New Graduate Transition, a Qualititave Study Essay

According to Shellebarger & Edwards (2012), Nurse Educators help shape the future of nursing by educating future novice nurses. Nurse Educators have a core curriculum to follow to ensure lifelong learning in their role. They help shape critical thinking skills in our future nurses by giving them the knowledge needed to think critically. “ Evidence has found that hospital based nurse educators influence safe patient outcome through contemporary evidence based teaching and their contribution of policy development supports safe practice” (Sayers,2012, p. 45). Nurse Administrators take on the role of patient advocates, by ensuring that patients are receiving the highest level of care (Hamic, Hanson, Tracy, & O’Grady, 2014). Nurse Administrators are an important part of management of nurses , they help develop policies and procedures and are change agents in their fields. The Nurse Educator and the Nurse Administrator should be

Through my research for this paper I have found that RNs who have an associate degree or diploma are more likely to make errors during clinical practice. Nurses who hold Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) degrees have a stronger foundation in which to build better communication, leadership, critical thinking and problem solving skills. The high demands placed on today's nurses really challenge all of these skills on a daily basis. Nurses with Bachelor of Science in Nursing degrees have a better understanding of the importance to be proficient in these skills. In a study of RN-to-BSN degree graduates from 1995 to

Associates prepared nurses are able to sit for the NCLEX as well as bachelors prepared nurses. They are both able to practice and perform many of the same skills and procedures. Their differences in clinical competencies are few, but their differences in critical thinking, decision making, communication, leadership, and management techniques and abilities, are many. The bachelors prepared nurse has received a higher and more in depth level of education in their field. This additional study and preparedness gives the bachelors prepared nurse the ability to understand not only the “what” and “how” of their clinical procedures, but also the

This article researched the competency of new graduate nurses. “Nursing competence is not only a professional standard

According to the IOM report, the nursing profession is undergoing fundamental changes within the underlying operations of the field. A new regulatory environment coupled with increased scrutiny of the profession will dramatically impact the nursing profession. As the report indicates nurses, in the near future, will have job requirements that are business oriented. Nurses will need to have a better understanding of quality management methods in addition to overall concepts of management. As the health care system continues its rapid reform nurses must also be cognizant of the effects these changes will have on their overall roles and responsibilities. This involves a transformation of the roles and responsibilities of nurses as they enter the profession. As the health care landscape continues to change, so too must the nurses of the future. A dedication to continual learning is therefore needed to help diminish the influence of antiquated and obsolete knowledge regarding the profession.

New Registered Nurses entering into the emergency department, are lacking experience to high acuity, and very sick patients with cardiac, stroke, trauma, sepsis, and pediatric emergencies. In the last few years the shortage of nurses with experience in specialty areas has become more evident. The vacancies of nurses retiring or moving out of the facility, is creating unsafe practices with high patient ratios. Thus, forcing managers to look at the need to hire new Registered Nurse graduates into a specialty area. In addition, this new trend is changing the hiring process, forcing the hospital and specialty units to look at all candidates equally, that is, new graduates or inexperienced nurses. This new trend is looking at the required two years of experience on a medical-surgical unit, therefore, causing other challenges and potential safety risks to both the patients and the new employees, because of the to the lack of experience and a lack of a good focused orientation process into the specialty area geared towards new graduates, or inexperienced nurses.

In the article “What Do Nurses Really Do?”, Suzanne Gordon explores what nurses truly do. She concludes that nurses “save lives, prevent complications, prevent suffering, and save money” (Gordon 2006). Nurses provide care for their patients in the physical and emotional sense. Emotionally caring for a patient and being sensitive to his or her needs result from interacting with patients while performing the skills and using the knowledge that nurses learned in school. Nurses grow in their skills, knowledge, and attitudes through practice. Quality and safety education for nursing incorporates competencies that all nurses must use in their practice. These nursing competencies include evidence-based nursing practice, quality improvement, safety, teamwork and collaboration, patient-centered care, and informatics.

