Nursing Professionalism

As beginning nursing students enter into the great unknown of nursing school, taking a major step towards advancing their futures, they can feel uncertain at times. In a pilot study conducted by Margaret G. Williams and Linda L. Burke in 2014, ten sophomore nursing students in introductory level clinical courses at a small, Midwestern university were used as their sample to reflect on their own nursing experiences and report when they felt like they had achieved a professional identity as a nurse. Professionalism in nursing students was defined for the purposes of this case study as the students expressing both competence and confidence in their skills, and beginning to believe for themselves that they are “real” nurses. After the ten students wrote their narratives for the study, a hermeneutic circular approach was taken to analyze their levels of professionalism as nursing students. The results revealed a major recurring theme, which researchers described as “Doing Learning Knowing Speaking”. Most nursing students felt that they had …show more content…
Through the narratives of the beginning nursing students used as the sample group for this research study, it was concluded that students are very impressionable and it is crucial to begin shaping their professional identity from the start. I thought that this article provided a unique approach to the topic of professionalism in nursing, as it studied the students rather than those who are already Registered Nurses; however, it is difficult to get an objective measure of professionalism based on personal narratives because personal stories are very subjective. Overall, it opens doors for communication between nurse educators and their students about how to begin to develop their personal identity and beliefs about professionalism in