Transition shock: making the shift from student to professional nurse
When everything changes and now you're the nurse
After spending between two and four years in a grueling - but familiar in its predictability - and demanding learning period as you work towards your diploma or degree, making the transition from student to professional nurse is a significant one.
It can be a scary one. When everything is new - your work environment, where you're working, who you're working with, the time you're working . . . it can be easy to feel out of control. Knowing what to expect is a luxury when everything can feel overwhelmingly new and big.
This transition is one every single nurse makes. Supporting that transition during the first year with an event considered a part of orientation for the new nursing hire. This annual event is called New Grad Day for Nurses: Tips and Tools to successfully transition RNs, LPNs and RPNs to the workplace.
"You can't change transition, but you can react to it differently," says Kandis Harris, a researcher who specializes in this transition new grads make, and presenter at the annual event. "The shift from student to independent practice is new new new. It's also a time when people expect more of you and you are responsible for a lot."
Regardless how comprehensive nursing education is, it doesn't expose nurses to each and every scenario they may encounter in a practice setting. And within that, roles, relationships, knowledge and responsibility all change, says Harris.
"This transition shock affects who you are as a person," says Harris. "We often underestimate how unsettling this feeling is . . . the weight of responsibility is all on you."
It's also a time when there is much new information to take in at a time when many new nurses are physically, intellectually and emotionally exhausted. And then they need to acclimate to shiftwork.
The first year of transition offers an invitation for self-compassion, asking for help and self-care.
It's important to remember a few key things: every nurse feels the intensity of this transition. This first year - making the transition from nursing student to practicing nurse - is something you will never have to experience again. You cannot navigate this transition alone. In order for you to move through this first year, you require a variety of supports.
"The art and science of nursing involves providing care based on knowledge, expertise and skills we gain in our educational program but also within our careers, experience and ongoing learning," says Lori Lamont, VP of Interprofessional Practice and Chief Nursing Officer for the Region. "Building relationships, the use of ourselves to help people through their healthcare journeys, we are affected by that and we learn a lot. We give of ourselves but we also receive a great deal and we need to be very thankful for the privilege that we have."
Fast facts
- 185 . . . the final number of people who attended this year's New Grad Day event.
- 10 . . . the number of years the Region has been hosting a new grad day event.
- Providing support to new nursing grads is something that sets the Winnipeg Health Region apart from our counterparts across the country.
- Regulated nurses represent the largest single group of health care professionals, accounting for almost half of the health workforce.
- While much of the previous research focused on how registered nurses transitioned into the workforce, research is currently examining how LPNs, RPNs, male nurses, and nurses working in the community and public health make this transition.