Exemplar Writing
Purpose
To develop your skills at reflecting on your own and others practice. To encourage critical analysis and enquiry into nursing practice to ensure evidence based practice.
Method
An event or incident in which you feel you learned and / or made a difference – an event that caused you to pause, ask and act. Patient confidentiality should be maintained at all times, remember New Zealand is a small place and contextual details, together with geographic location of the author can result in identification of patients, clients and even staff.
During the ten month programme you will be expected to submit two exemplars – one in the first three months and one in month seven.
An exemplar is a narrative description of a significant event or incident which serves as a model of excellence in nursing practice.
Pat Benner suggests you select “an incident in which you feel your intervention really made a difference in patient outcome, an incident that you think captures the quintessence of what nursing is all about….an incident that was particularly demanding” (Benner, 1984).
The focus of the exemplar should be the impact your nursing has made on a particular client or family and on you as a professional.
You should focus on your interactions and interventions with the patient, what you said and did and how this made a difference. Avoid details which pertain to your own career or the client’s history, laboratory results or care plan unless you feel they are necessary to give an understanding for you actions.
Try to describe what happened, your concerns, feelings and thoughts and the decision making process and how this affected your client and why it was significant to you.
Assessment
The programme coordinator will assess the exemplars in a formative context measured against the domains of competence for the registered nurse scope of practice (NCNZ, 2004). There is no pass or fail component to the assessment.
The feedback you receive will act as guidance to help you attain the evidence required for your portfolio submission. Guidance to assist you with writing an exemplar can be found in the reflective practice section of the TDH portfolio.
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