NRSG367 - Transition to Professional Nursing

Year

Credit points

Campus offering

Prerequisites

NRSG373 Integrating Practice 5

Teaching organisation

Unit rationale, description and aim

To transition effectively from a student nurse to a Registered Nurse is a complex and multidimensional process. In order to function effectively in the graduate workforce, the student must have an underpinning knowledge of professional expectations and understand how to employ specific skills at a graduate level. This unit is required by students to assist them to prepare for the transition to professional practice experience.

This unit is focuses on contemporary issues that impact the transition from nursing student to graduate Registered Nurse within various health care settings. Transition is seen as a multidimensional and complex process. The key issues addressed relate to knowledge and strategies in the areas of leadership, teamwork, clinical decision making, critical thinking, advocacy and responding to change in the healthcare environment.

The aim of this unit is to extend and consolidate concepts from both theory and nursing practice units and assist students in making the transition to a new practitioner.

Learning outcomes

To successfully complete this unit you will be able to demonstrate you have achieved the learning outcomes (LO) detailed in the below table.

Each outcome is informed by a number of graduate capabilities (GC) to ensure your work in this, and every unit, is part of a larger goal of graduating from ACU with the attributes of insight, empathy, imagination and impact.

Explore the graduate capabilities.

On successful completion of this unit, students should be able to:

LO1 - synthesise the role and responsibilities of being a professional Registered Nurse in the Australian health care context; (GA4, GA5)

LO2 - demonstrate acquisition and synthesis of knowledge, skills and attitudes required by a Registered Nurse; (GA5)

LO3 - explore and analyse the construct of role transition from student to Registered Nurse; (GA4, GA5, GA7)

LO4 - discuss and appraise strategies to promote resilience and build capacity in the transition from student to Registered Nurse; (GA5, GA8)

LO5 - critically reflect as a professional practitioner on the implementation of evidence-based practice and learning opportunities to transform future practice; (GA4, GA5, GA8, GA9)

LO6 - synthesise information sources, communication and other relevant technologies for utilisation in the management of the organisational environment. (GA8, GA10)

Graduate attributes

GA4 - think critically and reflectively 

GA5 - demonstrate values, knowledge, skills and attitudes appropriate to the discipline and/or profession 

GA7 - work both autonomously and collaboratively 

GA8 - locate, organise, analyse, synthesise and evaluate information 

GA9 - demonstrate effective communication in oral and written English language and visual media 

GA10 - utilise information and communication and other relevant technologies effectively.

NMBA Standards for Practice

The Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia’s Registered Nurse Standards for Practice developed in this unit are:

Content

Topics will include:

• Student to Graduate
• Managing the transition from student to graduate nurse
• Becoming part of a multidisciplinary team
• Systematic approaches to knowledge translation
• Preparing for role transition
• Resilience and building capacity in self
• Engagement in the workforce: Promoting wellbeing
• Knowledge, skills for professional practice
• Managing approaches to nursing practice
• Roper-Logan-Tierney Model of Nursing and the Clinical Reasoning Cycle
• The 6Cs of caring (compassion, competence, confidence, conscience, commitment and comportment)
• Person- and family-centered care
• Time management
• Prioritisation of care
• Communication
• Reflective practice
• Evidence-based practice
• Addressing adverse events

• Organisational Environment
• Information source, literacies and other relevant technologies
• Health and nursing informatics
• Mentorship
• Networking and Delegation

• Being a professional: Registered Nurse
• Establishing and maintaining a professional identity
• Continuing professional development
• Professional practice portfolios
• Career progression
• Regulatory frameworks for nursing
• Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA)
• National Board: Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia (NMBA)
• Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia: Registered Nurse Standards for Practice
• Quality and safety and National Standards
• Continuous quality improvement

CASE STUDIES

Case studies for this unit focus on the role of the nurse and the multidisciplinary team, curriculum threads, exploration of and engagement with unit content.

• Reflection on a role model.
• Young graduate Registered Nurse (female): planning care for shift.
• Young graduate Registered Nurse (male): self-care and resilience.
• Older graduate Registered Nurse (female): staffing and prioritising (skill mix and leadership).

Learning and teaching strategy and rationale

Modes of delivery in this unit include lectures and tutorials, online activities and self-directed study. Consistent with adult learning principles, the teaching and learning strategies used within these modes of delivery will provide students with foundational knowledge and skills relevant to professional nursing practice. These strategies will also support students in meeting the aim, learning outcomes and graduate attributes of the unit and the broader course learning outcomes. Learning and teaching strategies will reflect respect for the individual as an independent learner. Students will be expected to take responsibility for their learning and to participate actively with peers.

Students exiting university need significant life-long learning skills to deliver sound, ongoing, evidence-based graduate practice as a member of the professional workforce. To embed life-long learning skills students must demonstrate increasing reflective capacity to identify what is being done well and what requires additional work in progressing toward required learning outcomes. Located in the third year of the programme, this theory unit includes some face-to-face teaching hours and an increased online component of learning. Lectures are utilised to convey content and central principles while tutorials deliver interactive and student driven learning sessions to extend the community of learners, increase self-reliance and critical reflection and debate. Online materials provide students with the opportunity to manage the significant component of directed, self-motivated study required for graduate practice and life-long learning skills.

Assessment strategy and rationale

A range of assessment items consistent with University assessment requirements and policy will be used to ensure students achieve the unit learning outcomes and attain the graduate attributes.

Third year sees students continue their transition towards independent learning. In this unit, there are two 50% assessment items, therefore the importance of each item is higher in terms of achievement of unit learning outcomes and graduate attributes. The written assignment engages final semester students with the impending practice environment. They are required to critically reflect on how best to manage their transition into the health workforce and to consider available supports. The online discussion forum provides an opportunity for students to question what it is that assists the successful transition from student nurse to Registered Nurse. Using best evidence and critical reflection and appraisal, the students must consider the future graduate environment in which they will practice and the supports which will assist their transition.

These assessments are required to build student knowledge and skills which, by the conclusion of this programme, will enable the student to graduate as a safe and effective nurse.

Overview of assessments

Representative texts and references

Burton, R., & Ormond, G. (Eds.) (2011). Nursing: Transition to professional practice. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Chang, E., & Daly, J. (Eds.) (2016). Transitions in nursing: Preparing for professional practice (4th ed.). Chatswood, N.S.W.: Elsevier.

Daly, J., Speedy, S., & Jackson, D. (Eds.) (2017). Contexts of nursing (5th ed.). Chatswood, NSW: Elsevier Australia.

Fedoruk, M., & Hofmeyer, A. (2014). Becoming a nurse: Making the transition to practice (2nd ed.). South Melbourne, Vic.: Oxford University Press.