Medical & Health // ROLE TRANSITION
ROLE TRANSITION
The transition from one’s role as a student nurse to a professional nurse, like any other profession, faces barriers or challenges that must and can be successfully met and. The professional nurse must continually assess evidence; prepare documents like SWOT, action plans, and learning contracts; compose reflective reports drawn from experience; and adjust her total work scope, time, behavior and very way of life to the new career (Hardacre & Hayes, 2016). These challenges are not only continuing but also intensifying as the nurse progresses in her practice, so much so that many beginners quit under the weight of the pressure. applied.
One immediate barrier or challenge to the beginning professional nurse is reality shock that drive many qualified nurses in their very first year of practice (Hawkes, 2015; Hardacre & Ha6yes, 2016). A student nurse may be exposed to the work environment as part of her studies. But even being with a staff nurse in the same area and experiences does not assert the same pressure on the student as it does on the staff nurse (Hawkes, 2015). The student is not obliged to attend to unstable or critical patients at the emergency room, expedite the admission or release of a patient, or deal with healthcare providers. There are more stressors that only a professional nurse in the workplace can know and encounter.
The new professional nurse is stepping into a new order. The comfort zone of friends, accustomed activities and privileged status in school will not be found in this new setting. She has to start at a new environment where nothing is a given. Her favorite teachers will not be there to dote over her. She has to prove her capabilities to her fellow professionals and the physicians.
The solution or approach is preceptorship (Hardacre & Hayes, 2016). Qualified, experienced nurses can be called forth to assist the new nurse get settled and strengthen her competencies. They can present her a list of the required skills, demonstrate their application of these skills in practice and guide her in solving problems and analyzing her own strengths and weaknesses (Hardacre & Hays, 2016).
Lifestyle changes are another challenge or barrier to role transition in professional nursing (Hadacre & Hayes, 2016). The customary 8:00AM-5PM or so work schedule will be a thing of the past. Many professional nurses work on a 12-hour shifts, whether at day or night, weekdays, weekends or holidays. They are assigned shifts according to demand. All professionals who work on shifts can talk about the strain that shifts do to their entire being and lives. Their sleep-wake cycle, their mealtime, family time, social lives and plans are all affected by those shifts and that work demand. The professional nurse no longer owns herself. These shifts and that demand own her. This is why those who decide to embark in this career must make the hard decision and hard choices on life changes early enough and with determination.
Approaches must be subjectively, mostly. Make daily improvements and adjust on a daily basis (Hardacre & Hayes, 2016). She should sharpen or gain the right perspective each time that every challenge will eventually pass to her advantage. She should look back or derive a sense of accomplishment by watching new nurses in their struggle and how far she has gone from their stage (Haracre & Hayes, 2016).
The lack of critical thinking ability is still another challenge or barrier (Hawkes,2017; Hardacre % Hayes, 2016). Her autonomy, accountability and assessment of care all depend on that capability. The strategy or solution is improving practice skills through continuing professional development, especially reflection. Reflection enables a professional nurse to understand factors that influence her personal thoughts and feelings (Timmins and Duffy, 2011 as qtd in Hardacre & Hayes, 2016). It, however, and in turn, requires time and commitment, which can exact some toll. But reflection will benefit the professional nurse’s entire career in its every facet.
Role transition to the beginning professional nurse may have threatening challenges or barriers, but appropriate strategies are also on hard to meet them effectively.
WORKS CITED
Hardacre,R. and Hayes, L. (2016). The transition to becoming a newly qualified nurse: a
reflection. Vol. 2 Issue 2, The Journal of New Writing on Health and Social Care:
Stardforshire University. Retrieved on July 6, 2017 from
https://www.staffs.ac.uk/assets/TRANSITION%20V5%20NWHSC%20final_tcm44-91495.pdf
Hawkes, B. (2015). Transition from student nurse to staff nurse. Nurse Code: Nurse Code.com
Retrieved on July 6, 2017 from http://nursecode.com/2015/02/transition-student-nurse-staff-nurse/
2017/5164
