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Adapted from The Nursing Career Planning Guide
by Susan Odegaard Turner
No matter where you choose to work, be sure you determine what type of orientation and specialty education programs are available for new graduate nurses. Ask specific questions about how long your orientation will be, if you will be assigned a preceptor, and when you will be allowed to care for patients on your own.
If you are not in an orientation program for at least one to two months, you will not be adequately prepared to work as a professional nurse. Being unprepared will lead to increased stress, feelings of inadequacy, and decreased self-esteem and self-confidence. It will also affect your clinical competency. Even if you successfully passed nursing-school courses, graduated with honors, and passed the state nursing exam, you are most likely not ready right away to practice nursing by yourself with no support from experienced staff.
Some facilities offer RN Residencies for new grads. RN Residencies are formal education programs that last from three to six months. Residencies offer formal curricula, designated preceptors and mentors, and structured clinical experiences on the unit where you will work. Trying to function as a new nurse without the benefit of the experience offered in an RN Residency is much like trying to swim races in a pool without having any practice in swimming skills. I believe that RN Residencies should be and will become the new standard for orientation and experiential training of new graduate nurses.
Setting the Pace for RN Residencies
An exceptional RN Residency program is offered by Childrens Hospital Los Angeles. The outstanding residency developed there will become a model for others across the country. The Versant RN Residency is an innovative, multimodal product that combines an educational process with operational outcomes and management tools. This comprehensive immersion program is designed to help newly graduated registered nurses make the transition from student to competent professional. The many facets of the RN Residency allow facilities to prepare competent, safe, and confident nurses, and simultaneously manage complex operational issues such as recruitment, retention, and nurse self-confidence. The RN Residency program research and evaluation process allows facilities to quantify statistically operational risk of new-grad turnover and degrees of organizational loyalty.
The Versant RN Residency has documented its benefits both in elevating the standard of care in the nursing profession and optimizing the financial performance of hospitals. Hospitals all make significant investments in recruitment, training, and retention of RNs but, because of the fragmented approach used, have not achieved the success in turnover reduction that the Versant RN Residency provides. Versant uses a standard core curriculum, combined with a disciplined implementation process and rigorous residency research and evaluation. It is the residency evaluation that provides organizations with analytical results that support proactive monitoring of loyalty rates and potential turnover risks. If you have an opportunity to work in a facility that has an RN Residency (especially the Versant model), sign up! It would be a great transition experience, and you would likely stay in that environment for several years.
The Importance of Formal Orientation
If an RN Residency program is not available at the facility where you wish to work, ask about formal orientation and precepting options. You definitely want to work at a facility with a formal orientation program. You will have to attend nursing and facility orientation with all new employees. However, once those are completed, you will still need orientation to the role of the professional nurse. Ask the interviewer how that is accomplished in the particular facility. If they cannot present an organized and formalized process or program to you and do not assign you a preceptor for a minimum of three months, reconsider working there.
Many new grads get frustrated and leave nursing within the first year after graduation. This happens because their orientation to professional nursing was poor or nonexistent. It is not reasonable to expect someone right out of nursing school to be competent, safe, and confident with two weeks of hospital orientation and nothing else. Don't sell yourself or your patients short. Insist on formal orientation and an individual preceptor before you accept your first registered nurse position.
[Copyright 2007. Jones and Bartlett Publishers, Inc. All Rights Reserved. You may not copy, reproduce or distribute this content without the prior written permission of Jones and Bartlett Publishers, Inc. Sudbury, MA.]