With the extension of nursing programs in Pakistan, schools of nursing and students are becoming more and more dependent on the availability of preceptors to complete their program and step into the professional career, therefore more experience, knowledge, and preparedness are required for a clinical preceptor in highly specialized areas. Nevertheless, based on my experience, some preceptors also lack the understanding of the pedagogy, and they seem incompetent in this component of teaching and learning. (Foleyet al., 2012).
On an account of preparing the preceptor for providing empathic support and expert clinical training to newly qualified nurses, it is necessary to develop a proper framework for preceptors, which is missing in the Pakistan nursing education system (ref). This framework for preparing preceptor needs to be coherent to their role. It needs to address the current research on critical thinking, reflection and adult learning approaches, as well as the understanding of how the daunting real-time clinical reasoning might seem to new graduate and novice nurses. This kind of preparation will succpport preceptors to build a supportive relationship with their preceptee and work more efficiently in a busy clinical setting (ref).
Challenges Faced by Novice Nurses in their Transition Phase
In developed and developing countries like Pakistan, nursing graduates are facing numerous challenges in adjusting to their work role as professional nurses;, thus, they continually struggle to meet the professional requirements, despite the intense clinical and educational preparation they had at their nursing school (ref). According to the study conducted at the private teaching and learning hospital in Pakistan, turnover rates among new graduates are high within the six months of commencing their professional responsibilities. Hence, this elicits their transition experiences of becoming a staff nurse soon after graduating from the school of nursing. The literature showed that new graduate nurses found it difficult to perform regular tasks independently and struggle to adjust to the role and responsibilities of their nurse role in the unit (ref).
At The Aga Khan University Hospital, Pakistan, thea group of students conducted a study to describe the nursing graduates’ transitional experiences of being a student to a responsible staff nurse. This study explained four phases of the nursing graduate’s transition, namely stepping into the new role, initial adjustment, support systems, and resolution; accounts it under the core category of sailing forward. This study brings up the new perceptive in the arena of challenges faced by novice nurses in their transition phase. This study highlighted the effects of role shift on the new graduates’ personal lives. It was markedly mentioned by the participants in the study, that their personal lives were enormously affected during the transitional phase and while adopting the role, furthermore, spiritual distress was another attention-grabbing finding put forward by this study. Participants proclaimed that they aweere unable to carry out their regular religious practices because of their job schedules. Thus, spiritual distress proved as another additional stress while new graduate transitioning into the new role. It seems difficult for a spiritually disturbed nurse to support a patient in fulfilling his spiritual needs. (Ref).