The nursing profession offers a wide range of specialties, allowing for the acquisition of experience in different areas. Every stage of your employment adds to your repertoire of strategies for providing safe, high-quality patient care and practicing self-care for wellness.
With each successful implementation of nursing competencies and nurse-patient and nurse-peer relationships, confidence grows. With experience, you will strengthen your clinical reasoning to improve patient outcomes, contribute to your profession by participating in professional organizations, and navigate career progression.
The nursing culture of today is at a crossroads. Nursing executives are managing the industry’s nursing deficit while also addressing a concerning nursing turnover rate, which is regrettably all too typical, as hospitals hire newly graduated nurses who enter the field while more experienced nurses prepare for retirement.
It is crucial to recognize that when veteran nurses leave the healthcare business and begin their retirement, they leave behind years of expertise and knowledge that cannot be replaced quickly. This is why the industry needs to invest in nursing leaders and managers.
One way to fast-track this is by promoting further education through programs like an online DNP in leadership like the one offered by Baylor University. This fully online program will provide you with organizational knowledge and skills in decisive leadership, data-driven corporate strategy, and innovative care models.
In addition, being online allows you more flexibility to continue working while studying, which will further enhance your experience. As nursing leaders try to recruit new nurses, most potential candidates are recently graduated nurses who need more experience and the patient care skills and knowledge that can only be gained through time and practice.
Knowing how to create steps for strategic, prolonged success in everyday practice is critical as nurse leaders become more aware of the correlation between a stronger team and higher patient care quality and safety achievements. Nurse leaders will tackle problems related to patient care, budget limits, patient safety, and staff shortages on any given day.
Even seasoned nurse leaders will find it challenging to execute successfully under pressure and balance everyday obstacles. Nurse leaders must concentrate on their patients while reviewing reports and dashboards. The nurse leader and the working environment will only improve if they have a staff that feels supported, motivated, and inspired.
Ways they can help
The nursing profession is one of the most rewarding and challenging occupations one can pursue. Nursing can be tough in the beginning for newly graduated nurses. They are just beginning their careers and are eager to learn everything they can, but they must also deal with the pressures of being a rookie nurse.
A new registered nurse may encounter criticism from more seasoned nurses. They also have to deal with the stress of accomplishing everything correctly at work. Nurse managers must support new nurses and share their nursing experience. There are numerous ways in which experienced nurses can assist rookie nurses. Let’s look at a couple of them.
- Leading by example: First and foremost, keep in mind that new nurses look to you as an example of how they should act. Consider what message your actions are sending to them. Are you calm, collaborative and friendly, or easily agitated and judgmental? Consider the Golden Rule and treat new nurses as you would like to be treated if you were in their situation.
- Effective communication: The ability to communicate effectively is one of a good nurse’s most essential qualities. They need to feel comfortable sharing their opinions and ideas. If we create a hostile climate, new nurses will not feel comfortable sharing their suggestions for improving patient care. Communication occurs on numerous levels, including face-to-face interaction, technology, body language and written documentation. We must be aware of the messages we send to others through how we express ourselves.
- Guidance: To lead the individual and group trainee nurses under them, nurse leaders must employ interpersonal and motivational tactics. Nurse leaders foster an environment of continuous learning and development within the healthcare system by mentoring other nurses. They also set the bar for these younger nurses, who may one day become nurse leaders themselves.
- Teaching: Nurse leaders interact closely with trainees in clinical settings to help them develop emotional intelligence. This helps peers cope with the tensions that arise amid everyday tasks. In addition, nurse leaders help trainees deal with obstacles and other negative factors that might lead to emotional weariness and poor teamwork.
- Spread positivity: When you think of influential leaders, you don’t imagine unpleasant, whining or harsh personalities. Inspirational leaders are enthusiastic about their work, and if their plans fail, they will try again; their positive attitude attracts others, and their enthusiasm spreads. Always strive to be the role model you would want to emulate. Even in challenging situations, be enthusiastic about your work and maintain a “can do” attitude.
The bottom line
Real-world experience is an integral part of nursing education. What is the significance of clinical experience in nursing? Learning in real-world circumstances develops students into professional nurses who are capable of providing appropriate care to patients in need. When experienced nurses depart, hospitals hire new and temporary contract nurses, which reduces productivity more than changes in nurses’ abilities and experience.
Patients receive the finest care when they are treated in units staffed by nurses with substantial expertise in their current position. This is why more experienced nurses must have opportunities to share their institutional knowledge and expertise.
Nursing is a knowledge-intensive profession, and this knowledge extends beyond medical knowledge. It involves one’s ability to take effective action and make sound decisions based on knowledge. However, not all knowledge is created equal.
For example, expert nurses have a distinct type of tacit knowledge that combines contextual information, experiences, insight and values to improve their decision-making abilities.
This form of expertise, often called “deep smarts,” consists of subjective understandings and intuition accumulated by nurses over time. To sustain excellent service levels, we must pass on the knowledge that expert nurses apply in their practice to new nurses.
