Week 1 assignment
LINICAL SKILLS SELF-ASSESSMENT
Before embarking on any professional or academic activity, it is important to understand the background, knowledge, and experience you bring to it. You might ask yourself, “What do I already know? What do I need to know? And what do I want to know?” This critical self-reflection is especially important for developing clinical skills such as those for advanced practice nursing.
The Psychiatric-Mental Health Nurse Practitioner (PMHNP) Clinical Skills List and Clinical Skills Self-Assessment Form provided in the Learning Resources can be used to celebrate your progress throughout your practicum and identify skills gaps. The list covers all necessary skills you should demonstrate during your practicum experiences.
Just as you have in previous practicum courses, for this Assignment, you assess where you are now in your clinical skill development and make plans for this practicum. Specifically, you will identify strengths and opportunities for improvement regarding the required practicum skills. In this practicum experience, when developing your goals and objectives, be sure to keep assessment and diagnostic reasoning in mind.
RESOURCES
Be sure to review the Learning Resources before completing this activity.
Click the weekly resources link to access the resources.
WEEKLY RESOURCES
TO PREPARE
Review the resources and clinical skills in the PMHNP Clinical Skills List document. It is recommended that you print out this document to serve as a guide throughout your practicum.
Review the “Developing SMART Goals” resource on how to develop goals and objectives that follow the SMART framework.
Review the resources on nursing competencies and nursing theory, and consider how these inform your practice.
Download the Clinical Skills Self-Assessment Form to complete this Assignment.
THE ASSIGNMENT
Use the PMHNP Clinical Skills Self-Assessment Form to complete the following:
Rate yourself according to your confidence level performing the skills identified on the Clinical Skills Self-Assessment Form.
Based on your ratings, summarize your strengths and opportunities for improvement.
Based on your self-assessment and theory of nursing practice, develop 3–4 measurable goals and objectives for this practicum experience. Include them on the designated area of the form.
Week 2 assignment 2
PRACTICUM EXPERIENCE PLAN (PEP)
As you establish your goals and objectives for this course, you are committing to an organized plan that will frame your practicum experience in a clinical setting, including planned activities, assessment, and achievement of defined outcomes. In particular, they must address the categories of clinical reasoning, quality in your clinical specialty, and interpersonal collaborative practice.
For this Assignment, you will consider the areas you aim to focus on to gain practical experience as an advanced practice nurse. Then, you will develop a Practicum Experience Plan (PEP) containing the objectives you will fulfill in order to achieve your aims. For this practicum experience, be sure to develop goals and objectives that allow you to synthesize knowledge and skills related to assessment, diagnosis, and treatment planning.
RESOURCES
Be sure to review the Learning Resources before completing this activity.
Click the weekly resources link to access the resources.
WEEKLY RESOURCES
TO PREPARE
Review your Clinical Skills Self-Assessment Form you submitted last week and think about areas for which you would like to gain application-level experience and/or continued growth as an advanced practice nurse. How can your experiences in the practicum help you achieve these aims?
Review the information related to developing objectives provided in this week’s Learning Resources. Your practicum learning objectives that you want to achieve during your practicum experience must be:
Specific
Measurable
Attainable
Results-focused
Time-bound
Reflective of the higher-order domains of Bloom’s taxonomy (i.e., application level and above)
Note: Please make sure your objectives are individualized and outlined in your Practicum Experience Plan (PEP). While you may add previous objectives to continue to work toward. You must have 3 new objectives for each class, each quarter.
Discuss your professional aims and your proposed practicum objectives with your Preceptor to ascertain if the necessary resources are available at your practicum site.
Select one nursing theory and one counseling/psychotherapy theory to best guide your clinical practice. Explain why you selected these theories. Support your approach with evidence-based literature.
Create a timeline of practicum activities that demonstrates how you plan to meet these goals and objectives based on your practicum requirements.
THE ASSIGNMENT
Record the required information in each area of the Practicum Experience Plan template, including 3–4 measurable practicum learning objectives you will use to facilitate your learning during the practicum experience.