Nurses' career development

Rapid changes in the health care sector during the latest decades of the 20th century place new demands on nursing and nurses. Nurses have a very broad and significant role in impacting the quality and effectiveness of health care delivery. The Egyptian health care system faces multiple challenges in improving and ensuring the health and well being of the Egyptian people. That makes educators, employers and health organizations face a challenge also to collaborate with individual nurses on career-development activities that will enable them to continue to provide high-quality care. Career development is an ongoing collaborative process of planning and directing action towards personal work and life goals. Development means growth, continuous acquisition and application of one's skills. It is the outcome of the individual's career planning and the organization's provision of support and opportunities. Nursing career development is found in individuals performing and specifying nursing as their career preference, implementing nursing as career choice, specifying a special preference, and implementing specialty choice.