The Transition from RPN to RN - Assignment Example

Transition from RPN to RN When transitioning from RPN to RN, one is never prepared for the challenges that come with the career choice since majority of the nurses are only concerned with the increased responsibilities and returns that this transition comes with (Duchscher, 2009). I have also been the victim of such notions outlook about transitioning from RPN to RN with the consequence being an awakening experience of actual practice. There have been a number of challenges that I have had to deal with in order to make my transition successful. Among the challenges that I have had to go through is related to the application of my leadership skills. Transitioning from RPN to RN makes you realize that the work of an RN requires special skills in leadership to ensure all the nurses work in a collaborative manner for the best interest of the patients. Given that the health care facilities have a mixture of both RPN and RN, there is a need for the team to establish synergetic working relations that avoids the possibility of conflicts during the practice. Having served previously as a RPN, I did not have practical experiences of how to handle the different roles that come with being in charge of my team. Consequently, there are times when it becomes difficult to merge all the diverse perceptions held by the nurses in assisting the patients cope with their problems. For instance I have had challenges in creating effective plan for the faster recovery of patients since the other members always come up with alternatives they thought was better especially with regard to quality of care and amount of time spent with the patients. Since most of the members of the team did not have confidence in the suggestions I presented as the best plan for the patients, I felt they did not think I had the qualities to be their leader. Application of my professional skills in conflict resolutions is also a challenge that has affected my practice since the transition from RPN and RN. I have identified that in most cases involving conflicts in the team I work with, there is a breakdown in communication where is becomes difficult passing my point through to the members. This is especially true when seeking to exercise what I consider as my more comprehensive knowledge in nursing by taking advantage of the in-depth and wide knowledge base. There are those in the group who feel they should get more responsibilities as opposed to being limited in the practice of less complex patient needs. This is for instance when selecting between the roles of RPN and RN with members of the team with RPN complaining of being sidelined in their functioning. There was an instance when an RPN complained that the experience she had gained warranted more responsibilities. Therefore, the challenge for me has been how to maintain high level of professionalism while at the same time pay attention to the needs of my colleagues. I think that to manage conflicts, there should always be grounds where one should pay attention to the needs of others in the environment while also maintaining respectful the existing professional relationship with colleagues. However, it is not always easy to pay attention to the ideas presented by everyone based on the temptation to arrive at a conclusion before someone is through with their explanation. My challenges in leadership have also led to other difficulties in practice which has great impact on my impact as a RN. This is related to the challenge of being assertive where I always find it difficult instilling a number of practices in the daily practice of the time especially based on my daily routine and suggestion of best possible interventions for patient problems. During discussions with my colleagues, there are times when arguing for certain interventions has been difficult due since many of the nurses and physicians I work with have been in the profession for a longer period. There is this situation that happened when I had assessed a patient who had only received antidepressant prescription despite the evidence based approach in patient care indicating that cognitive behavior therapy can be more effective than medicine for patient with mild to moderate depression. Despite my belief that this should have been applied to the situation, I could not convince my colleagues and the physician that a change in medical care was required. This therefore creates a situation where I am mostly inclined to follow their take on a number of issues. I think this has also to do with my communication skills therefore leading to my realization that I will need to improve this areas if I am to be more effective in my practice. Strategy for Smooth Transition from RPN to RN Based on the challenges that my transition from RPN to RN has had on my professional practice, I have developed a number of key strategies that will successfully lead to improved conditions in the workplace. This is based on the realization that the transition conditions are critical to my professional development as they are capable of facilitating or obstructing progress towards attaining a healthy transition (Schumacher and Meleis, 1994). My strategy is going to rely on four essential areas of information as analysed by Zulkosky (2009) and includesverbal persuasion, performance accomplishments, vicarious experience and physiological cues. This strategy is based on improving my self-efficacy, which relates to the development of conscious awareness of my ability to successfully perform given tasks in order to improve the way I think and perceive my abilities leading to motivation to achieve better results. Performance accomplishments in this have to do with the achievement of set goals which rises self-efficacy. For this method to be successful, I need to practice the areas of weakness from time to time to ensure aim able to achieve the tasks I was not able in the past. The challenges I have had since transitioning from RPN to RN stem from the fact that I had not been successful in asserting myself during past engagements. Consequently, if I can be able to successfully influence others to adopt my stand in important issues I will be able to achieve the self-efficacy. Based on the study presented by Kramer, Brewer, Halfer, Maguire, Beausoleil, Claman, Macphee and Duschscher (2013), the feelings that one has not performed to the accepted level and therefore let do the patients are due to ones view that they have not made the right decisions. Consequently, my strategy to cope with the challenges is to prevent this feeling from affecting my belief about the ability to perform different tasks to help my patients get better. Another strategy to employ in the quest to beat the challenges I have had is to use my vicarious experience to improve performance of tasks. This involves learning from others through observation of the approach they use in performance of various tasks. This is a confidence-boosting endeavor since seeing other perform a task successfully contributes the feeling that I can also accomplish the same task (Zulkosky, 2009).To apply this in my transition, I have to visit other teams within the institution to see how they function while also making comparisons with my own practices. This will improve my practical experience of RN as I learn from those who successfully perform their tasks. Zulkosky (2009) also highlights the use of verbal persuasion in improving self-efficacy and involves convincing others that they can successfully perform a given task. To be able to improve my performance of various tasks, I will need the encouragement of those around me to be able to improve my confidence level and develop better approaches to achieve desired results. To achieve this end, I will work closely with the more experienced RN and the physicians by requesting them to provide me with advice on a number of areas that that have been problematic since my transition. Talking to them about these areas will be an effective strategy in building my confidence on performance of diffident tasks. Physiological cues are also important in my strategy to overcome the challenges have experienced. Improvement of my physiological cues will result in improvement of my relationships with other nurses and physicians. This is based on the realization that the challenges might have been due to my body language, which might have depicted anxiety and tension (Zulkosky, 2009).Consequently, I will improve my body signs in order to appear more confident in front of others. This reflection paper has identified a number of areas that have presented me with challenges since transitioning from RPN to RN. The challenges includes the limitation presented by lack of the necessary leadership skills to effectively work with the rest of the team, the necessary skills needed to handle conflicts within the team and being assertive in presenting perspectives on how best to take care of patient interests. Based on these challenges, I have been able to develop effective strategies that will lead to the improvement in performing of the tasks required for my profession. Consequently, I hope to build on my self-efficacy based on the strategies that include physiological cues, vicarious experience, performance accomplishments and verbal persuasion. References Duchscher J. E. B. (2009). Transition shock: the initial stage of role adaptation for newly graduated Registered Nurses. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 65 (5): 1103-13. Kramer, M., Brewer, B., Halter, D., Maguire, P., Beausoleil, S., Claman, K., Macphee, M., & Duschscher, J. (2013). Changing our lens: seeing the chaos of professional practice as complexity. Journal of Nursing Management. 21 (4), 690-704. Schumacher, K. and Meleis A. I. (1994). Transitions: A Central Concept in Nursing. Image: Journal of Nursing Scholarship 26(2), 119-127. Zulkosky K. (2009). Self-efficacy: a concept analysis. Nursing Forum, 44 (2): 93-102. Read More