. All this duties were back breaking. Funny enough, as we worked in the hospital, the nurses ion those hospitals subjected us to some duties that were meant for them for example dressing the wounded patients and other serious situations. However, were just students we were not on the payroll. They said the duties that we were doing were just meant for our knowledge and get experience. I was just discouraged to attend to such tedious duties without being paid even small cash for our upkeep; thus, I hated hospital practical. b) What in the work environment brings out the best in you? Like any other profession, we have a number of things which ought to be in the work environment that would make one to work best. For my case, as mentioned earlier, I like a harmonious environment with less stress. When I have friendly relationship with my bosses and my fellow nurses, I feel relaxed and I can work to my full potential. Another thing that makes me to work and produce the best in me is team work in the working environment. Actually, learning and working is a continuous process that needs collaboration with people and other environmental factors. It is not easy for one to achieve his goal or deliver well in his/her duties without the help of other people. I personally I like collaborating with team members so that I can learn from them and they can also learn from me. Therefore, teamwork is one of the things that should be included in my working environment so that I can work effectively to achieve the goals set. c) What energizes or motivates you? I individually get energized or encouraged when I see patient recovering from the condition I diagnosed on myself and prescribed drugs. This makes me happy because I consider myself at least to have some knowledge in this field the fact that I can determine the condition and give medication that can help the patient to recover Dyess, S.M. & Sherman, R.O. (2009).This makes me energized and has interest in my profession. Secondly, I get excited when the patients for example, those ones who had suffered from psychological problems due to their past life experience and I have interacted with them, guided and counseled them until they have recovered to their normal life. I feel good seeing a drug addict reforming and start to live the normal life due to my special counseling. This makes me feel that I’m achieving a lot in life and also I’m doing well before God by saving the lives of my fellow human beings. 3 ENVIRONMENTAL MATTERS a)What are the similarities and differences in your assessment of strengths and limitations and the feedback from others? There are a number of ways I’m similar to other people especially in my profession. First, most of my fellow nurses are time conscious individuals like me. I said earlier that I’m a time conscious and I do not like wasting time because of my professional duties and personal duties. Other nurses tend to have this character too. Secondly, I have good communication skills like other nurses whom I interact with. It seems that in a nursing profession, one is compelled to be a good communicator that is why I have the same characteristic like my fellow nurses. One of the differences in our characters is that I’m inexperienced nurse since is when I have come out of college I have not worked for a long period to have experience like other nurses I tend to interact with. b) What are the opportunities and limitations in your current (work) situations? Personally, I see a number of opportunities in my new college. First, I have an opportunity of boosting my knowledge. It is a big college composed of professionals from all the fields. This gives me an opportunity to interact with these professionals to boost my skills and knowledge. Moreover, at the college I’m exposed to libraries, laboratories and other resource center that would aid in boosting my knowledge. Here at college, there are a number of short term courses that are run by the college and are specifically meant for students only. Fore example we have computer courses, guiding and counseling courses, first aid courses and many more that takes less than three month. They are free of charge to students who have enrolled in this college for their higher learning,. To me this is a good opportunity I’m going to boost my skills in these fields by taking these short courses. As that is not enough, there arte a number of programs that run where students apply for sponsorship. Sometimes the students’ fees are sponsored for the whole semester incase one applies successful. This is an opportunity that can make me get extra cash to sustain me in this foreign nation. d) Are there important healthcare and social trends that may influence your career plans? There are several health care trends that would influence my career, first, in health care field; nurses need to go for short term training regularly to be taught some of the new issues that have risen in health field. This trend would tend to influence my career because I pln to continue studying and working at the same time in future. Therefore, when these short terms courses come, I would be interrupted in advancing my career. Another thing is that nursing profession is a bit involving, one often have less time to work, study and attend to personal life at the same time. This would greatly drag my career development plan. Socially, Of course I’m single young personal who would reach at time and would want to make and make my own family. This change of social life I feel would have an impact to my career plan. e) Are there important trends at local, national or global levels in nursing that