An Examination of Benner's Theory and Nursing Practice Competence

This report provides an overview of Patricia Benner's Novice to Expert theory, a framework for understanding the development of clinical competence in nursing. It outlines the stages of clinical competence, including novice, advanced beginner, competent, proficient, and expert, and discusses the characteristics of each stage. The report also defines advanced practice nursing, differentiating it from novice roles, and highlights key functions of advanced practice nurses. Furthermore, it links Benner's theory to the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia (NMBA) standards of practice, emphasizing the theory's relevance in guiding professional and safe nursing practice. The conclusion summarizes the theory's application in healthcare systems for leadership development, mentorship, nurse retention, and educational purposes. The report uses references from books and journals to support the analysis.

An outlook of banner’s theory from novice to
expert

Table of Content
•INTRODUCTION
•Outline Benner’s Theory “from novice to expert”
•Stages of clinical competence
•Discussion of the term “advanced practice”
•Novice versus an advanced practice nurse functions
•Link of Benner’s theory to Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia standards of practice
•CONCLUSION
•REFERENCES

INTRODUCTION
The Benner's Novice to Expert theory is an organized way of understanding the way a
learner develops practice situation and skills understanding over time. This theory or model
has been pertinent to various different of situations involving nursing management, nursing
education, administration and retention of graduate nurse (G Nur, Tri, & Hidayat, (2017).

Outline Benner’s Theory “from novice to
expert”
The Benner's theory was presented by Dr Patricia Banner and developed the concept "from
novice to expert" which explains that the nurses develop skills as well as understanding of
care od patient over the time from mixture of personal experiences and strong Foundation
of education. Dr Banner stated that a nurse could gain skills and knowledge without theory
of learning.

Stages of clinical competence
The five stages of clinical competence in the Benner's theory comprises of novice, advanced
beginner, competent, proficient as well as expert. These levels of experience of nursing are
discussed below –
• The novice
• Advanced beginner
• Competent
• Proficient
• Expert

Discussion of the term “advanced practice”
An advanced practice in nursing is defined as a practice in nursing with postgraduate
education. The advanced practice nurses are set with advanced clinical as well as didactic
education, practice scope, skills, and knowledge in nursing.

Novice versus an advanced practice nurse functions
1. Performing physical examinations
2. Diagnosing patients
3. Performing other examination types like functional, psychosocial, psychological and
developmental diagnostics.
4. Developing differential diagnosis
5. Maintaining the records of patients and make sure their privacy.

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6. Providing counselling to patients as well as their families.
7. Evaluating the progress of patient and responses to different
treatments to modify them and developed care plans as required.
8. Referring patients to treatment facilities.
9. Dispensing medications to the patients.

Link of Benner’s theory to Nursing and
Midwifery Board of Australia standards of
practice
The NMBA has set some standards of nursing practice for nurses which guide them to
ensure professional and safe practice. A separate safety and quality guidelines was
developed in order to administer strong regulatory structure and make sure that nurse
practitioners have admittance to Medicare benefits schedule as well as pharmaceutical
benefit scheme.

CONCLUSION
As per the above mentioned report, it has been concluded that the Benner's theory has been
utilized in the health care systems in order to develop leadership programs, mentor
programs, maximize nurse retention and administer teaching aids for the nurses.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals:
G Nur, W. P., Tri, K., & Hidayat, A. A. A. (2017). Job Satisfaction and Nursing Performance
through Career Development.
Aslan, H., & Turan, I. (2020). The Effect of Teachers' Level of Visual Use on Students'
Visual Reading Skills: Comparison between the Students of Expert and Novice Teachers.
International Education Studies, 13(3), 100-110.
Marti, E. (2019). A phenomenologic study: Novice nurse experience in facing patients with
red triase labels in emergency department (ED). Jurnal Keperawatan Muhammadiyah, 4(2).
Charles, S. (2017). Attunement and involvement: how expert nurses support patient
autonomy. IJFAB: International Journal of Feminist Approaches to Bioethics, 10(1), 175-
193.