First appraisal meeting of my career

Ok, a week ago I met with one of the sisters I'd been working alongside for my yearly appraisal. This is where you get feedback on your performance and have the opportunity to discuss any areas for development and agree on a plan of action for the coming year. I really enjoyed my appraisal, the feedback I got was positive and we discussed strategies for developing my delegating skills when working with clinical support workers. It was decided that I enroll on a course to develop my knowledge further; 'assessment and management of the critically sick patient' was what I felt I needed most at this time. I'm waiting for the start date to be published so I can apply for it. Also I fancy the 'career development workshop', which should allow me to formulate some direction and game plan for my career. The sister told me that all the staff nurses on the ward are encouraged to take up a role of link nurses and asked which field I am most interested in, I looked at the list of options such as tissue viability or cardiac and I found myself strongly drawn to palliative care. I do love this field of nursing because I find it to be one of the most fulfilling and rewarding service nursing can offer. So I am now the palliative link nurse which means I need to enroll on palliative courses given by the Specialist Nurses. I have taken the opportunity to introduce myself to one of them and told her of my interest, so will keep an eye out for these courses to come up. Another objective I have set myself is to send off my application to the RCN to be trained in being an RCN steward. This means I will learn to support colleagues, who are RCN members, through difficult work related disputes and disciplinaries. I am very passionate about this role as I feel the NHS has the capacity to serious mistreat staff who need advise on employment law and NHS policy to strengthen their position. I am very keen to learn to offer this service to colleagues, so I have given myself till the end of July to complete the rather lengthy form and send it off.