Healthy Transition Of A Nursing Professional: Challenges And Strategies

Challenges Faced By Nursing Professionals In The First Year Of Practice

The transition phase in nursing has been described as a crucial phase that serves as a reality check for fresh graduates entering into the professional field. A healthy transition has been considered to be utmost essential for building up confidence level in graduate students entering into practice (Thrysoe et al., 2011). It should be noted here that a healthy transition depends upon the ability to cope with the changes in the professional environment, implement absorbed theoretical knowledge into practice, critically reflect upon practicum experiences and assimilate knowledge from practicum experience gathered. This essay intends to discuss the journey of a healthy transition of a nursing professional from an academic environment to a professional environment. It would further talk about the importance of maintaining a healthy transition so as to ensure a positive professional environment. The essay would thus proceed with the thesis statement, Healthy transition to nursing practice is directly proportional to the success rate of professional practice. The essay would further delve deeper into the factors that serve as obstacles in the first year of entering into professional practice and strategies that could be undertaken so as to ensure a healthy transition.  Healthy Transition Of A Nursing Professional Discussion Paper

In close association to the facts presented in the case study, it can be said that the transition from an academic environment to a professional environment is marked by a number of obstacles. According to the Thrysoe et al.(2011), the major issues that has been enlisted as primary challenges faced by professionals on entering the professional field include bridging the theory to practice gap and caring for patients with complex symptoms. Also, time management, handling work load and dealing with an interdisciplinary team has been found to be areas of major professional challenge. The case study also reports the initial phase of nursing practicum for fresh graduates to be full of nervousness, anxiety and reduced confidence levels. This has been identified as a major source of tension and in order to mitigate this issue the professionals work in association with the supervisors to get acquainted with the working environment. As argued by Walton et al. (2018), the first year of transition exposes the graduate students to a world full of challenges and emotional turmoil. Although the case study has focused on the implementation of guidance and supervision to ease the transition process, nursing the emotional aspect and the career insecurities seem to be overlooked. However, incorporation of reflection based experience has been found to yield positive outcomes in terms of addressing career insecurities within a clinical environment.

Strategies For A Healthy Transition

Another critical aspect that has been highlighted as a major impediment in the process of ensuring a smooth transition includes the incapability of the professionals to work with a multidisciplinary team. According to a research study conducted by Hayes (2018), it has been mentioned that inefficient time-management, professional expertise and ability to maintain an effective coordination with the multidisciplinary team causes a high rate of employee attrition. However another research study conducted by Kensington et al. (2016), revealed that effective implementation of support programs can make the transition phase healthier for the graduate students entering into the profession (Attard, Baldacchino & Camilleri, 2014). The Midwifery First Year of Practice (MPYF) program aims at providing support and assistance to the fresh graduates entering the first year of their profession. It can be mentioned that implementation of support programs after the completion of the degree course can support as a platform to impart the pre-requisite skills to the graduates to effectively adjust in the new professional environment. The MFYP board has undertaken an excellent initiative to facilitate a healthy transition to the professional practicum for the fresh graduates (Kensington et al., 2016). The initiative can be considered as a collective approach that has been taken up by the Midwifery Board of New Zealand. There is an increasing need to popularise this initiative and more support organizations with similar motive should come up so as to assist fresh graduates into entering the professional curriculum. It is critical to relate with the major change in the situational environment that the graduates are placed into and the situational challenges that the working environment has to offer. Accordingly accommodating support programs to impart tactics about handling work pressure, shift timing, documentation and maintaining effective communication between multidisciplinary health departments can help in ensuring positive transition (DeNisco & Barker, 2013,p.110). It is also important to emphasise on emotional well-being and hence focusing on reflection based experience can facilitate better scope of improvement in practice. Also, ample assistance from supervisors and seniors can substantially ease the work load and facilitate positive employee engagement (L’Ecuyer, Pole & Leander, 2014).

ORDER A PLAGIARISM-FREE PAPER HERE

While discussing the transition of nursing professionals from student graduate nurses to professional’s nurses, it is important to discuss the hurdles and obstacles they face while transitioning from one aspect to another. The first hurdle they face is related to the variety of multidisciplinary teams and sections of the healthcare facility that creates several confusion as they are unable to prioritize their duties as per such departments and teams (Luyben, Barger, Avery & Bick, 2018). Therefore, it is one of the major conditions which is faced by the graduate nurses, who join professional teams. Besides these, there are several other concerns such as working in specific shifts, understanding the priority for actual patient conditions, understanding the condition when require emergency health interventions and others require expert supervision so that these transitioning phases of graduate nursing students to professional nursing personnel becomes smooth and effective (Marañón & Pera, 2015, Thomas et al., 2014). Healthy Transition Of A Nursing Professional Discussion Paper It is the role of the supervisors, or experienced registered nurses to guide the freshly graduate nursing professionals in the healthcare facility to provide them with information about the system, documentation process, ideation about multidisciplinary teams and their functionality and the type of role they perform in the facility. Further, there are several models and techniques related to skill acquisition so that such skills could be involved within their practice and they could be made familiar with the system and related work (Woeber, 2018).

