Newly Qualified Nurse Socialization

Introduction

Professional socialisation includes novices of a professional group trying to get immersed in the culture of their profession in the practical field. It initiates with the new professionals getting immersed in performing their duties by trying to accustom and abide by the roles of their profession to gain an effective professional identity (Moorhead, 2019). In nursing, the newly qualified practitioners (NQP) face many difficulties in professional socialisation while transition from being a student nurse to registered nursing professional. This is because many differences are faced by them in managing their practice and socialisation in the professional field without any support which was available during the student phase. The hindrance in practicing professional socialisation by the NQP leads them to face adversities in continuing within the profession in turn leading them to become frustrated and leave the profession (Moorhead, 2019). In this essay, the barriers and issues faced by newly qualified practitioners in nursing in relation to practicing professional socialisation are to be discussed. On the basis of the issues, strategies to resolve them are to be discussed so that assistance to the NQP can be provided in effectively continuing their profession while changing from student to registered nurse.

Overview of professional socialisation in nursing for Newly Qualified Practitioner (NQP)

The socialisation introduces newly qualified practitioners (NQP) to hidden practices, cultures and values to be followed in the practical field for developing professionalism. Thus, they go through the process of acquiring professional values, skills, knowledge and others that are essential for them to have established professional life and effective working experience with professionals (Bray et al., 2014). However, the NQP's are probable to face difficulty in practicing professional socialisation as during the transition from student to new registered nurses they do not have adequate time to adapt to the changes. Since socialisation in the profession is a long process, the lack of socialisation experience of the NQP's makes them unable to get easily accustomed with the new principles that are different from their student life (Felstead and Springett, 2016).

The practice of socialisation is important for the NQP's as it prepares them to develop effective leadership qualities for the future. This is because it imparts the nurses with relevant and updated nursing skills that are essential for directing effective care plans in the future for quality care delivery to the patients (Faraz, 2016). As mentioned by Oosthuizen et al. (2014), practicing socialisation among the NQP is essential for clinically preparing them to act effectively and develop improved critical thinking along with reasoning abilities. This is because socialisation leads the nurses to learn from experienced professionals as well as makes them understand the tricks and turns in managing complex healthcare that was not taught to them in the student phase (Wheeler, 2017). Thus, the barriers and issues faced in practicing effective socialisation among the newly qualified practitioners are essential to be discussed so that actions can be taken to resolve them and allow the nurses avail benefit from attaining effective socialisation.

Analysing issues faced by Newly Qualified Practitioner (NQP) in relation to professional socialisation

In professional socialisation, the issue faced by newly qualified practitioners (NQPs) in nursing is achieving realistic professional care for the patients by establishing effective communication during the complex condition. This is because of dissonance between practice reality and professional ideals among the NQPs in the professional field (Salisu et al., 2019). It is evident as the NQPs are unable to relate the way balance between ideals from professional education is to be upheld and adapted ideas from the real practice field are to be collaboratively managed in the professional practice to deliver realistic care to the patients. This, in turn, leads them to face constraints towards socialisation out of mismanagement in care delivery (Salisu et al., 2019). As argued by Moradi et al. (2017), effective balance between professional ideals and practice reality is required to deliver compassionate and quality care to patients. This is because without effective execution of professional role in a balanced way the care practice, in reality, cannot be achieved ethically which would lead to create dissatisfaction of care among the patients.

In regard to professional socialisation, the NQPs in nursing face hindrance to overcome the professional pride of the experienced practitioners to establish socialisation and collaboration with one another in delivering quality care. This is because the experienced practitioners consider the NQPs to be novice and avoid listening to them out of pride of thinking that they are ignorant and would never understand the vast knowledge possessed by the experienced individuals (Safari and Yoosefpour, 2018). It eventually leads the experienced professionals to consider that time is inappropriately used and wasted in socialising with the NQPs, in turn, creating hindrance for the new staffs to establish successful professional socialisation (Safari and Yoosefpour, 2018). As argued by Strouse and Nickerson (2016), effective professional socialisations by the NQPs are required to be built with expert professionals. This is because through socialisation with the experts the NQPs would learn new practical techniques to be applied in care that are beyond their professional knowledge to provide appropriate support to patients even in complex condition. However, the pride of professionals acts as barrier to achieve the professional socialisation required in care by the NQPs.

