Reflective Pracatitioner Development:Discussion Paper

Running head: REFLECTIVE PRACATITIONER DEVELOPMENT:DISCUSSION PAPER
Reflective Pracatitioner Development:Discussion Paper
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1REFLECTIVE PRACATITIONER DEVELOPMENT:DISCUSSION PAPER
Introduction
The following entails a reflective discussion about the challenges faced by graduate
nurses during transition from academic background to a professional world setting. This
reflection sheds insights about my experiences and strategies as a graduate nurse to develop
confidence and competence while transitioning from academics to professional nursing
practice.
Transitional nursing challenges
As a graduate nurse, my experiences are associated with stressful as well as a high
turnover rate as I moved into the professional nursing world. Various challenges in the
beginning of nursing practice like personal adaptability within a healthcare team, lack of
accessibility to nursing resources in the beginning, efficient time management of nursing
schedule and management of patient care were part of my novice training (Jewell 2013).
Characteristic attributes of nursing professional development involves professional
competency, developing interpersonal skills and relationships with team members and
professional accountability as central to a novice nursing graduate like me. The strategies to
face these challenges help to develop and accomplish in nursing career.
As a part of graduate nursing training program, I was involved as a member of a
multidisciplinary health care team to attend to a critically ill infants in neonatal unit. During
the initial stage, I had only textbook knowledge to apply in such a stressful situation as
neonatal unit. Therefore, in flexibility and proper time management were challenging for me.
I had no real life experience of handling complex neonatal care. A large number of chronic
patients with multiple comorbidities, limited accessibility to experienced nursing mentors due
to aging nursing population, work anxiety induced by stressful environment are some of the
common challenges faced during transition to professional practice (Parker et al. 2014).

2REFLECTIVE PRACATITIONER DEVELOPMENT:DISCUSSION PAPER
During my novice nursing experience, time management and medication management were
the most challenging issues. As a novice nurse, I had basic knowledge of drugs from my
nursing education; however, the medication administration required knowledge about dosage
management for a patient along with dosage calculation. The calculation of drug dosage
administration was initially difficult for me to understand; therefore this imposed risk factors
to develop in the patient’s clinical condition post drug treatment. The lack of knowledge of
pharmacology and drug dosage management were crucial among my training challenges.
Professional development
With the changing health care requirements, it is incumbent upon novice graduate
nurses to include life-long learning as part of life to improve patient care at a global scale. I
would say, anticipation to develop professionally in nursing would help build a healthy
environment. According to my perceptions, professional development in nursing practice is
imperative for healthcare improvement. According to my perceptions, the continuously
evolving nursing profession maintains the confidence and coordinated approach to evaluate
and present the best patient care. Developing a professional development program becomes
essential to set strategic nursing goals and quality standards and ensure that continuity of care
improvement is achieved in health care provision (Moon 2013). My experience as a novice
nurse, has taught me that novice nurses should update themselves through continuous
learning process and short term training sessions to enhance their nursing skills. I feel,
professional development in nursing can be achieved through short orientation programs,
creating learning modules, designing experience-based activities to develop a novice nurse in
professional competency. Short term orientation and learning modules help to bridge the gap
between theory and practice, thereby improving their strengths and clinical awareness (Chang
2015). The imperative professional development in nursing profession grows through life-
long learning strategies and training based on empirical experiences.