need to be considered when considering applying for positions? In regards to Andre, K. &Heartfield, M. (2007). Of course yes, different nations tend to have different conditions concerning certain professional jobs. There are countries that have insufficient number of nurses t\such countries would put few restrictions to the foreign nurses who come to seek jobs. However, we have other countries have more than enough nurses and in fact the working conditions for the nurses in terms of payments are low, such countries would tend to put a lot of restrictions to foreign nurses who are seeking jobs from those countries. As a nurse, I therefore need to know both the local and international trends min nursing that would enable me find a job whenever I apply. e)Are there important government and organizational reports that highlight and outline changes to the future health workforce Many organizations such as World Health organization (WHO), UNICEF, FAO and governmental organizations have given out numerous reports that show that there wopuld be changes in the future health work force. These organizations give various reports basing on the research that have been done by experts. These reports tend to have a great influence locally and internationally. 4OPPORTUNITIES AND GOALS a)What future opportunities are available to you? Personally I have several opportunities basing on the academic qualifications I have. I’m a diploma holder which means I can easily secure job opportunity in a health care field. Secondly, I’m student taking a degree in this career, this means that I’m in position to do part time job together with studies. Many organizations accept individuals who have enrolled for degree program to work in with them so that they can automatically take you just after you have graduated. The moment I complete this degree course, I would have great opportunities outside there because nursing profession is one the covetous course where the graduate find jobs immediately they complete their studies. Moreover, if I decide to take masters’ degree in this field I have a great opportunity there are numerous scholarships run by many organization and government. b) What future opportunities do you want and why? The first thing I desire is to work hard and be able to graduate within the required time and have this degree. I do not want to stay in Australia for sop long; I want to go back to my home country and work in my previous department which was endoscopy. This is because the working culture in this department makes feel as if I’m working with my family. When I go back home as I work in this department, I enroll for a post graduate program which I intend it to take 2 to 3 years. I would like to specialize in Endoscopy or stoma nurse. Working in endoscopy requires special skills more that learned in the current course hence this would be an opportunity to have extra knowledge over my fellows when I go and specialize in this field. I would be able to nurse in the cardiac care unit, female surgical wards and other special wards that need more specialized skills. f) Consider the range of alternative opportunities/goals that are available to you (extend beyond those you would want) and compare these with what you have identified as those you want. Are some of these alternative goals also appropriate? Yes, some of the alternatives are very appropriate, but for my convenience and interests, I feel that working and specializing in endoscopy would not be bad because I would be in position to achieve my set goals. However, no body knows what the future holds for us thus, I can easily adjust to any changes according to the future trends in the labor environment. I can not be just rigid on one line but when opportunity comes I can be ready to change and do other things that suit me Tauberger, G., Vosburgh, D., Vye-Rogers, L. Weidner, A. &Zimmel, C.M. (2009). g) Can you break your goals down into parts or components Yes, first I already have a diploma, current I’m studying for a degree, then IO would go for further studies in postgraduate program in the same field specializing in any section that I would feel would quite appropriate for me. The recognition I need is being special nurse in endoscopy and later becoming a nurse in charge of that entire department. 5ACTION PLAN a) Who need to be involved? -The people that would help me achieve these are; fellow nurses, my college tutors, my sponsors, and my parents and family members. b)What will cause your plans to change? -Future trends in the field - Marriage -Resources c)What is the time frame of achieving your goals? I need around six years from now to achieve all of my goals 6EVALUATION i)What are the external and internal factors do you think about to know if if the plans are working or not. -When I do not complete my current studies at the time I’m expecting now. -When I fail to secure a good job after studies. -When I do not secure a chance in my previous place after studies ii)How would your success look like? -Get my masters in 3 years -Being in charge of endoscopy department in 6 years -Working in nursing office within 10 years a - Having patient education program running within 15 years. Conclusion I did learn providing nursing care would be an opportunity for me to learn several important psychosocial factors in patient care. The nursing career includes experience dealing with the patients and their families, how best to handle crisis, a personal experience with the patients and their families and a hands on experience of the reality in a busy patient care unit. 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