The newly qualified professionals (NQPs) in relation to professional socialisation face issues of establishing successful interaction with the unknown professionals in the practical field out of dependence on mentors to help them establish socialisation as seen during the student phase. It is evident as student nurses when enters the placement during their education tenure, initially show uncontrolled reactions of personal self along with ordinary manifestations that are naturally expressed by the person while in the care environment but not professionally considered. However, under the mentor and professors, the students learn with their support regarding the way to control personal paradoxical self-expression and ordinary emotions to act professionally (Seyed Fatemi et al., 2020). In contrast, during NQP phase, no separate mentors are present to inform them the way to professionally socialise by controlling self-expression which creating hindrance for the NQP in professional socialisation. This makes them develop hindrances and confusion regarding the way to manage personal conduct and expression to react professionally in establishing effective socialisation (Darban et al., 2020).

In professional socialisation, the lack of tactical knowledge among the NQP's leads them to face hindrance in achieving effective socialisation. This is because without tactical knowledge the NQP's are easily influenced by negative beliefs and attitude regarding them at the workplace. It affects their perception to think of themselves as failure to make any effective socialisation with other professionals (Gibbon and Crane, 2018). The NQPs face issues to establish professional socialisation with experienced professionals at the workplace because they fail to understand the needs to be fulfilled to develop trust between them and experienced nurses in making socialisation. This is because of the inadequate practical and clinical knowledge of the new nurses regarding the way to effectively establish relationship with the experienced professionals in the practical field. Moreover, it leads the experienced professionals develop misunderstanding regarding the new staffs and they avoid to interact with them along with spread negative informal comments out of lack of trust (Kowtha, 2018).

In professional socialisation, the NQPs experience clinical stress as the key issue which hinders them to establish successful socialisation with the patients. This is because without any standard support from mentors as received during the student phase, the new professionals become confused about the way to concurrently manage care and interaction in the professional field leading them to feel stressed. In addition, this lack of support also leads the NQPs to face non-vernal and verbal violence in the professional field of out of hindered competency in delivery care, in turn, leading them to face hardship in developing effective socialisation (Salisu et al., 2019).

The other issue faced in professional socialisation establishment by the NQPs is limited presence of time in making interaction to develop relationship through socialisation. It is evident as in the clinical field the professionals and nurses have responsibility to provide care to huge number of patients. Thus, they have limited time to be spent on each patient to develop interaction and socialise with them to determine their needs and provide care (Hosseinzadegan et al., 2018). Thus, new practitioners due to lack of experience are unable to establish effective rapport and communication with the patients to develop socialisation within the limited time. As argued by Yazdani and Afshar (2019), conflict between the personal beliefs of new nurses and professionals along with patients creates issues for them to achieve effective professional socialisation. This is because of the influence of the personal beliefs of the NQPs where they being unable to accustom and change with the demanded surrounding culture and preferences develop conflicts in making socialisation in the professional field.

The NQP mentions that to be able to perform effective professional socialisation the new nurses require the presence of an enhanced professional identity within them. This is because it makes them to feel confident in continuing the profession and invest time along with energy to rectify them in making active professional socialisation (Ke et al. 2017). However, in the study by Zarshenas et al. (2014), the nurses mentioned that till the fourth semester they are still confused about what professional conduct to be maintained to act effectively in the real placement. Moreover, few nurses report that during semester 1 and 2 they even faced experienced professionals who made them feel they are not adequate in continuing the profession. It led them to develop negative perception of their own and feel unwanted in turn gradually destructing their ability to develop a stern professional identity in the real working field. Thus, the continuous negative support towards the NQP’s since their student days makes them lack inner motivation to have a strong professional identity in the real field that would actively support them in executing professional socialisation with other experienced professionals.

