This portfolio represents my personal, educational, and professional nursing growth throughout the BSN program at Western Governors University. This program allowed me to advance my education as a nurse as well as learn new ways to use my skills. My portfolio contains: learned skills, projects, papers, and examples of how I was able to reach my professional goals while attending this program. Lastly, my continued professional and educational goals are shown in this portfolio. A.1 Complete a Mission Statement My goal professionally after completing my BSN is to become a NP who specializes in care for special needs children. A major goal of mine is to continue to educate myself on how to provide the best possible care for my patients and their families. This includes keeping up to date with any current studies and research that may apply to this field of nursing. Providing quality care with compassion, knowledge, and respect is my mission statement and something I wish to achieve daily. Understanding and striving to find positive ways to communicate, especially with non-verbal patients, has become something I feel very passionately about. Many people feel that the patients I work with are unaware of their surroundings or feelings and that they are incapable of expressing anything. In my experiences, this is very inaccurate. Every patient I have ever encountered has adapted and is very capable of expressing themselves in some way (including their wants and needs). By striving to achieve these goals I hope to have a positive impact on my patients and their family’s lives while providing them with the highest quality of care. History on how I reached my mission statement: Being a nurse became a goal of mine as an incredibly young age. I enjoyed helping people and was always looking for ways to assist my friends and family in any way I could. As time went on and life happened, my dream career of becoming a nurse got pushed aside due to trials and life in general. But there was always the nagging thought in the back of my mind that I was not doing what I had always wanted to do. Finally, at the age of 28 I decided I was going to go to nursing school and obtain my goal. It was not easy being a single mom with a young child. I encountered numerous challenges and feelings of just wanting to quit at times. What kept me going were family, friends, and ultimately knowing that I loved helping and caring for other people. After graduating with my ASN, I knew I wanted to pursue my BSN. My goal of pursing my BSN was set aside at this time as started work and time went flying by. My first nursing job I took was home health working with special needs children. I went into this job thinking it would be a steppingstone and I would move on to something quickly. I was told this was true for many nurses that had done this type of nursing before. Working in this field of nursing was daunting at first because I had not learned a lot about the cares and skills needed for these children. Working with vents, tracheostomies, and gastronomies was not something I had a lot of experience with nor had I learned a lot about in school. There were times of frustration because I wanted to be more knowledgeable and proficient about everything I was doing. This made me decide to educate myself through anything I could: books, pamphlets, manuals, seminars, training sessions, using parent/family knowledge, and asking other healthcare providers for help and/or answers. The more knowledge I gained, the more comfortable I became with my skills and abilities to care for my patients. Even with the challenges, it did not take me long to fall in love with this type of nursing and my patients. I have yet to move on to something else and continue to enhance my knowledge and skills. I have looked at other nursing fields and been offered positions, but ultimately love what I do and am deeply passionate about it. While working with these children and their families I learned that there is a definite need for more healthcare providers that specialize in this field. Many of these families must travel long distances to get the care they need. Learning this made me finally decide to go back to school to pursue my BSN followed by furthering my education to become a NP. This is what shaped my mission statement and where I want to go with my nursing career. A.1a Reflect on how your professional mission statement will help guide you throughout your nursing career. I feel that the hardships and long time it took me to achieve my goal of becoming a nurse helped to shape my mission statement. Once I started my nursing career it did not take me long to realize what my goals as a nurse were. At that time, I didn’t call it a mission statement, but I knew what I wished to achieve and what type of nurse I wanted to become and be. Although I have had struggles and times of trial, I have still stuck with my same goals and aspirations to be a knowledgeable, compassionate nurse. I feel that I will continue to strive to maintain my mission statement which will shape my nursing career and make me be the best nurse I can. A.2a Explain how the specific artifacts or completed work represent you as a learner and a healthcare professional. My artifacts and completed work show how I used my existing nursing skills combined with my learned skills during the BSN program to enhance my critical thinking and research skills. This program gave me a great appreciation for the ability to use research application to improve nursing processes, patient outcomes, and work environment. My work throughout the program shows how I was continuously being a learner and enhancing my skills as a healthcare professional. Professional Leadership and Communication made me look at my nursing roles and the type of leadership I was utilizing. While looking at different leadership styles I learned how to better collaborate with others while using my strengths to be part of a team. A team that can lead to a better work environment and improved patient outcomes. During Evidence Based Practice and Applied Nursing Research I learned how to use statistics, research and Evidence Based Practice to become an improved healthcare professional-improving the healthcare provided to patients. Organizational Systems and Quality Leadership taught me the importance of leadership roles, patient safety, and continuous improvement as healthcare provider. Professional Roles and Values taught me the importance and value of the nurse as a healthcare provider. Lastly, Community Health and Population provided me with the opportunity to be an advocate for my community as a health care provider. These courses and completed work represent me as a continuing learner and improved healthcare provider.