Ozdemir, N. G. (2019). The development of nurses’ individualized care perceptions and practices: Brenner’s novice to expert model perspective. International Journal of Caring Sciences, 12(2), 1279-1285.
This article analyzes the relation between individualized nursing care as a quality indicator in nursing conducive to positive outcomes. The article’s central premise is that nurses play a key role in designing, providing, and evaluating individualized care (Ozdemir, 2019). Based on this premise, the author posits that nurses’ level of professional development and competence is a key determinant of individualized quality care and, by extension, the positive outcomes it promotes (Ozdemir, 2019). The author chooses Brenner’s novice to expert model as the theoretical framework for the study and sets to establish how nurses fare in terms of individualized care during different stages of their professional development.
By Brenner’s novice to expert model, the author identifies five stages of a nurse’s professional development. During the novice stage, nurses have theoretical knowledge but very limited practical experience, follow rigid context-free sets of rules and have difficulties in practicing their skills with different patients (Ozdemir, 2019). During an advanced beginner stage, the nurse is already able to grasp the global characteristics of a given patient’s situation but has trouble addressing more than one aspect of the said situation (Ozdemir, 2019). A nurse who had reached a competent level of development possesses sufficient experience to foresee immediately likely events and plan individualized patient care accordingly (Ozdemir, 2019). At the proficient level, nurses have well-developed respond-based skills they utilize on the patient’s request and can view the situation holistically and in context rather than approach is based on rigid rules (Ozdemir, 2019). Finally, expert-level nurses have all the abilities of the proficient ones but exercise their skills in a fluid and automatic manner without requiring deliberation (Ozdemir, 2019). The article concludes with a recommendation to the nurses to improve their skills in individualized patient care skills according to their proficiency levels.
Fitzpatrick, S., & Gripshover, J. (2016). Expert nurse to novice nurse practitioner: The journey and how to improve the process. The Journal for Nurse Practitioners, 12(10), pp. e-419-e421.
The article analyzes how Brenner’s novice to expert model reflects the transition from an expert nurse to a novice nurse practitioner. According to the authors, scholars often use Brenner’s model to illustrate professional development within the nursing career (Fitzpatrick & Gripshover, 2016). At the same time, few if any studies employ the model to analyze the transition from an expert nurse to a novice nurse practitioner (Fitzpatrick & Gripshover, 2016). The authors set out to fill this gap in the research and identify the challenges inherent in the transition and the possible means to overcome them.
The first part of the article discusses the difficulties associated with the transition from expert nurse to novice nurse practitioner. One of the challenges is transition shock, which refers to disorientation and confusion caused by the difference between theoretical education and the practical requirements of the new position (Fitzpatrick & Gripshover, 2016). Another possible issue is professional isolation, which is a sense of separation from one’s – usually longer-practicing – professional peers (Fitzpatrick & Gripshover, 2016). Put together, these may result in increasing levels of job dissatisfaction and higher turnover rates.
The authors then identify possible means of addressing the issue based on Brenner’s novice to expert model. Just as with novice nurses, novice nurse practitioners would benefit from contact with their senior peers and exposure to their experience (Fitzpatrick & Gripshover, 2016). The authors recommend creating a novice nurse practitioner group to lessen transition shock and a fellowship program designed to minimize the risks of professional isolation (Fitzpatrick & Gripshover, 2016). These recommendations are based on the evidence collected during the study in the authors’ hospital. Thus, the article extends Brenner’s novice to expert model to the transition from expert nurse to novice nurse practitioner and, by doing so, succeeds in crafting recommendations to improve the process.