Implementation Of Support Programs

In a research paper by Benner (2004), the study used the Dreyfus model for skills acquisition and then conducted three of the studies for at least 21 years in a healthcare facility so that skill acquisition by the nursing professionals could be properly identified. In each of the situations, for test, the nursing professionals were provided with actual situations so that they can apply their knowledge and understanding in each situation to decide the escalation of the treatment and they implement the treatment in the scenario to get the positive results for the patient (Farrell, Payne & Heye, 2015). It was found that this model helps to make the nursing professionals comply with the practical nursing scenario and hence, it is one of the useful models for making the nursing professionals joining the professional forces and make them aware of the difficult scenario of the helathcare facility (Woeber, 2018, Strouse & Nickerson, 2016).

While my transition, I was also went through the issues and concerns of the transition from graduate nursing student to professional registered nurse and hence, my experience within the healthcare facility helped me to develop and shape my nursing career as per my choice and requirement. while joining the professional team, I was confused about the processes I would be carrying out or the departments I will be a part of as everyday there was a transition of nursing professionals and hence, I had to be aware of the process, interventions, documentation and implementation of care for a multidisciplinary team so that I could provide care to a wide variety of patients. Hence, I was prepared for all the educational and skillful training programs so that I can acquire the skills that would make be compatible to work in a multidisciplinary team. Therefore, it was one of the major factors that helped me to understand the importance of factors that would make me acquire the knowledge properly. further, I was also provided with supervision by one of the experienced registered nurse while my commencement of the professional journey so that I can become aware of the system and processes within the helathcare facility and then can use that knowledge to increase my knowledge about the system.

Conclusion

Transition from a student graduate nurse to the professional nursing personality is an important change that every nursing student has to go through and therefore, it becomes a specific part of their nursing career. However, this transition is not that smooth or proper for majority of the nursing professionals and hence, there are huge numbers of nursing professionals who opt out of the profession during this transition that questions the transformation of the student to the professionals. Therefore, in this assignment, discussion about several skills acquisition techniques and models were discussed such as the Dreyfus model and the competency based clinical evaluation so that student nursing professionals can learn about the healthcare treatment and the facility and it’s processed with proper guidance and support. Besides these discussion about nursing supervision provided to student nursing professionals during their first few months within the facility was also discussed in this assignment so that their role in making the nursing professionals compatible to the facility could be discussed.

References

Attard, J., Baldacchino, D. R., & Camilleri, L. (2014). Nurses’ and midwives’ acquisition of competency in spiritual care: A focus on education. Nurse Education Today, 34(12), 1460-1466. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nedt.2014.04.015

Benner, P. (2004). Using the Dreyfus model of skill acquisition to describe and interpret skill acquisition and clinical judgment in nursing practice and education. Bulletin of science, technology & society, 24(3), 188-199. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0270467604265061

DeNisco, S. M., & Barker, A. M. (2013). Advanced practice nursing: Evolving roles for the transformation of the profession.pp.110. Retrieved from: https://digitalcommons.sacredheart.edu/nurs_fac/19/

Farrell, K., Payne, C., & Heye, M. (2015). Integrating interprofessional collaboration skills into the advanced practice registered nurse socialization process. Journal of Professional Nursing, 31(1), 5-10.DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.profnurs.2014.05.006

Hayes, C. (2018). Simulation: Smoothing the transition from undergraduate to new graduate. Journal of Nursing Management, 26(5), 495-497. DOI: 10.1111/jonm.12676

Kensington, M., Campbell, N., Gray, E., Dixon, L., Tumilty, E., Pairman, S., … & Lennox, S. (2016). New Zealand’s midwifery profession: Embracing graduate midwives’ transition to practice. New Zealand College of Midwives Journal, (52). Retrieved from: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Emma_Tumilty/publication/302920441_New_Zealand’s_midwifery_profession_Embracing_graduate_midwives’_transition_to_practice/links/5733a74108ae298602dcef89/New-Zealands-midwifery-profession-Embracing-graduate-midwives-transition-to-practice.pdf

L’Ecuyer, K. M., Pole, D., & Leander, S. A. (2015). The use of PBL in an interprofessional education course for health care professional students. Interdisciplinary Journal of Problem-Based Learning, 9(1), 6. DOI: https://doi.org/10.7771/1541-5015.1497

Luyben, A., Barger, M. K., Avery, M. D., & Bick, D. (2018). What is next? Midwifery education building partnerships for tomorrow’s maternal and neonatal health care. Midwifery. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.midw.2018.06.014

Marañón, A. A., & Pera, M. P. I. (2015). Theory and practice in the construction of professional identity in nursing students: a qualitative study. Nurse Education Today, 35(7), 859-863.DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nedt.2015.03.014

Strouse, S. M., & Nickerson, C. J. (2016). Professional culture brokers: Nursing faculty perceptions of nursing culture and their role in student formation. Nurse education in practice, 18, 10-15. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nepr.2016.02.008

Thomas, A., Menon, A., Boruff, J., Rodriguez, A. M., & Ahmed, S. (2014). Applications of social constructivist learning theories in knowledge translation for healthcare professionals: a scoping review. Implementation Science, 9(1), 54. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/1748-5908-9-54

Thrysoe, L., Hounsgaard, L., Dohn, N. B., & Wagner, L. (2011). Expectations of becoming a nurse and experiences on being a nurse. Vård i Norden, 31(3), 15-19. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/010740831103100304

Walton, J. A., Lindsay, N., Hales, C., & Rook, H. (2018). Glimpses into the transition world: New graduate nurses’ written reflections. Nurse education today, 60, 62-66. Healthy Transition Of A Nursing Professional Discussion Paper