By Rose O. Sherman, EdD, RN, NEA-BC, FAAN
I have been asked to talk with several classes of senior nursing students about what the transition into practice could look like in the post-COVID environment over the next six months. It is a good news/bad news situation.
The good news is that nurse staffing shortages now exist almost nationwide, so job opportunities will be plentiful. The other good news is that most health systems are ramping up their residency programs and plan that future onboarding will be more in-person and less virtual. Today’s new graduates will also never have to explain what nurses do as many of us have had to do in their careers – the public now knows from the very vivid images they have seen night after night.
The bad news is a little more nuanced depending on the work setting. The metaphor I use for this year’s graduates is that it is like going on vacation to a Caribbean island right after a Category 4 or 5 hurricane. Even if your hotel is completely operational, you will see the stress and the fatigue that the storm caused the employees and island residents. There is no way around it. The nursing workforce today is a different workforce than it was pre-Covid.
Many nurses are recovering from trauma as an outcome of the relentless stress of the past year. Most feel exhausted, and some are not on their best behavior. Routine rituals have been completed disrupted, and teams are not as cohesive as they once were. The emotional bandwidth of some staff to be engaged preceptors is limited. Union activity is on the increase as nurses look for ways to displace the anger that many feel about what has happened in healthcare. If you doubt that this is true, look no further than ANA’s newest pulse study on the one-year impact of COVID on the nursing workforce.
What I recommend to new graduates is that they enter the profession using a trauma-informed perspective. A trauma-informed approach is an appreciation for the emotional world of personal and professional experiences that rumble beneath the surface of those who have been through a traumatic experience. Trauma is like an iceberg. The emotions of anger, pain, and negativity lie just below the surface. They can result in outsized reactions to seemingly minor situations. Recognizing that there are emotional scars can help you empathize with your colleagues and your patients. Grace and curiosity can go a long way; decide not to take everything said to you so personally.
Helping our new graduates to build their resilience and psychological PPE before they enter healthcare environments is key. Many of these new nurses probably had their own lives seriously disrupted by the pandemic. They did not have the hands-on clinical experiences that they anticipated. Most nursing leaders tell me that they already see the skills gaps.
This year will not be an easy year to enter practice. Nurse leaders need to be especially intentional about onboarding new graduates. We are in both the best and the worst of times to enter the profession.
© emergingrnleader.com 2021
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