Starting a Career in Healthcare – How You Can Have an Impact as a Nurse

When you are looking at starting a career in healthcare, you may be left wondering how much an impact you can have on patients and colleagues. As a nurse, you can directly and indirectly impact those you work with and care for, and this impact can help shape your career, as well as the careers and choices of others around you.

To get started with your new healthcare career, you need to focus on our main objectives and goals, which will steer the kind of impact you will have once you are working in the rewarding nursing profession. So, how can you do this, and what effects can you have as a nurse? The following article aims to answer those very questions to help you become the best nurse you can possibly be.

 

Why Become a Nurse

No two healthcare careers are the same. Some involve duties and responsibilities that will see you interacting with patients on a daily basis, and others perhaps less frequently. As a nursing professional, you will find you have a very patient-centered role, which means you can see and feel the impact you have on other people – almost immediately.

So, you must look at why you want to become a nurse if you want to understand your impact and figure out what you can get out of the role. However, saying that you want to have an effect is one thing, but if you do not go about it correctly while failing to understand your reasons for entering the healthcare field, you will find that you struggle to make waves (and only end up making ripples). When you consider why you should become a nurse, you give your perspective and direction – both of these are essential.

 

How You Can Make an Impact

When you qualify, you will see that there are lots of opportunities and routes to take in order to be influential as a nurse. For example, you may find that you directly impact the care and treatment of patients within your place of work, or you may find that you influence and impact new generations of nurses and nursing students further down the line.

In healthcare, and as a nursing professional, you will find that the impact you can have can be great and wide-reaching. When you think clearly about how, where, and whom you want to impact, you then see that you have both vision and purpose for your career; without this, your ideas will not become a reality.

 

Learning From Others 

A big part of becoming a nurse is learning to look to others for guidance, support, inspiration, and impact. Evenmany famous nurses have left a positive lasting impression and impact on the lives of others they treat and work with, and these nurses could be excellent role models for you. When you have role models or well-recognized (and appreciated) nurses to look up to, you see your worth and value too.

To have an impact as a healthcare professional, you have to know your value and self-worth because when you do, you have the confidence to pass this on to those you deal with daily. If you are not prepared to look and learn from others, then you might miss out on seeing your own worth, which will make you have a less meaningful impact.

 

Seeking Guidance

It can be hard to make an impact – especially if you are just starting your new nursing career or if you are working in a competitive area. However, quite often, you will find it beneficial to seek guidance and support from others. It is one thing to see and utilize role models in your industry or sector; however, it is another thing to see and use the experience and knowledge of another professional in your industry.

Nursing mentors are popular, and for a good reason too. They can help you make decisions to build a stable career, assess what needs doing, and when to have the impact you desire. Mentors are suitably trained and experienced, and their experiences could prove invaluable to you and your career. As such, being open to guidance and prepared to get on board with a mentor could prove useful to your nursing career – no matter what stage you find yourself at.

 

Building Your Experience

When you build your experience, you develop your awareness and knowledge. When all of these contribute to one another, you will be able to see what needs to happen to make an impact. If you do not focus on building up your experience, you will find that you are closing yourself off to progression and development, which can be unhealthy for a healthcare career.

When it comes to building experience, you must look at all avenues and routes. For example, if you work in a hospital setting, why not start finding opportunities to help and interact with people in local communities? When you build your experience, you learn to spot and seize opportunities to make a deeper impact.

 

Raising Awareness and Knowledge

To actively raise your awareness and knowledge concerning nursing and your career (even in those early months and years), you need to partake in self-development and self-growth. You will never have an impact if you are not prepared to change, grow, learn, and develop. Furthermore, a shift in your mindset may be required to ensure that you are open to feedback and listening to others and any criticisms they may wish to share with you – these are vital for self-growth and becoming a better nurse.

 

Self-Development and Self-Growth

To have an impact through growth and development, you are best to set goals and objectives. When you do this, you set yourself a target that is manageable, visible, and reachable, which makes your end goals more realistic and achievable – both in the short and long term.

Also, when you learn from your own mistakes and areas of weakness while pursuing your goals, you can then impact and influence others who may be on their personal journey of self-growth in the healthcare sector – not just your patients.