A Process of Becoming: The Stages of New Nursing Graduate Professional Role Transition

Newly graduated nurses are entering the work force and finding that they have neither the practice expertise nor the confidence to navigate what has become a highly dynamic and intense clinical environment burdened by escalating levels of patient acuity and nursing workload. This research used qualitative methods to build on and mature aspects of the new nurse's transition experience into acute care. The theory of transition presented in this article incorporates a journey of becoming where new nursing graduates progressed through the stages of doing, being, and knowing. The whole of this journey encompassed ordered processes that included anticipating, learning, performing, concealing, adjusting, questioning, revealing, separating, rediscovering, exploring, and engaging. Although this journey was by no means linear or prescriptive nor always strictly progressive, it was evolutionary and ultimately transformative for all participants. The intense and dynamic transition experience for these newly graduated nurses should inspire educational and service institutions to provide preparatory education on transition as well as extended, sequential, and structured orientation and mentoring programs that bridge senior students' expectations of professional work life with the reality of employment.