Examining the support strategies to overcome relevant issues faced by Newly Qualified Practitioner (NQP) in professional socialisation

The support strategies to overcome the challenges or issues faced in practicing professional socialisation by the newly qualified practitioners (NQPs) includes involvement in team building activities, zeal to work with peers, realignment of professional ideas and practice reality. As mentioned by Shinners and Panick (2020), collaborative working of the new nurses with experienced professional leads to support realignment of practice reality with professional ideas learned during the course. This is because the experienced professionals by sharing knowledge with the new staffs can make them understand way conflicting values in profession and practice are to be tackled so that effective professional socialisation is built by them. The presence of effective leadership in the organisation where the NQPs are appointed is required to be present. This is because effective leaders provide enhanced professional support and direction in day-to-day activities to the NPQ so that they can align professional ideas and practice reality to create effective professional socialisation with the patients during care (West et al., 2016).

The team building at work is essential to overcome the issues with practicing professional socialisation. This is because while working in a team the NQPs would be able to gather knowledge from team members who are experienced professional in the field about the different facets of nursing values and roles to be followed in attaining effective professional socialisation (West et al., 2016). Moreover, team building tends to include various organised activities which allow developing effective relationship between NQP and experienced nursing professionals for supporting enhanced professional socialisation (Mammen, Hills and Lam, 2018). It is evident as during team building the NQPs are provided opportunity to communicate and showcase their skills, knowledge and abilities of care directly to the experienced professionals for proving their professional efficiency. This, in turn, resolves the doubts of the experienced professional regarding NQP's inefficiency and lack of knowledge in the profession which avoided them to socialising with the NQPs and think low of them (Dinmohammadi et al., 2017).

The NQPs are required to avail training in developing their communication skills to excel in building professional socialisation by overcoming different issues such as influence of professional beliefs, isolation and others. This is because effective communication skills in nursing help the new nurses to interact with other experienced professionals to learn experiences and information about the way they can overcome isolation and influence of personal beliefs to establish enhanced socialisation with the colleagues as well as the patients (Salisu et al., 2019). Moreover, enhanced communication with experienced nurses by the NQP’s leads them to show the extent to which they value and appreciate the professionals and their efforts in care. This, in turn, influences the experienced professionals to feel respected by the NQP’s and they initiate to socialise with the NQPs which supports NQPs to reach professional socialisation (Salisu et al., 2019). As argued by Strouse and Nickerson (2016), shyness to communicate by the nurses leads them fail to attain effective professional socialisation. This is because it is the duty of the nurses to develop effective interaction with others in gathering information, showing respect to them and making professionals trust the nurses to establish an enhanced environment of socialisation.

The self-reflection is an effective strategy to be used by the NQPs in overcoming different barriers and issues with achieving professional socialisation in the nursing field. This is because through self-reflection the new nurses can critically think and analyse their current skills and knowledge to identify in which aspects gaps are present that are making unable to attain effective socialisation with the professionals in the health field (Vihos et al., 2019). The NQPs by making deep connections with their colleagues and patients in the professional field while working as registered nurse is able to attain education about the actions to be executed by them in the clinical field to achieve effective professional socialisation (Rosen et al., 2017). Since the NQPs do not have hands-on experience of creating socialisation in the professional field, thus accessing information from colleagues by making connections and analysing patient’s situation would provide be effective. This is because it would provide them deeper perception of way nurse’s role is to be managed to achieve effective professional socialisation in the care field (de Swardt et al., 2017).

