Reflect on your interests, the clinical areas that you’ve enjoyed and your goals for your career. For instance, your career goals may include bedside nursing, nursing management or advanced practice (nurse practitioner, nurse anesthetist, midwifery, etc.). 2. Identify two potential clinical specialty areas – two clinical areas in which you can foresee specializing and focusing your nursing career (e.g. oncology, pediatrics, mental health, community, surgical nursing, etc.). 3. Consult the Johnson & Johnson (J & J) website (the link is below) for information about those specialties, requirements for those areas, certification information and the associated professional organizations. 4. With your career goals and two potential clinical specialties in mind, search the internet for the J & J suggested professional organizations and for other professional organizations granting certification in those specialty areas. List as many nursing organizations as you can. Note: More than one professional organization may grant certification in the same specialty area. 6. Think about the information you’ve obtained: your goals, potential clinical specialties, required education, qualifications for certification, etc. How does this information impact your preliminary career planning? What path(s) should you take to accomplish your goals?
