Experiences of new graduate Registered Nurses transitioning to clinical practice

Running Head: TRANSITIONING EXPERIENCES TO CLINICAL PRACTICE
1
Experiences of the new graduate Registered Nurse transitioning to clinical practice in an ever-
changing healthcare environment
Name
Institution
Date

TRANSITIONING EXPERIENCES TO CLINICAL PRACTICE 2
Abstract
New registered nurses are bound to experience grey challenges during their transitioning
period into active nursing practice. Moreover, they are bound to come across opportunities that
are meant to shape their nursing career development. In either case, new registered nurses are
supposed to exploit their transitioning period to learn the dynamics of an ever-changing
Australian healthcare industry. With shrinking nursing labor force orchestrated by an aging
nursing workforce and fewer new entrants into the profession, the Australian healthcare industry
is bound to exert more pressure on available nurses including novice nurses given the increasing
demand of healthcare services from an ever increasing population. At the transitioning time,
graduating nursing students possess with them a mixture of feelings and are often confused yet
anticipative of their new life in active clinical practice.
To this end, healthcare organizations ought to come up with adequate but relevant
transitioning strategies and policies to assist transitioning nurses settle in their respective career
paths in a rather fast way in order to ease the burden of the industry. With concerns such as work
pressure, burn out, bullying, complex patient requirements, trauma and other challenges eminent,
novice nurses ought to develop resilience to overcoming these workplace adversities in their first
few years of practice. It is against this background that this paper dwells upon to try and
extrapolate the opportunities, challenges, requirements and possible solutions for helping new
graduate registered nurses comfortably settle in their nursing profession in an ever dynamic
Australian healthcare system.

TRANSITIONING EXPERIENCES TO CLINICAL PRACTICE 3
Experiences of the new graduate Registered Nurse transitioning to clinical practice in an ever-
changing healthcare environment
Introduction
Transitioning to professional clinical practice from graduate training comes with
opportunities and challenges especially in an increasingly dynamic and ever-changing healthcare
environment (Walker, Costa, Foster, & de Bruin, 2017). At the transitioning time, graduating
nursing students possess with them a mixture of feelings and are often confused yet anticipative
of their new life in active clinical practice. Opportunities present platforms for learning and
development in the nursing career while challenges present obstacles for successful transitioning.
Most importantly young nursing students are caught in the dilemma of figuring out how to merge
the gap between applying classroom theory to active professional practice with its complex and
multifaceted perspectives.
However, with adequate transitioning strategies in place, healthcare institutions can help
young nursing graduate successfully transition into active professional nursing practice. In an
increasingly dynamic and ever-changing healthcare environment in Australia, the demand for
nurses is the only factor that remains unchanged. This is because of the ballooning Australian
population and the fast retirement of older registered nurses from active nursing practice (Ostini
& Bonner, 2012). To this end, coming up with formidable transitioning mechanisms that can
assist fresh graduates to transition rather fast in the nursing profession can go a long way in
filling these gap. The focus of this paper is to extrapolate the experiences of the new graduate
registered nurses as they transition to clinical practice in an ever-changing healthcare
environment.

TRANSITIONING EXPERIENCES TO CLINICAL PRACTICE 4
The significance of the issue
Like has been mentioned, transitioning from graduate training in colleges and universities
to clinical practice will always advance fresh graduates with challenges and opportunities that if
well exploited can help novice nurses get accustomed in the profession. Challenges include
facing high workload due to an increasing number of patients with complex healthcare
conditions, generational diversity of the healthcare workforce, lack of adequate support systems,
performance anxiety, intimidation and bullying from experienced practitioners, social isolation,
applying theory into practice, ethical dilemmas, and concerns of professional misconduct
(Hofler, & Thomas, 2016). More shockingly, these challenges present simultaneously. To this
end, these challenges can be overwhelming besides having the potential of leading nurses into
extreme fatigue and feeling of stress and anxiety can set in during the transition period leading to
attrition. However, with adequate transitioning strategies in place, registered nurses can be in a
position to build enduring resilience to easily overcome these transitioning challenges
(Laschinger, (2008).
On the other hand, the transitioning period presents young graduates with an opportunity
to learn and develop in the nursing career (Hussein, et al., 2017). It is basically a period in which
nurses can utilize to merge their classroom learning experience with actual workplace experience
by endeavoring to employ nursing theory to real workplace practice. Moreover, the transitioning
period is a time when registered nurses can build relevant resilience in tackling various
workplace adversities, challenges, and trauma (Murray‐Parahi, DiGiacomo, Jackson, &
Davidson, 2016). Furthermore, transitioning nurses can utilize the experiences during
transitioning to get accustomed with the nursing profession requirements such as issues
concerning professional misconduct; workplace health, safety and wellbeing; nursing