The other strategy to be adopted in overcoming barriers to attaining professional socialisation by the NQPs is forming personal identity. This is because personal identity plays a vital role in defining quality of a human and it intends to make them considered to be unique among others (Krautscheid, 2014). A strong personal identity of the NQPs would help them to draw attention from other professionals who ignored the new nurses out of pride as consciousness towards the new nurse's uniqueness is built in the process. This, in turn, would be effective for them in collaborating with experienced individuals in forming socialisation that was otherwise ignored due to the new nurse’s lack of identity in the field (Salisu et al., 2019). The nurses to develop a strong personal identity to be able to make effective professional socialisation at first need to identify which good traits are essential to be present to support in building the personal identity. This is because without presence of good characteristics features in a person they are unable to influence other experienced professionals to like them and involve in socialisation (Moorhead, 2019). Moreover, to develop enhanced personal identity in the profession, the NQPs are required to always demonstrate their positive values and thinking about facts. It would attract the experienced professionals to understand the value of the NQPs in the profession and resolve barriers to professional socialisation (Moorhead, 2019).

In order to achieve effective professional socialisation by the NQPs by overcoming barriers regarding it, the nurses are required to be open-minded. This is because openness of the new nurses would help them understand other people from physical level as well as from emotional and mental level to determine what they want which boost their intellect to support forming socialisation out of trust with new individuals (Salisu et al., 2019). Thus, it indicates the NQPs to form successful professional socialisation with the patients under their care are to put aside their personal biases and opinions along with focus on explaining patient’s beliefs at a deeper level. The discrimination of the nurses in the workplace is to be tackled with implication of effective rules and policies to help NQPs attain effective professional socialisation with other experienced individuals at the workplace. This is because discrimination is unlawful and it causes unjustified treatment of individuals which provides less scope to them in forming interaction with others to develop socialisation at the workplace (Salisu et al., 2019).

In order to resolve discrimination as barrier to professional socialisation for NQPs, diversity and inclusion training at the workplace is to be promoted. This is because promotion of diversity at the workplace leads to make employees or individuals develop the perception of appreciating differences between people and create harmonious relationships (Halpin et al., 2017). It indicates that promotion of diversity at the workplace for NQPs would lead the experienced professional develop ideals in accepting difference between them and NQPs regarding experience. This in turn would resolve the unequal thinking created in the minds of the experienced professionals regarding NQP’s and eventually promotion effective professional socialisation with NQPs. The inclusion training at the workplace leads employees to work in enhanced manner by accepting different abilities, genders, experience, backgrounds and others (Halpin et al., 2017). Thus, promotion of inclusion training would make experienced nursing professionals to avoid discriminating the NQPs on differences in ability and reduced intellect compared to them. This in turn would promote well-being and efficient professional socialisation by the NQPs with experienced professionals.

The strategy of extracurricular networking is to be introduced and nursing education is not only to be confined to online programs. This is because such strategy is going to help the student nurses during education to interact with people outside their usual settings. It would lead the students understand and develop knowledge about different perception of different individuals which is going to help them gather experience regarding the way to make successful socialisation while acting as registered nurse (Kowtha, 2018). In order to overcome the issues faced in practicing professional socialisation, the NQPs are required to develop increased resilience. This is because resilience would allow the individuals have enhanced and quick ability to try adapting to changing situations while transition from student phase to professionals phase, in turn, helping them to overcome the challenges with professional socialisation (Salisu et al., 2019). The NQPs to build resilience in making enhanced professional socialisation are to initially develop effective self-esteem. It is to be built by reminding themselves of the strengths and qualities they already possess and the way it can be used in making effective socialisation at work. In addition, the NQPs required having positive thinking and optimistic attitude in accomplishing actions. This is because in this way they can be resilient to overcome any negative thinking which is avoiding them to doubt their efficiency in making professional socialisation (Stacey et al., 2020).

Conclusion

The above discussion informs that practicing professional socialisation is important for newly qualified practitioners (NQPs) as it helps them unveiling different cultures and deliver effective care support to patients. The issues faced with respect to achieving professional socialisation by NQPs include lack of time, dissonance of practice reality and professional ideals, discrimination and isolation, dependence integration and others. However, the use of strategies such as communication training, team building activity, collaboration between professionals, effective leadership, reflection, extracurricular networking and others are effective to help the NQPs in overcoming the issues faced by them during transition from student to registered nurses in achieving professional socialisation.

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