BRIEF SUMMARY (ADVANCED BEGINNERS)

Advanced Beginners are the new grads in their first jobs, which is the next step to
becoming a Novice Nurse. Anyone in this phase must be a professional for 6 months or even
less, and be educated in “know-how”. Based on the International Journal of Caring Sciences,
advanced professionals can identify the global characteristics of a situation but they do not
have enough experience to expand their vision to patients regarding past experiences and
future expectations of different patients.
It was stated that it will be complicated for these types of nurses to view the patient’s
situation holistically, for they are only implementing the care practices as a routine and task-
oriented maintenance using what they have learned from their previous working journeys. To
be more specific, nursing care is more on learning through past experiences until they have
remembered and mastered what they need to do without endeavoring to assess the patient’s
emotional state.
There are also stressors that these advanced beginners might encounter such as heavy
workloads, sudden increases in responsibility, and most specifically the altering of care for
individual needs during the process. Since their skills are directed to the routines and learning
through medical orders, suddenly changing the process would now be complex for them.
Lastly, their way of learning is “trial and error”, and these nurses still need to get advice
from much-experienced experts. Because this is how they will improve their cognitive,
psychomotor, and emotional skills.
3. 4 HOW THE THEORY WILL GUIDE NURSES IN THEIR PRACTICE IN
CLINICAL/RESEARCH/EDUCATION?

NOVICE STAGE

In Clinical Practice:
In the Novice Stage, the nurses here are students who are undergoing “On-the-Job”
training. The Novice Nurses have limited performances for they only have a few experiences,
which were only based on all of the instructions of their Clinical Educators. Guidance and
protocols are very important in this stage because these will be used by the educators to coach
the nurses to advance their skills and knowledge from one stage of development to the next
level.
According to Nursology’s website, the students must be assisted to learn about
individualized nursing care and apply this knowledge to actual patient care practices. The
instructors must also give students the responsibility to plan and implement nursing care of the
patients who may have possible changes in their conditions. And, once the orders are not
properly received, the nurses in this stage are more likely to get panicked and anxious since
they are more flexible in following specific rules and orders. The examples that we will see in
this stage are providing Peripheral intravenous or what we so-called as “IV”, fully managing our
time, passing and providing medication at a properly scheduled time, organizing stuff, and
getting it done at the end of the shift, etc. These examples are stating that novice nurses are
more like “Tell me what to do, and I will do it.”
Since Patricia Benner’s theory is about developing nursing skills without the necessity to
know the whole theory, we can only learn through experiences. This theory will guide beginner
nurses in clinical practices in a way of assisting them to describe, explain, and know their
patients using the orders that they have from other professional medical colleagues. By using
this Novice to Expert Theory, the nurses may also establish criteria to measure how well they
have done the instructions, and if they have followed the steps completely.

In Education:
The theory of Patricia Benner may contribute a lot in the field of nursing education, for it
will hand the nursing students the general focus for curriculum design. With this wise theory,
clinical instructors may also provide the best lessons for their students, which will guide them in
their practices in different aspects such as practical skills, communication skills, and improving
the students’ caring skills toward their patients.

In Research:
The Novice to Expert Theory is a huge help for nurses and even other professional
medical workers, for it will serve as their guidance in conducting research that will benefit
aspiring nurses, as well as those future ones.
Understanding, learning, and having deeper research regarding the theory in this stage,
will benefit us in providing such new knowledge that we can use for future education and
processes in the nursing field. And once that we have this new information from the conducted
research, it can now be used by Novice Nurses to guide them in becoming Advanced Beginners.
It will also offer them a systematic approach to identify questions for the theory, interpret
findings, and even validate nursing interventions.

ADVANCED BEGINNERS

In Clinical Practices:
In the Advanced Beginner Stage, the nurses view the nursing process as a task that
needs to be accomplished. According to Nursing Theory’s website, these are the new grads who
are working in their first jobs and are more comfortable and flexible, and they have more
experiences as they perceive meaningful occurrences in their journey.
In this stage, the nurses have experience in their respective fields for like a year, or 6
months or less. And they are more like “I should now know what to do, I already had a patient
like this last time.” And with the help of Patricia Benner’s theory, it will guide the nurses to
have an advanced perception in assessment, interventions, and even evaluation of nursing
practice. Lastly, it will help them enhance their autonomy.

In Education:
 It has a similar benefit and advantage to Novice Stage, it will also provide a general
focus for curriculum design, which will help them in expanding their knowledge that they can
use in the next stage of this Clinical Competency. With this wise theory, clinical instructors may
also provide the best lessons for their students, which will guide them in improving their
autonomy which will make them competent.

In Research :
The Novice-to-Expert Theory may contribute a lot to nursing research. With the help of
Patricia Benner’s theory, it will offer a reference for generating knowledge and new ideas
regarding nursing knowledge and practices that we can use in the future in order to reach and
achieve the next level of Clinical Competency, which is the Competent Stage. And just like in the
Novice Stage, it will also offer them a systematic approach to identify questions for the
theory, interpret findings, and even validate nursing interventions.