Career Cartography: A Conceptualization of Career Development to Advance Health and Policy

Key wordsNurse researcher, career planning, career development, mentoringAbstractPurpose: The purpose of this article is to propose a conceptualization of career development that emphasizes the interdependence between research, practice, and policy.Organizing Construct: Career cartography applies three decades of career development experience to lay out a systematic, comprehensive, and iterative approach for planning and communicating the outcomes of science at any career stage. To inform practice and policy, nurse researchers must be clear on the intended destination and trajectory of the science, and be skilled in communicating that science and vision to diverse stakeholders. Career cartography builds on the science of cartography, is developed within the context of public and health policy, and is composed of several components, including a destination statement, career mapping, a supportive career cartography team, and use of communication and dissemination strategies.Conclusions: The successful utilization of career cartography may accelerate advancement of individual careers, scientific impact, and the discipline as a whole by guiding nurse researchers to be deliberative in career planning and to communicate successfully the outcomes of research across a wide variety of stakeholders. Career cartography provides a framework for planning a nurse researcher's program of research and scholarship to advance science, policy, and health of the public.Clinical Relevance: Career cartography guides nurse researchers to realize their full potential to advance the health of the public and inform public and health policy in academic and practice environments.The goal of nursing science is to advance knowledge, improve the health of the public, and improve the effectiveness, safety, and access to health care. Similarly, the career goal of an individual nurse researcher is to improve the health of the public by advancing knowledge and nursing science. To meet this goal, nurse researchers need to be clear on the direction, trajectory, and expected outcomes of a career. Building a successful career as a nurse researcher with an active program of research and scholarship is a complex process that requires many levels of planning and strategic decision making. Likewise, communicating science with effective, actionable messages requires development over time. While there is literature on improving scholarly productivity within the context of faculty roles (Nies & Troutman-Jordan, 2012; Wills & Kaiser, 2002), and some guidance on using concept mapping to facilitate progress and advancement on the tenure-track (Ratchneewan & Dzurec, 2010), there is little guidance on how to plan and communicate programs of research and scholarship. There is even less guidance for nurse researchers in academic and nonacademic roles to incorporate knowledge and trends within health and public policy into career planning and communication. More importantly, there is a lack of practical guidance to advance systematically that program of research and scholarship over a career. The purpose of this article is to address these gaps by proposing career cartography, a conceptualization of career development that emphasizes the interdependence between research, practice, and policy.The title of a career development book, If You Don't Know Where You're Going, You'll Probably End Up Somewhere Else (Campbell, 2007), aptly captures an important issue many nurse researchers face throughout a career. Some nurse researchers mistakenly believe that it is enough to be able to describe science primarily for the next grant proposal or current study. Such a narrow view is insufficient to establish or advance a program of research and scholarship that will generate the quality, quantity, and rate of sustained change that is needed in this era of rapidly developing science, emerging technologies, complexity of healthcare systems, and limited funding sources. …