Nursing Socialization Paper

Socialization of New Graduate Nurses to Practicing Nurses

How nurses adjust with the stress of assuming the professional role after graduating has been of interest to researchers and healthcare administrators. Naturally, nurses experience discomfort during this adjustment. Research tells us that this stress and discomfort stems from both organizational and professional factors (Feng & Tsai, 2012) because professional socialization in nursing extends beyond skills for the purpose of developing a professional identity (Goodare, 2015). This paper will review existing models of socialization in the nursing profession as well as explain how these models cause discomfort to new nurses. Then, this paper will also recommend methods to increase comfort

Overwhelming chaos, like reality shock, occurs when new graduate nurses first enter the workplace and they experience a “sensory overload” due to their lack of knowledge and clinical experience. This is where new nurses are faced with the differences between the professional values they learned in school and the organizational values that they must learn in the workplace. They may find that certain things they learned in school are not exactly similar to how things are practiced in the workplace. Some of the things that nurses can do to enhance learning and facilitate their socialization include (a) recording errors and new information in a pocket notebook to ensure that they do not make the same mistakes again, and (b) receiving constructive criticism positively (Kelly & Tazbir, 2014; Feng & Tsui, 2012). It is possible that there are conflicts with regard to values taught in school and those practiced in organizations. The second theme involves a complex process of being introduced to a wide range of formal and informal norms that can only be learned by doing. Nurses feel that what they had learned during their education was not available. In fact, “not knowing” was perceived by these new graduates as a

New nurses are faced with discomfort as soon as they enter the profession. Hence, it is suggested that precautions be taken even before nurses graduate. The educational system should consider the involvement of clinical staff in the teaching process. This will enable student nurses to meet actual nurses prior to entering the profession (Goodare, 2015). In other words, to make the transition easy, nursing education must include actual exposure to the clinical practice where student nurses are required to not merely become observers but actually participate in the process of providing care. In this manner, the student nurses will not find it hard to transition into the workplace when they become official part of