Beyond
the Resume.
How to compile your nursing portfolio. These compilations
of your competency may soon be required for relicensure. Here’s
how to put all the pieces together.
by Donna Cardillo, RN, BS Once
upon a time, you only had to show up at a hospital and say
you were an RN, and you’d be hired on the spot. You
were pretty much on your own in terms of enhancing your
professional skills and knowledge. In those days, you didn’t
have a professional nursing portfolio because you didn’t
need one. But today you do, thanks to the competitive job
market, complex health care environment, and a national
movement to find ways to measure and ensure clinical competency.
In this climate, some states are considering making nursing
portfolios a requirement for relicensure.
As
a critical care nurse, you must maintain a high standard
of practice and continuing education (CE), so documenting
your accomplishments makes sense even if your state doesn’t
yet require a nursing portfolio.
To
find out what a nursing portfolio is and how to assemble
yours, read on.
What’s
a nursing portfolio?
A portfolio differs from a resume in length and content.
Typically, your resume is brief, summarizing your professional
accomplishments and experiences in one or two pages. Your
portfolio backs up your resume and supplements it. For example,
you wouldn’t list all of your CE activities on your
resume, but you’d keep these records in your nursing
portfolio. It’s also a place to keep important documents
and records together and organized.
Besides
documenting where you’ve been in your professional
life, the portfolio can help you assess your practice and
skills and plans for the future. And you can use a nursing
portfolio to market special skills, such as teaching, lecturing,
or preceptoring.
Assembling
your portfolio
Now let’s look at what goes into your portfolio and
how you assemble it. Start simple: You can use a three-ring
binder with plastic insert pages or a pocket folder. Categorize
and arrange information as follows.
| • |
Professional
credentials. Make copies of your professional licenses
and certifications, including cardiopulmonary resuscitation
and national certifications from the American Nurses
Credentialing Center. This is also an easy way to keep
track of renewal dates. |
| • |
Education.
Include diplomas, transcripts, and course listings,
including research projects, special papers, and presentations.
|
| • |
CE.
File your course certificates and an annual summary
of course work for easy reference. Be sure to include
any noncredit courses you’ve taken. |
| • |
Job
appraisals and references. Include copies of your favorable
performance appraisals. You’re entitled to them,
so make it your business to get copies. If you’re
leaving a job, or your manager is leaving, as for a
letter of reference; in today’s mobile society,
you may have trouble getting a reference from a former
employer. Also include complimentary notes you’ve
received from patients or clients. |
| • |
Samples
of your work. If you’ve designed, developed, or
written any teaching materials, forms, or brochures,
include copies. Also include copies of any articles
you’ve published. |
| • |
Presentations.
Document any formal presentations you’ve given,
such as staff-development sessions, community education,
and grand rounds. |
| • |
Professional
associations. Include memberships, offices you’ve
held, committee work, and descriptions of special projects
you’ve worked on. |
| • |
Awards.
Include awards and citations from employers, community
groups, and professional associations. Don’t overlook
perfect attendance awards and service awards. |
| • |
Other
professional activities. Keep a record of interdisciplinary
committees and community projects in which you’ve
participated, including public screening programs and
health fairs. Document teaching and training activities,
including acting as a preceptor to new hires and working
with students. You should also keep track of how many
hours you work each year. |
| • |
Volunteer
activities. List those that are directly related to
health care, such as work with hospice, clinics, blood
banks, and parish nursing. |
| • |
Accomplishments.
Keep a special section on important projects and programs
that you initiated, administered, managed, or played
a key part in, such as media events, starting up new
departments, or major reorganization projects. |
Because nurses are notorious for downplaying their accomplishments,
many experts recommend designing a work sheet that you can
complete annually with categories to help you reflect on
your experiences. For example, you might have a section
on “management experience,” where you would
list any charge or supervisory experience you had, as well
as budgeting, scheduling, and personnel responsibilities.
This type of review could also help you identify transferable
skills.
Who
needs a portfolio now?
Nurses in Ontario and the United Kingdom must meet
standards of mandatory portfolio management as proof of
clinical competency for license renewal. In the United States,
Texas, Kentucky, and Oklahoma are testing a competency model
which would require nurses to maintain a professional portfolio
for license renewal. The National Council of State Boards
of Nursing also has developed a model, the Continued Competency
Accountability Profile.
Although
each model has differences, they share common denominators.
Besides listing their accomplishments and experiences, nurses
must do a self-assessment of their skills and knowledge
and develop a comprehensive action plan for professional
growth and development. This type of portfolio would be
much more than an accumulation of information; it also reflects
each nurse’s commitment to professional excellence.
If
your state adopts this type of model, you might have to
indicate that you maintain a professional portfolio when
your license comes up for renewal. The state nursing board
will probably audit a small number of renewals each year
to check for compliance.
Cross
Country Staffing, the largest travel nursing agency in the
country, maintains electronic portfolios on all of its nurses.
“Gone
are the days when a college transcript or CE certificate
of completion will suffice for measuring and ensuring competency,”
says Franklin A. Shaffer, RN, EdD, ScD, vice-president for
education and professional development for Cross Country
Staffing and executive director of Cross Country University.
“A career portfolio assists with documenting this
lifelong learning process and attests to one’s continued
competency and commitment.”
The
time has come to create a permanent record of your professional
life, even if your state nursing board doesn’t require
it yet. Start building one now, and you’ll be one
step ahead of the game.
Reprinted
with permission from Critical Care Choices 2000 All rights
reserved.
Back
to Articles
|
