Patricia Benner

Patricia Benner, a well-known nursing theorist who published From Novice to Expert, theorizes how a nurse should progress through their career. Benner’s theory explains what stage of nursing one is in based on your education and the amount of time one has worked in a specific nursing field. She describes the five stages of the theory: novice, advanced beginner, competent, proficient, and expert. While this theory has its limitations, it is beneficial to the well-being of both the nurse and patient and that is proven by real world clinical practice.

Transitioning from nursing school to working in a hospital setting can be a challenging time for a new graduate. Due to the nursing shortage, new graduate nurses are being hired with little to no experience. This is overwhelming for new nurses, especially when they are not getting adequate support or training from the hospital. The amount of stress, pressure, and lack of training is leading to a high turnover rate for new graduate nurses. With patient acuity on the rise, new graduate nurses that are filling these vacancies in the hospitals, need to be competent nurses to provide proper and safe care to the patients.

With an ever-increasing body of knowledge in the field of nursing, more education is being required to enter the field of nursing. Many healthcare institutions are raising the educational requirements in order to become employed or maintain employment in their facilities. Healthcare organizations are transitioning to hiring registered nurses (RN) who have a higher level of education, such as, a graduate from a Baccalaureate Degree Nursing (BSN) program. The goal of these institutions is to have nurses with a broader array of skills that can meet the growing demands of our patient population. BSN prepared nurses are recognized for their well-rounded skills in critical thinking, management, case management and health promotion versus Associate Degree nurses (ADN)/Diploma nurses that focus on direct patient care.

A nursing theory allows the nursing profession to define and differentiate nursing care practice from other professional disciplines. The work of Patricia Benner has been crucial in setting a stage to standardize education and career progression for the nursing profession. The nursing care practice has been changing exponentially since the development of the theory From Novice to Expert. It has enabled facilities across the nation to achieve a higher level of patient care due to its ability to identify the needs of each of the stages of a professional nurse’s career progression.

Nursing can be a demanding career, but the benefits far much outweigh the challenges. Most importantly, it’s the rewards it offers by allowing an opportunity to make a difference in another person’s life through the provision of care when they need it. Just as Patricia Benner theorized in her book “Novice to Expert,” nursing encompasses both educational knowledge and extensive clinical experience acquired throughout one’s career. This far, I continue to acquire knowledge and clinical knowhow which will promote proper and efficient care to patients. Since I began practicing one year ago in a long-term healthcare facility, I have interacted with patients, families, physicians and other members of the healthcare team to coordinate patient’s care which has enabled me to gain confidence in myself. While I cannot deny that it was difficult to transition from a student to a licensed nurse, I learnt to overcome these challenges and focus on my strengths. Practicing as an LPN has provided a platform to learn and gain experience even though the duties and responsibilities are limited by the scope of practice.

Domains of proficiency of the nurse include professional development (Domain 1) which "reflect the advanced enrolled nurse's active engagement in ongoing learning and their collaboration with others in education as a basis for practice;" the provision of clinical care (Domain 2) which "reflect the advanced enrolled nurse's ability to provide more comprehensive clinical care in a focused or specialized area of practice" in areas which may sometimes extend beyond a healthcare environment; and management of self and others (Domain 3) which "reflect the advanced enrolled nurse's broader experiences, knowledge and skills that enable a more comprehensive scope of delegated responsibility and greater degree of indirect registered nurse supervision" (Adrian 2005: 4-9). The domains of advanced nursing are thus multifaceted in nature, encompassing the technical aspects of the profession such as seeking out education and bestowing care on a high,

Some of the dilemmas associated with today’s nursing force are: Many are under-educated and task-oriented, unaware of their patient’s plan of care, medical histories, or pertinent results. Too many rely on clinical coordinators and team leaders, when it comes to critical thinking, therefore, miss out on the vital fundamentals, which make nursing such an honorable profession (Grietens, 2007, p. 10). In order to create a stronger, more knowledgeable nursing workforce, entry-level requirements for RNs, as well as APRNs, need to be uniform. In addition, research shows bachelors and masters prepared nurses, result in better patient outcomes. An example of a proposed solution includes:

She believed that years of experience is what ultimately sets apart a novice and expert nurse. “Clinicians at different levels of practice live in different clinical worlds, recognizing and responding to different situated needs for action” (Alligood & Tomey, 2010, p. 141).

