Acculturation Experience

Acculturation Experience

After completing nursing school and joining the nursing profession, the new graduates have to get accustomed to nursing practices to sharpen their practice skills and become more competent in the field. Acculturation can be described as the process in which a person adopts a particular culture’s roles, environment, identity and responsibilities (Woodley et al., 2020). The process is quite challenging as most people may have challenges familiarizing themselves with the new environment and creating rapport with their colleagues. For the success of the initiative, the new graduate nurses should collaborate with other experienced staff members to learn basic concepts in healthcare service delivery and ensure successful assimilation into the organizational activities (Dudley et al., 2020). The nursing culture is different from the experiences and beliefs of a majority of its members and may contribute to immense amounts of stress in achieving successful and comprehensive adaptation to the profession.

Based on my experience during the nursing acculturation, I can clearly state that the process is highly challenging as I had significant challenges in expressing myself and encountered significant challenges in coping with job pressures and patient care needs. The nursing school equips nurse students with more theoretical training and limited clinical experience, and thus the new graduates may encounter significant challenges in adapting to the profession and undertaking most of the patient care activities. This posed a major challenge in my acculturation process since I was well equipped with theoretical concepts but very little clinical practice; thus, I had to encounter significant challenges in transforming theoretical knowledge and skills into actual clinical practice. Following the initial posting into the profession, I was highly stressed by the prevailing job pressures, especially when it came to patient care in making clinical decisions on which therapy modalities to use in patient care. I felt unsure of my decisions, and I also felt ashamed to seek help as I felt I could be perceived as incompetent.

The nurse in charge was very unfriendly and strict, making it hard to approach him and seek assistance concerning patient care. I felt that approaching him would lead to shame as she could easily consider one incompetent. The nurse supervisor, on the other hand, has high levels of expectations on the performance of the novice nurses, thus creating a lot of pressure which could easily subject one to a mental breakdown. The prevailing circumstances subjected me to serious stress, which adversely impacted my performance, especially in regard to patient care. The huge patient population and limited time to undertake patient care activities led to high levels of burnout, and thus, it was challenging to make informed decisions as it relates to patient care.

My experience greatly contradicts that of my colleague, who joined the profession a year later. To her, she had a very encouraging and supportive acculturation as I was always there to guide her in patient care and ensure she familiarized herself with all the organizational activities. Additionally, she had served as a travelling nurse before serving in a hospital which helped her to orientate herself with most of the patient care activities. Her prior experience made her more informed in the field, and she hardly encountered any major challenges in making patient care decisions. Her self-drive was a great motivator, and she could withstand the prevailing pressure of workplace demands and handling uncooperative patients. Furthermore, she possessed good communication skills and could easily engage other nurses and healthcare providers to familiarize herself with most of the organizational activities in ensuring patients receive timely and competent healthcare services.

References

Dudley, M., Khaw, D., Botti, M., & Hutchinson, A. F. (2020). The relationship between the undergraduate clinical learning environment and work readiness in new graduate nurses: A pre-post survey study. Nurse Education Today, 94, 104587. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nedt.2020.104587

Woodley, L. K., & Lewallen, L. P. (2020). Acculturating into nursing for Hispanic/Latinx baccalaureate nursing students: A secondary data analysis. Nursing Education Perspectives, 41(4), 235-240. https://journals.lww.com/neponline/toc/2020/07000

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Describe your acculturation experience as a new graduate to the culture of the nursing profession. How is it similar or different from the acculturation experience of a new nursing colleague who joined your team within the past year?

Submission Instructions:

Your initial post should be at least 500 words, formatted and cited in the current APA style, with support from at least two academic sources. Your initial post is worth 8 points.

You should respond to at least two of your peers by extending, refuting/correcting, or adding additional nuance to their posts. Your reply posts are worth 2 points (1 point per response.)

All replies must be constructive and use literature where possible.