Roles and Ways of Knowing

Advanced Roles & Ways of Knowing An Advanced Practice Nurse (APN) is described as a registered nurse with a graduate level education in nursing from an accredited college or university. Over the years, the APN has become a vital part of the healthcare team providing affordable, advanced care both in and out of the hospital setting. An APN has extended his/her nursing skills by not only past and present experiences but also by research. It is crucial for an APN to be grounded in research and theory and to allow that knowledge to guide his/her clinical practice. The APN gains insight from different ways of learning, ways of becoming scholarly, theories, and models that will directly affect the outcomes of his/her practice.
Role of Scholarship
Scholarship is defined as learning but on a higher level. For the discipline of nursing, there are four aspects of scholarship written by Boyer (1990). These scholarships, the scholarship of knowing, teaching, practice, and service, are used in APN’s practice on a daily basis. Applying or integrating these four areas of scholarship have become an essential part of being an APN. The first of the scholarships is the scholarship of discovery (Peterson & Stevens, 2013). The APN uses the scholarship of discovery by conducting research and applying that research to take better care of patients. Next is the scholarship of teaching (Peterson & Stevens, 2013). This scholarship may be carried out by having a professional mentor that he/she can learn from in his/her practice. Scholarship of integration is the third scholarship introduced by Boyer (Peterson & Stevens, 2013). An example of this type of scholarship is when nursing convenes with other disciplines and collaborates on patient care. The final scholarship is the scholarship of application and it is used in the actual practice of nursing (Peterson & Stevens, 2013). The APN can consider the development of knowledge and evidence based practice as it applies to

References: American Association of Critical-Care Nurses (2013). ACNPC-AG - Certification for Adult-Gerontology Acute Care Nurse Practitioners. Retrieved from http://www.aacn.org/wd/certifications/content/acnpc-ag-landing.pcms?menu=certification American Association of Critical-Care Nurses (2013). The AACN Synergy Model for patient care. Retrieved from http://www.aacn.org/wd/certifications/content/synmodel.pcms?menu= American Nurses Credentialing Center (2013). Acute Care Nurse Practitioner credential awarded: ACNP-BC. Retrieved from http://nursecredentialing.org/Certification/NurseSpecialities/AcuteCareNP?css=print Carper, B. (1978). Fundamental patterns of knowing in nursing. In W. K. Cody (Ed.), Philosophical and theoretical perspectives for advanced nursing practice (5th ed., pp. 23-33). Burlington, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning. Chinn, P. L., & Kramer, M. K. (2008). Integrated theory and knowledge development in nursing (8th ed.). St. Louis, MO: Mosby Elsevier. Hamric, A. B., Spross, J. A., & Hanson, C. M. (2009). Advanced practice nursing: An integrative approach (4th ed.). St. Louis, MO: Saunders Elsevier. Kleinpell, R. M., Hudspeth, R., Scordo, K. A., & Magdic, K. (2011). Defining NP scope of practice and associated regulations: Focus on acute care. Journal of the American Academy of Nurse Practitioners, 11-18. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1745-7599.2011.00683x Monti, E. J., & Tingen, M. S. (1999). Multiple paradigms of nursing science. Advances in Nursing Science, 21 (4), 64-80. Peterson, K., & Stevens, J. (2013, April 19, 2013). Integrating the scholarship of practice into the nurse academician portfolio. Journal of Nursing Education and Practice, 3, 84-92. http://dx.doi.org/10.5430/jnep.v3n11p84