New Nurses Need Self-care and Mindset Skills — Now More Than Ever
By Kym Ali
When I think about the future of nursing and healthcare , I become
concerned . Eventually , we will all need care due to an illness or injury . Who will care for us if there aren ’ t any nurses left ? An estimated 17.5 % of newly licensed registered nurses leave their first nursing job within the first year , and one in three ( 33.5 %) leave within two years ( Kovner , 2014 ).
Nurses are leaving the bedside faster than we can blink because they feel the healthcare system has failed them . To add fuel to the fire , a million registered nurses of baby boomer age are estimated to retire by 2030 ( Auerbach , 2015 ). Their skills will no longer be present delivering day-to-day care to patients nor passed on to new nurses who are just beginning their careers .
“ The departure of such a large cohort of experienced RNs means that patient care settings and other organizations that depend on RNs will face a significant loss of nursing knowledge and expertise that will be felt for many years to come ,” according to Peter Buerhaus and others ( 2017 ).
Challenges New Nurses Face I explored the challenges new nurses face by conducting a poll within a New Nurses Support Group ( 2020a ). Of the responses , graduate nurses ( N = 116 ) reported that 43 % had heavy patient assignments , 13 % indicated a lack of support , and 11 % noted bullying and felt they were working in toxic teams .
30 NSNA IMPRINT n NOVEMBER / DECEMBER 2020 n www . nsna . org