In the early 1980’s, several boards of nursing began exploring the competency issues for the graduating nurses in their states. The various states developed important competencies for the nursing graduates (Tilley, 2008). The competencies were a guideline for the various educational programs to ensure the students were prepared after graduation. Many of the programs identified various skills, professional values, knowledge, and judgement as standards upon graduation. In the 1990’s the topic became even more frequent in discussions by nurses in various nursing organizations and advocacy groups to ensure the safety of patients with the rapid changes that were happening in health care (Tilley, 2008). Over the years the role of competency has become the standard that fills the gap between education and profession. The Institute of Medicine put forth core competencies for health care professionals that called for working in

Nursing can be a demanding career, but the benefits far much outweigh the challenges. Most importantly, it’s the rewards it offers by allowing an opportunity to make a difference in another person’s life through the provision of care when they need it. Just as Patricia Benner theorized in her book “Novice to Expert,” nursing encompasses both educational knowledge and extensive clinical experience acquired throughout one’s career. This far, I continue to acquire knowledge and clinical knowhow which will promote proper and efficient care to patients. Since I began practicing one year ago in a long-term healthcare facility, I have interacted with patients, families, physicians and other members of the healthcare team to coordinate patient’s care which has enabled me to gain confidence in myself. While I cannot deny that it was difficult to transition from a student to a licensed nurse, I learnt to overcome these challenges and focus on my strengths. Practicing as an LPN has provided a platform to learn and gain experience even though the duties and responsibilities are limited by the scope of practice.

New nurses are fresh out of nursing school; therefore, they only know the right way to perform a skill. This impacts patient quality care and the organization because they will not place the patient in jeopardy. They will abide by what they have learned and protect the patient at all time. New nurses will thoroughly use their rights of medication and safety procedures. These

Many nurses who completed the program reported higher satisfaction with their orientation compared to those who had a more generalized orientation. The authors stated that this study weighed heavily on new specialty nurses who had very little to no exposure to the field while in nursing school (p. 142). Authors Adams, Alexander, Chisari, Banister, and McAuley (2015) also mention the dire need for specialized nurse residency programs. In their article, the authors state the need for competent and experienced critical care nurses but most hospitals have difficulty filling positions in ICU level jobs due to lack of experience. The program that was implemented at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) for critical care nurses was designed to last six months, but could extend up to twelve months if additional precepting was necessary. On the contrary, nurses within MGH’s residency program voiced concerns regarding patient assignments once they completed the program. Most reported they had doubts of being able to care for high acuity patients immediately after completing the program (Adams, Alexander, Chisari, Banister ,and McAuley, 2015,

The field of nursing is both a science and an art. New nurses graduate with, at least, acceptable basic competence. They are expected to have the ability to effectively communicate and make decisions in a complex environment with multiple demands on their practical comprehension. However, they usually lack the experience to apply this learned theory. This limited knowledge results in anxiety and difficulty in transitioning from the role of student to leader. How these students can best learn these skills is a topic that has come under considerable debate. We know that most become overwhelmed with multiple tasks and not able to prioritize with critical thinking in a fast pace acute hospital. This begs the

For some novice nurses, the emotional experience of transition shock leads to an erosion of confidence created by academic and supervised clinical success. Lack of confidence magnifies the uncomfortable and stressful experience of being solely responsible for safe and ethical patient care (Nash, Lemcke, and Sacre, 2009). Even after participation in supervised nurse residency programs, novice nurses state the demands of the new role are “chaotic” (as cited in Kramer et al., 2009, p. 691). Attempting to acclimate to their new role, the novice nurse in chaos experiences confusion and self-doubt about themselves and their ability to function within the new role (Duchscher, 2009). This chaos, Duchscher (2009) declares, is exhausting and isolating.

Transition from student life to professional life is challenging and stressful phase for many graduating nurses worldwide (Mooney, 2007). Being a clinical preceptor I have witnessed that new graduates often observed to remain incompetent in performing different skills and overwhelmed with the expectation of their supervisors to get familiarize to the daily tasks, work environment, policies and procedures etc. on commencement of their professional nursing duties. It is tough for them to learn the appropriate ways of communication with other health care professionals in limited time period. Moreover, owing complete responsibility of patients, doing documentation, medication administration and performing different other skills independently put

The experience of the student nurse graduate transition influences the importance as it will become their desire to continue practising as a registered nurse (Cleary et al. 2011, 2013). Even though the nursing degree’s clinical practice is a compulsory element of the undergraduate nursing program, it cannot be experienced from a registered nurse perspective, until nursing students have transitioned to a registered nurse. This imposes a change in roles and different expectations which causes concerns for student nurse. Buckenham (1994) reports that newly graduated nurses experience stress, disillusionment and despair in their first year of registration.