| Course | D225 Emerging Professional Practice |
|---|---|
| Task | Task 1 |
| Paper type | Professional development plan |
| Length | About 1,300 words, 4 pages |
| Format | APA 7 |
| School | Western Governors University (WGU) |
| Program | RN to BSN |
| Updated | September 2026 |
Free sample paper for D225 Task 1
Professional Development Plan: A Telemetry Nurse's One, Three and Five Year Goals, From Progressive Care Certification to Leading a Cardiac Step-Down Floor
Student Name
Leavitt School of Health, Western Governors University
D225: Emerging Professional Practice, Task 1
Course Instructor
Month Day, Year
Professional Development Plan: A Telemetry Nurse's One, Three and Five Year Goals, From Progressive Care Certification to Leading a Cardiac Step-Down Floor
Current Position and Career Direction
For six years I have been a registered nurse on a composite 28-bed cardiac telemetry floor in a 280-bed community hospital, the last two as a relief charge nurse. Our patients are adults with heart failure, arrhythmias, chest pain under evaluation and recovery after cardiac catheterization or device implantation. I entered nursing with an associate degree and am completing my bachelor's degree now. My long-term direction is nursing leadership on a cardiac floor: I want to be the person who decides how a floor like mine orients its nurses, staffs its shifts and measures its care. The plan below sets out goals at one, three and five years, each with the certification, education or experience it requires, the steps and dates involved, and the barriers I expect.
Short-Term Goal: One Year
Goal. By the end of the next twelve months, complete my Bachelor of Science in Nursing and earn the Progressive Care Certified Nurse (PCCN) credential from the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses.
Requirements and steps. The PCCN direct care pathway requires a current, unencumbered RN license and 1,750 hours of direct care of acutely ill adult patients in the previous two years, with 875 of those hours in the most recent year (American Association of Critical-Care Nurses [AACN], n.d.). My hours on the telemetry floor exceed that threshold, and my manager has agreed to verify them. I will register for the examination in month four, after completing the remaining BSN courses that overlap least with study time, and sit for it in month six. I will use the hospital's certification review course, offered twice a year, and a question bank for the three months before the exam. The BSN will be complete by month twelve.
Resources and barriers. The hospital reimburses the examination fee on a pass and adds a certification differential to hourly pay. The main barrier is time: I work three twelve-hour shifts and have two school-age children. I will protect two study blocks a week on non-working days and arrange with my partner to cover evening routines during the three months before the exam.
Intermediate Goal: Three Years
Goal. Within three years, hold a permanent charge nurse position and serve as the floor's cardiac rhythm competency lead, responsible for validating the electrocardiogram interpretation skills of new and returning nurses.
Requirements and steps. The charge nurse position requires a BSN and at least two years of floor experience, both of which I will have. The rhythm lead role requires certification in my specialty, which the PCCN provides, and completion of the hospital's preceptor course, which I will take in year two. I will also complete an advanced arrhythmia interpretation course and volunteer to run the floor's monthly rhythm strip review, described below, for a year before applying for the formal role.
Resources and barriers. The preceptor course is paid education time. The barrier is that permanent charge positions open rarely; if none opens within three years, I will continue as relief charge nurse and take on the rhythm lead role alone, which still builds the leadership experience the five-year goal requires.
Long-Term Goal: Five Years
Goal. Within five years, complete a Master of Science in Nursing in leadership and management and be appointed assistant nurse manager of a cardiac step-down or telemetry floor.
Requirements and steps. I will begin the MSN in year three, after one year in the charge role, and complete it by the end of year five while continuing to work. The assistant manager role at my hospital requires an MSN or enrollment in one, three years of charge or equivalent leadership experience and a specialty certification. I will keep the PCCN current through the continuing education and practice hours renewal requires, and I will ask my manager to include me in budget and staffing meetings from year three so that I learn the work before I apply for it.
Resources and barriers. The hospital offers tuition assistance for graduate study with a two-year work commitment. The barrier is sustained workload across five years of school and work. The sequence is designed to avoid overlap: the BSN ends before the charge role begins, and the MSN begins only after that role is established.
Current Training Practices and a Proposed Improvement
Orientation for new nurses on my floor lasts six weeks with a preceptor and includes a one-day electrocardiogram class. After orientation, rhythm interpretation is never checked again unless an error occurs. In the last year, two near misses on the floor involved a nurse misreading a rhythm change, and in both cases the nurse had passed the class months earlier. The weakness is not the class but the absence of any ongoing validation.
I propose a monthly rhythm strip review: a fifteen-minute session at the start of each day and night shift once a month, in which the rhythm lead presents three de-identified strips from the floor's own monitoring and the nurses on shift interpret them together. Once a year, every nurse would complete a ten-strip competency check. The review costs almost nothing, uses the floor's own cases and builds a habit of discussing rhythms before they become emergencies.
How Certification and Education Would Change My Practice
Specialty certification is associated with better outcomes when it is combined with baccalaureate education. In a study of more than 1.2 million surgical patients in 652 hospitals, a 10% increase in the proportion of baccalaureate-prepared staff nurses who were also certified was associated with a 2% decrease in the odds of 30-day mortality and failure to rescue, and no benefit of certification was seen without the baccalaureate degree (Kendall-Gallagher et al., 2011). The study was of surgical patients, not telemetry patients, but its message fits my plan: the BSN and PCCN together are worth more than either alone.
