N4323 Professional Nursing Trends
Learning how to use the power of the nurse in the legislative arena is the purpose of this assignment. Follow the guide completely and write on the form itself.
N4323 Professional Nursing Trends
Assignment #1: Legislator E-mail Exercise
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Overview: Legislator E-mail Exercise
To take a proactive role in nursing policy, identify your legislator and prepare an email to this legislator about a current nursing issue. Write a concise, professionally worded e-mail to a state-level legislator about a current nursing issue that is important to you. Do not ask the legislator to increase nursing pay, make your hospital do or not do something, or any other issue that the legislator can not address.
1. Find the legislator(s) for your Texas zip code. You will only write your email to one legislator, even if many are listed.
2. Complete the issue description and action plan section prior to composing the email to organize your thoughts. Be specific – don’t use generalizations like “decrease the nurse-patient ratio.” Use current journal literature to validate the request.
3. Write your final e-mail in the space provided on this assignment document. Use single space – this is an email not a letter.
4. You MUST include one personal example about how the issue personally affects your nursing career.
5. Use at least 2 CURRENT references (less than 5 years) and in-text citations (either short quotes or your summary of what the author said) to support your thoughts. Remember, if quoting, cite the page number with the author and year. List in current APA format but single space. Journals are always the best resource, not newspapers, blogs, or other less reliable resources.
6. Upload and submit the email assignment you have prepared into Canvas.
It is not necessary for you to actually send your email to you legislator unless you choose to do so.
Course Performance Objective: Identify and model professional role in shaping future nursing care.
A. Identifying Your Legislators: Find out who your legislators are at the local or state level. You only need address your issue to one legislator. If email information is not available then you would need to put their physical address. In rare cases if a physical address is not listed, please include a webpage address. Use a Google search to locate Texas legislative systems, or this helpful link to identify your state legislator. https://www.congress.gov/state-legislature-websites
Record name, title, and Legislator’s contact information here:
Name – (The Honorable)
Title – (House or Senate)
Contact Information – (Email address preferred)
B. Issue Description and Action Plan: To identify a current nursing issue, read https://www.texasnurses.org/page/nursingpolicy and https://www.texasnp.org/news/568840/Statement-From-Nursing-Groups-on-the-87th-Legislative-Session.htm. You may also identify a current nursing issue important to you or your future practice if not in this list. To help you begin organizing your thoughts, complete the following section.
1. a.. State the nursing issue that affects you in 1-2 sentences.
b. List three reasons or examples as to how this nursing issues affects you personally as a student or in your future practice as a Registered Nurse.
2. a. What help/assistance are you requesting from your legislator? (Make sure it is something that the legislator can actually do anything about – they cannot get your personal salary increased!) BE SPECIFIC. For example: “enact a bill to address the issue of burnout by limiting the staff-patient ratio to 1:4.”
b. List three reasons or examples as to why this bill/assistance would positively impact your practice or help other nurses.
C. a. Use the Rubric to write the E-mail! Explain the importance of this issue to your practice and to you personally. Limit the e-mail to one page, including the references. Choose details from those you developed above that create the strongest and most persuasive thoughts. Remember to include personal examples .
b. Strictly follow the format of the sample e-mail located in the assignment instructions as well as the rubric. Address the legislator appropriately (The Honorable…) and include your home address to classify you as a constituent.
Edit your e-mail for spelling, grammar, and word usage!! This is an issue of professionalism for me. Read it aloud, and/or get a friend to read it and provide feedback. Use paragraph breaks, not just one long email. Include two in-text citations. Remember, if using quotation marks, cite: (Jones, 2020, p. 10). If summarizing, use: (Jones, 2020). Limit the email to one page including the references!
Write your final e-mail in the space provided below. Type directly below in the spaces provided.
Date:
Subject:
Dear (Representative’s Official Name):
Sincerely,
References: List references here. At least two are required to support your thoughts. Use correct APA formatting but only use single spacing.
Rubric
Use this rubric to guide your work on the assignment, “Legislator E-mail.”
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Incomplete |
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Open email with an appropriate salutation for the legislator. Identify the point of the email in the first 1-2 sentences and again at the end of the email. State nursing issue clearly, simply, and request help from the legislator with this issue. If a certain bill is involved, the title and number are cited. Be specific, not general, in your request – do you want loans, a bill, etc. What EXACTLY do you want in these bills? |
Use incorrect salutation to identify legislator. Did not identify the point of the email in the first 1-2 sentences and summarize at the end of the email. Email issue is unclear or convoluted and no request for specific help from the legislator with this issue was made. Did not look up the title and number of a bill that you wanted the legislator to support. Too generalized. |
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Identify that you are a student nurse in this legislator’s district. List personal experiences you may have had pertaining to the subject of the email. Include at least one personal observation or story related to the issue. Use specific examples, evidence or observations from two journals to support your position. |
Did not ID yourself as a student nurse in this legislator’s district. Did not list personal experiences pertaining to the issue. Did not use specific examples from current journals to support your position. |
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Includes the action you are asking the legislator to take. State what it is you want done or recommended course of action. Note: The action must be something related to the role of a legislator. Reiterate this specific action at the end of the email. |
Course of action unclear. Topic is not related to the duties of a legislator. Action was not repeated at the end. |
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Use correct spelling and grammar. In-text citations are APA and include page numbers if in quotes. Provide 2 or more references (single-spaced) in support of the issue in APA format. Email is 1 page single spaced, including the references. Tone and words are courteous and respectful. Thank the member for taking the time to read your email. |
Incorrect spelling/grammar. Citations are not APA References are not current, limited, or do not support the issue. Email is over 1 page (including the references). Tone is not respectful. Member is not thanked. |
Submit this entire Assignment Document into Canvas.
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Legislator Email
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N4323 PROFESSIONAL NURSING TRENDS
Sample Legislator Email
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(Note – this example does not include the preparatory work which must be included.)
To: Legislator’s email address
The Honorable Jane Nelson Texas Senate
Subject: Nursing Shortage Crisis due to lack of enough qualified nursing faculty
Dear Senator Nelson,
There is a healthcare crisis created by the nursing shortage in Tarrant County and across Texas. Tarrant County has “more unfilled full-time faculty nursing school positions than in the past” (citation, year, page number). This means that fewer students are accepted into the current nursing programs. Decreases in students mean that the Texas healthcare workforce will continue to suffer. Hospitals cannot afford a decreased workforce or current nurses that are exhausted from caring for too many patients.
Larger appropriations to nursing schools in Texas would attract faculty and may alleviate the problem and reverse the shortage. Helping pay for graduate school for those who want to teach would also alleviate the difficulty of trained teachers. To teach in a nursing school, the professors must have at least a Masters degree. Schools of nursing turn away thousands of qualified students annually across the state (citation, year). As a student at the University of Texas at Arlington, the waiting list is long, and I had to wait two semesters to be accepted. Several of my friends experienced the same situation. The Texas Nurses Association and Texas Hospital Association have worked very closely together to find a solution to this crisis (citation, year). COVID has made the need for qualified graduates even greater, but there must be qualified professors to teach them.
Asking for more funding this session is not a popular thing to do. However, the need to stop the nursing shortage crisis and hire qualified professional faculty nurses is great. I hope that the nursing profession and hospitals can count on your support. An appropriation request for universities in Texas or tuition grants for those wishing to teach would help alleviate the nursing shortage crisis and allow for more students to graduate from these schools.
Thank you for your time, and I hope we can count on your support.
Sincerely,
Name
Address
References in APA – Single Spaced
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