Professional Identity in Nursing

Course Information

• Course: Professional Identity
• University: University of Doha for Science & Technology
• Semester: Fall 2024

Student Learning Outcomes

• Define and describe the concept of professional identity
• Explain the common attributes of professional identity
• Recognize how nurses form and adopt their professional identity throughout their nursing career
• Examine nursing role and scope of practice

Course Resources

• Canadian Fundamentals of Nursing (6th Edition) by Potter, Perry, Stockert, and Hall
• Concepts for Nursing Practice (3rd Edition) by Jean Foret Giddens

What is Professional Identity?

• A sense of self influenced by nursing discipline characteristics, norms, and values
• Results in individual thinking, acting, and feeling like a nurse
• Important elements include career development, comportment, and identity formation

Professional Identity: Career Development

• A lifelong process of managing learning, work, leisure, and transitions
• Aims to achieve a personally determined and evolving preferred future
• Key components include lifelong learning, learning plans, portfolio development, and national licensing exam preparation

Professional Identity: Comportment

• A set of defining behaviors that integrate values and actions
• Measurable through professional conduct, appearance, and collaborative practice
• Positive comportment includes warmth, attentiveness to concerns, professional appearance, and clear communication
• Negative comportment includes rushing through interactions, impatience, and neglect of hygiene

Professional Identity: Identity Formation

• The process of transitioning from a layperson to a professional nurse
• Key aspects include understanding the art of nursing, qualities and skills of a nurse, exceeding regulatory competencies, self-care, and participation in professional organizations

Attributes of Professional Identity

• Doing
• Being
• Acting ethically
• Flourishing
• Changing identities

Professional Identity: Theoretical Links

• Research on professional identity formation is underdeveloped
• Key theories include Marcia and Josselson (identity statuses)
• Crigger and Godfrey (Stairstep model) & Bandura (Social Learning theory)

Professional Identity: Context to Nursing and Health Care

• Forming and fostering professional identity through various contexts
• Interprofessional perspective on professional identity and professional identity formation
• Interventions to achieve professional identity formation

Professional Identity: Interventions to Achieve Professional Identity Formation

• Hear expectations clearly
• Value debriefing and feedback from role models
• Engage in reflection activities
• Actively adopt a professional identity
• Understand responsibilities for learning and accountability
• Build relationships with others
• Develop personal self-care habits
• Embrace opportunities for experiences with patients

Professional Identity: Example 1, Integrity

• Integrity is a fundamental character trait, essential for consistency, purpose, and building trust
• Key examples include following through with pain medication, calling the physician, checking the code cart on time, and administering medications within the 30-minute window

Professional Identity: Example 2, Compassion

• Compassion is feeling another's feelings and responding with intent to help
• Examples include taking time to speak with a troubled family member, responding to a patient's call light, comforting a colleague experiencing bereavement, and using eye contact to apologize for a mistake

Question: Encouraging Professional Identity Formation

• Novice nurses can interact with experienced nurses or students, mimic clinical nurse behavior, question medical students about expectations, and reflect on clinical encounters

Question Answer: Professional Identity Formation

• Developing professional identity is challenging
• Engaging in activities like listening to expectations, valuing feedback, reflecting, adopting a professional identity, understanding responsibiilites, building relationships, developing self-care, and embracing patient experiences facilitates development

The Concept of Professional Identity

• Professional identity is a subset of personal identity

Professional Identity: Interrelated Concepts

• Interrelated concepts include ethics, clinical judgement, leadership, communication

Group Activity 2

• Discuss nursing history in Qatar/Islam
• Define the role of a nurse
• Analyze how the nursing profession is portrayed

Scope of Professional Identity

• Professional identity develops through experiences, reflections, and role modeling by colleagues
• This is a linear, learning-related developmental process
• Identity formation can be a crisis, and thus lead to deconstruction and reformation

Patient/Client Safety

• Reducing and moderating unsafe acts in the health care system
• Using best practices to optimize patient outcomes

Duty to Report

• A legal and ethical duty to report incompetent or impaired practice, unethical conduct, and sexual misconduct
• Requires nurses to intervene if they see something wrong

References

• Giddens, J. F. (2021). Concepts for nursing practice (3rd ed.). Toronto, Ontario: Mosby.
• Potter, P., Perry, A. G., Stockert, P., Hall, A., Astle, B. J., & Duggleby, W. (2018). Canadian Fundamentals of Nursing (6th ed.). Toronto, Ontario: Mosby.