Claims I Can Support: A Professional Identity Statement for Doctoral Nursing Practice, With the Evidence Behind Each Claim
Student Name
Doctor of Nursing Practice Program, Aspen University
DNP850: Nursing Practice, Professionalism, and Scholarship
Instructor Name
Month Day, Year
Claims I Can Support: A Professional Identity Statement for Doctoral Nursing Practice, With the Evidence Behind Each Claim
A professional identity statement can easily become a list of aspirations. This one follows a stricter rule: every claim about who I am as a developing DNP-prepared nurse must be supported by evidence from my work, and where the evidence is incomplete, I say so. The statement is organized around the dimensions of professional identity that the nursing profession has begun to define and around the competencies expected of advanced-level practice.
A Framework for Professional Identity
Professional identity in nursing refers to how a nurse thinks, acts, and feels as a member of the discipline, shaped by its values and norms. A national initiative on professional identity in nursing, whose think tank process Goodolf and Godfrey (2021) describe, has framed identity around values and ethics, knowledge, leadership, and professional comportment. The advanced-level competencies in the current Essentials add expectations for systems-based practice, scholarship, and personal, professional, and leadership development (American Association of Colleges of Nursing, 2021). My claims follow these dimensions.
Claim 1: I Look at Systems, Not Only Patients
Evidence: At the start of this course I analyzed a year of heart failure discharges from my clinic and found that 129 of 212 patients were not seen within 7 days. That analysis turned a pattern I had experienced one patient at a time into a system problem with a number attached, and it became the basis of my DNP project. Gap: I have analyzed one system problem; I have not yet led a change to completion and shown that it improved outcomes.
Claim 2: I Assess Myself Against Standards and Invite Others to Grade Me
Evidence: I rated my practice against the eight DNP Essentials, rating one met, five partly met, and two not yet met, and I asked my medical director and a nurse manager to review my ratings. The nurse manager's harsher view of my systems leadership changed my priorities. Gap: I have not yet repeated the assessment to show progress; that will happen with my faculty mentor at the program's midpoint.
Claim 3: I Act Ethically When No Policy Tells Me How
Evidence: In my ethics analysis of an unrepresented older adult whose treatment decisions depended on who was on call, I applied ethical principles, the Code of Ethics provisions on advocacy, and a professional position statement to propose a team-based decision process for patients with no surrogate (American Nurses Association, 2015). I presented the proposal to our ethics committee chair. Gap: The policy has not been adopted, and I have not yet seen whether I can hold to it under pressure in a real case. An ethical analysis is evidence of judgment on paper; the stronger evidence will be what I do the next time the situation arises.
Claim 4: I Develop Other Nurses
Evidence: I designed a first-year mentorship program for new nurse practitioners in response to losing four of nine new hires within 18 months, with named stakeholders and measures, and I currently mentor one new nurse practitioner informally. One well-known account of skill acquisition holds that expertise in nursing grows through experience in concrete situations, and that a nurse entering unfamiliar work may be a beginner again (Benner, 1982). My own experience fits that account; I remember being a novice practitioner after years as an expert nurse, and that memory shapes how I mentor. Gap: The program is a plan, and my mentoring has not been evaluated by the person I mentor.
Claim 5: I Share What I Learn
Evidence: I have planned a manuscript for a nurse practitioner journal structured with a published reporting guideline, selected the journal with explicit criteria, and settled authorship in advance. Gap: Nothing is yet submitted or published; this claim will be supported only when the manuscript is under review.
Claim 6: I Report Evidence Honestly, Including When It Disappoints
Evidence: When my follow-up project's readmission result proved suggestive but not conclusive, I chose to report it as such in my manuscript plan and to name the lack of a comparison group as a limitation, rather than presenting the readmission drop as proof that the intervention worked. In my Essentials self-assessment, I rated two areas as not yet met rather than softening them. Gap: Honesty is easiest when little is at stake. The stronger test will come if leadership asks me to present project results in a more favorable light than the data allow.
How Others Describe Me
Self-description is only one source of evidence. I asked three colleagues to describe my professional role in one sentence. A cardiologist described me as the nurse practitioner who knows every heart failure patient's medication list. A nurse manager described me as someone who spots problems but has not always carried the fix through. A new nurse practitioner described me as the person she calls when she is unsure. The three descriptions match my claims about clinical expertise and developing others, and the second one confirms the gap I identified in systems leadership. By graduation, I hope the manager's description will change.
The Identity That Emerges
Taken together, the evidence describes a nurse in transition: an experienced clinician who has begun to think in systems, assess against standards, reason ethically about gaps in policy, develop others, and plan to share knowledge. The gaps describe what the doctorate must still produce: a completed project with outcomes, a policy adopted, a program evaluated, and a paper published. My professional identity statement is therefore also a plan. I am becoming a DNP-prepared nurse whose claims will be proven by what I complete, not by what I intend.
Conclusion
Professional identity is not declared but demonstrated. By pairing each claim with evidence and each gap with a plan, this statement describes who I am becoming in terms that others can verify. The standard I set for it, evidence for every claim, is the same standard I hope to bring to practice as a DNP-prepared nurse.
References
American Association of Colleges of Nursing. (2021). The essentials: Core competencies for professional nursing education. Author.
American Nurses Association. (2015). Code of ethics for nurses with interpretive statements. Nursesbooks.org.
Benner, P. (1982). From novice to expert. American Journal of Nursing, 82(3), 402-407. https://doi.org/10.2307/3462928
Goodolf, D. M., & Godfrey, N. (2021). A think tank in action: Building new knowledge about professional identity in nursing. Journal of Professional Nursing, 37(2), 493-499. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.profnurs.2020.10.007
How this DNP 850 Module 8 example is structured
DNP850 Module 8 typically closes with a professional identity statement carrying evidence for every claim. Aspen does not publish module deliverables, so check your classroom for the exact prompt. This example sets a framework, makes each claim with specific evidence from earlier work, names the gap that remains and turns the gaps into a plan.
DNP850 Module 8 questions, answered
What does DNP850 Module 8 usually ask for?
The final module typically asks for a professional identity statement in which each claim about your doctoral identity is supported by evidence from your work. Aspen does not publish module deliverables, so your classroom's instructions govern.
What counts as evidence in a professional identity statement?
Specific work you have done, such as analyses, projects, presentations, feedback from others or changes you led, rather than intentions or personal qualities alone. Naming gaps honestly strengthens the statement.
What are the dimensions of professional identity in nursing?
The national professional identity in nursing initiative has framed identity around values and ethics, knowledge, leadership and professional comportment, reflecting how a nurse thinks, acts and feels as a member of the discipline.
Write yours, or have the desk draft it
This paper is an original model document written by our desk, not a submitted student paper and not an official Aspen University document. Read it for the moves, then write your own to the instructions in your classroom. If you want one built to your exact prompt and rubric, the first custom sample is free and arrives in 24 to 48 hours.