In my own practice, preparing for the PCCN will deepen what I know about hemodynamics, heart failure management and the early signs of deterioration, which is what failure to rescue is about. Continuing education across a career also sustains satisfaction and retention, and nurses at different career stages need different kinds of development (Price & Reichert, 2017). As a charge nurse I will use that point when I plan education for a floor whose nurses range from new graduates to twenty-year veterans.
Applying the Learning to My Facility
The rhythm strip review is the first improvement my planned learning makes possible, because the PCCN and the advanced arrhythmia course give me the credibility to lead it. I will take the proposal to my nurse manager in month seven, after I have passed the certification, and ask to pilot it for six months, measuring nurse confidence before and after and tracking any rhythm-related near misses reported through the safety system.
Reflection on Challenges to Improvement
The hardest part of improving care from a staff nurse position is that good ideas compete with a full assignment. Staff agree that ongoing rhythm review makes sense, but a fifteen-minute session at shift start can feel like one more thing when the floor is full. I expect resistance to take the form of silence rather than argument: sessions quietly skipped. The answer is to keep the review short, use our own patients' strips so it feels relevant, and have the charge nurse protect the time. I have also learned from watching other projects fail that an improvement needs an owner after its champion moves on, which is why the plan ties the review to a defined role rather than to me.
References
American Association of Critical-Care Nurses. (n.d.). PCCN (adult): Direct care eligibility pathway. Retrieved September 29, 2026, from https://www.aacn.org/certification/get-certified/pccn-adult
Kendall-Gallagher, D., Aiken, L. H., Sloane, D. M., & Cimiotti, J. P. (2011). Nurse specialty certification, inpatient mortality, and failure to rescue. Journal of Nursing Scholarship, 43(2), 188-194. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1547-5069.2011.01391.x
Price, S., & Reichert, C. (2017). The importance of continuing professional development to career satisfaction and patient care: Meeting the needs of novice to mid- to late-career nurses throughout their career span. Administrative Sciences, 7(2), 17. https://doi.org/10.3390/admsci7020017
What the D225 Task 1 instructions ask
The first D225 task asks you to plan your professional future and connect it to your workplace. Most versions ask for short-term, intermediate and long-term career goals with steps to reach them, a description of current training practices in your facility and a proposed improvement, an explanation of how certification or further education would change your practice, how you would apply that learning at your facility and a reflection on challenges to improving care. The plan is personal, but the facility improvement should be concrete. The evaluator reads for goals that build on each other and for evidence behind claims about certification and outcomes.
How this D225 Task 1 example is built
The plan opens with the writer's current role and career direction. Each goal section states the goal, then the steps, timing and resources, and the three goals build from certification to a charge role to management. The training section describes what orientation includes and where it stops, then proposes a monthly rhythm strip review as the fix. The certification section uses outcome research to explain why credentials matter to patients, not only to careers. The application section shows how planned learning makes the improvement possible. The reflection names a real challenge, competing with a full assignment, and how the writer plans to handle it.
Where the D225 Task 1 rubric puts the marks
The D225 Task 1 rubric scores each aspect at competent, approaching competence or not evident. Goal aspects check that short-term, intermediate and long-term goals are clear, realistic and supported by steps. A training aspect asks for current practice described accurately and an improvement proposed. Aspects on certification or education and on applying learning look for specific effects on practice, supported by sources. The reflection aspect wants honest discussion of challenges. Evaluators value coherence across the plan, with goals that lead to the improvement, and they expect APA citations and professional writing throughout. Evaluators also look for resources attached to each goal, such as cost, time and employer support, because attainability is part of what makes a goal credible in a career plan like this one.
D225 Task 1 help: what sends it back
Development plans come back most often because goals are disconnected. Each goal should make the next one possible, and the plan should say how. Second, training improvements are often too large, such as redesigning orientation. Choose a change a staff nurse could lead or propose, like a monthly review. Third, claims that certification improves care need evidence; cite research rather than stating it as fact. Fourth, reflections tend to be optimistic. Name a genuine obstacle, such as time or resistance, and a realistic response. Finally, include resources for each goal, such as cost, study materials or employer support, because attainability is part of what the evaluator judges.
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D225 Task 1 questions, answered
What time frames does the D225 plan use?
Most versions ask for short-term, intermediate and long-term goals, commonly one, three and five years. The sample follows that pattern and makes each goal a step toward the next one.
Does D225 require a certification goal?
Many versions ask about certification or further education. The sample sets a progressive care certification goal in year one and explains, with outcome research, how it would change the writer's practice.
What counts as a facility improvement in D225?
A change your planned learning makes possible, tied to a gap you can see now, with a first step and a person who would approve it. The sample proposes monthly rhythm strip reviews after orientation.
How much reflection does D225 Task 1 need?
Enough to name a real obstacle to improving care from your position and how you will handle it. The sample describes competing with a full patient assignment and plans around it.
Where can I find a free D225 Task 1 sample paper?
Scroll up for all three goals, the training fix and the reflection, with notes alongside. Share your own goals with the D225 task and the first tailored plan is free.