Teaching and learning in the clinical setting is not a new concept and the teaching of clinical skill to nursing student ranks high on the current agenda of nurse education (Pfeil, 2003). Therefore, has be the duty of teachers to continue to provide ongoing guidance during teaching and learning taking place. According to While (2004), the mentor is required to feel personally and professionally confident when assessing the student’s performance. This allows the development of the students will become better and more effective.

This paper will discuss the functions of caring within the nursing practice, as well as my own personal views regarding caring. I will review the Benner model of Clinical Nursing and the Dreyfus Model of Skill Acquisition in relationship to my own personal skills. I will identify my competencies within each domain of the Benner Model. I will reflect upon my own personal nursing practice in terms of my strengths and weaknesses. Also included will be a discussion of my own professional goals, areas of improvement needed within my practice and solutions for how I can improve in order to help me achieve these personal goals.

With a consistent change in modernizing medicine, along with the continuing advancement in technology, continuing education in nursing is essential for a variety of reasons. The nurse’s main concern is providing safe, efficient, and effective patient care with positive patient outcomes. This paper will examine the differences in competencies between nurses prepared at an associate-degree level versus a baccalaureate-degree level, in order to provide an evidenced-based understanding of the variation in the educational preparation of nurses.

Patricia Benner described the first stage as the novice nurse who is taught general rules to perform tasks without any, or very few, clinical experience. This rule-governed behavior is limited and inflexible (“From Novice to Expert”, 2013). Most nursing students are in the novice stage while they are completing their educational requirements (Cherry & Jacob, 2014). Although they have some exposure to clinical experience, it is limited and under the guidance of a nursing instructor rather than in a “real world” setting. According to Cherry & Jacob (2014), once the nursing student graduates, he or she will begin the progression into the advanced beginner stage (second stage). The advanced beginner nurse is able to make some judgment calls based on having experience in actual situations and performance is adequate. During this stage, the nurse begins to formulate principles to guide actions (“From Novice

As a nursing theorist Dr. Patricia Benner developed a model for the stages of clinical competence which she outlined in her book "From Novice to Expert: Excellence and Power in Clinical Nursing Practice". Her model is one of the most useful frameworks for assessing nurses ' needs at different stag-es of professional growth. Dr. Benner’s work has wide application in areas of clinical practice as well as other disciplines. In her research, she found out that when nurses engaged in various situations, they learned from them, and developed what she called "skills of involvement" with

In today’s world, it is essential to incorporate nursing theory into practice. Patricia Benner, through her work, “has provided essential understanding of how knowledge and skills are acquired and directly applied to nursing practice, education, research and administration” (Altmann, 2007, p. 114). According to Benner’s model of skill acquisition, “the nurse passes through five stages of career development, novice, advanced beginner, competent, proficient and expert” (English, 1993, p.387). Specific patterns of behavior, thinking, and performance is present in each stage. The most experience is associated with the expert nurse and the least experience is possessed by the novice nurse (Benjamin, 2007). This model is based on ascending level of proficiency and the key concepts of this model are: competence, skill attainment, experience, clinical knowledge and practical knowledge

"Brenner (1984) described the 5 stages of development for the professional nurse. The stages are (1) Novice (2) Advance Beginner (3) Competent practitioner (4) Proficient practitioner (5) Expert Practitioner. The stages progress from a nursing student to the professional practitioner through growth and knowledge." (Lopez-Boyd, 1997, p. 41) Nursing is a profession. Look around you, you see competent, caring individuals