Program helps nurses' transition

[cougarnurse]

Interesting. What do you think about this? http://www.abqjournal.com/main/2011/...ransition.html

Christina Maaele knew she still had a lot to learn about nursing when she was licensed as an RN a year ago in March.

Maaele, 35, was among the first New Mexico nurses to enroll in a one-year nurse residency program designed to help new nurses in small hospitals make the transition from student to professional nurse.

“I wanted to learn things that I wasn’t necessarily exposed to in nursing school,” Maaele said recently at Lovelace Westside Hospital, where she works in a medical-surgical unit.

Skills such as wound care, inserting IVs, reading charts and interpreting diagnostic tests and EKGs all found their way into a learning plan she drew up in June 2010 with her preceptor, Aaron Gallegos, a veteran RN who has served as her mentor over the past year.

“The extra information I was given through the residency program has made me a little more confident – my skills a little stronger, a little quicker,” said Maaele, who received her associate degree in nursing last year from Central New Mexico Community College.

Maaele, who graduated from the program this month, is one 22 New Mexico nurses who have participated in the rural nurse residency program since it was launched in January 2010.

“I think it’s important for new nurses to have someone to assist them through the first year of nursing,” said Gallegos, a Lovelace Westside nurse.

“They go to nursing school and they do have their licenses, but they still need some guidance,” he said. “Otherwise, they lose hope.”

And, too often, new nurses switch employers or leave the profession within the first year, said Deborah Cassady, rural nurse residency program coordinator for the New Mexico Center for Nursing Excellence.

“In today’s complex environment, it’s not easy to transition from being a student to a full-up nurse,” Cassady said. A hospital can lose 30 percent or more of new RNs within the first two years, she said.

“If (new nurses) aren’t supported, we can lose them.”

Retaining nurses is vital for New Mexico, which ranks 49th among states in RNs per capita. In addition, about half the state’s approximately 20,000 RNs are older than 50. Rural hospitals, which often lack staff and resources for training, pose special challenges for new nurses, she said.

Rural hospitals often don’t have specialty units, she said. “Rural nurses have to know about everything.”

The nonprofit Center for Nursing Excellence obtained a federal grant, which pays the $5,000 annual cost per nurse resident, and contracted with Idaho State University to oversee the program and provide online coursework for residents.

The program is available to any New Mexico hospital with fewer than 200 beds. In addition to Lovelace Westside, hospitals in Shiprock, Grants and Taos now have nurse residents enrolled.

“What they teach you in school and what you do in real life is totally different,” said Daisy Baca, 25, a new RN at Lovelace Westside who plans to enroll in the residency program later this month.

— This article appeared on page A1 of the Albuquerque Journal

[Teeituptom]

Now really. No offense y'all, but. No matter what you do a certain amount of new nurses are going to leave. Change professions, get married and raise kids, Just leave the profession period. They find out about the stress and all the things you have deal with. The messes you have to clean. And they decided, nope this is not for me. How much more coddling can be given to new grads than there already is. Do you reach a point where coddling new grads becomes addictive to them and they do not ever want to progress. I see where they get 3 to 6 months orientation as is. Then they complain about their preceptors and leave anyway.
Some are going to come out of school and excel in nursing. Some are going to get by. Some are not going to fly at all, should we continue wasting resources on some who will never make the grade anyway.

[cougarnurse]

I hear you, Tom. I swear it's the ME Generation.

One is an ADULT at 18. If you want something, WORK at it! None of this BS of riding on folks' insurance until 23, etc.

Oh, and how many students just loooove OB? They poop and drool same as some of the elderly. (No offense to all you OB nurses out there.....) And then you have kids of your own?

[hppygr8ful]

I am with you both on this - I think a program that's helps new nurse transition into the job is a good thing because as we know so many nurses eat their young and we've all seen poster's here totally overwhelmed with the realities of the job.

There are a number of reasons that people leave any job not just nursing - If you look at statistics less than 10% of all college grads are working the field they were educated for 10 years after graduation. The examples Tom cited for why nurses quit apply to these folks as well.

As for when you are considered an adult - the so-called social progressive movement wants to treat us all like children and be our Nannies for life. I threw up my hands in dispair when the law said 13 year olds could get an abortion without parental notification but they can't get their ears pierced with a parent signing permission.............. Something is so wrong with that picture. Thank God I don't have daughters.

Peace and namaste

Hppy

[hppygr8ful]

:"Oh, and how many students just loooove OB? They poop and drool same as some of the elderly. (No offense to all you OB nurses out there.....) And then you have kids of your own""

Hey Cat I did OB right out of school and I actually loved it - If my addictions hadn't got the better of me - I'd probably still be doing it......But I love what I do now as well.........All things happen for a reason.

Peace and Namaste

Hppy

[cougarnurse]

Off topic..... Hppy, as I said......sorry to the OB nurses. Seems like most (!) of my classmates wanted OB, which was overstaffed from what I heard. Got out of that rotation, thanks to the LPN bit.

[Teeituptom]

I am with you both on this - I think a program that's helps new nurse transition into the job is a good thing because as we know so many nurses eat their young and we've all seen poster's here totally overwhelmed with the realities of the job.

There are a number of reasons that people leave any job not just nursing - If you look at statistics less than 10% of all college grads are working the field they were educated for 10 years after graduation. The examples Tom cited for why nurses quit apply to these folks as well.

As for when you are considered an adult - the so-called social progressive movement wants to treat us all like children and be our Nannies for life. I threw up my hands in dispair when the law said 13 year olds could get an abortion without parental notification but they can't get their ears pierced with a parent signing permission.............. Something is so wrong with that picture. Thank God I don't have daughters.

Peace and namaste

Hppy

Would you want that young 13 yo teen to have that baby. I wouldnt. Back when I worked OB, The youngest I saw deliver a baby was a 12 yo. Her parents wanted her to keep it. I wanted to slap her parents.

Teens get their tattoos and piercings without parenteral consent all the time. The law does not care