Vägen in i ett yrke : en studie av lärande och kunskasputveckling hos nyutbildade sjuksköterskor

Sammanfattning: The path to a career in nursing begins on the first day of nursing training and is not completed until the nurses have worked one year in their profession. During the training period, the student nurses have training elements in two different activitysystems: the higher education institution and the healthcare sector. The aim of this study is to examine and highlight the relationship between the different parts of the training as well as how the relationship is manifested during the newly qualified nurses’ initial period in the profession. The research’s overall question is what makes the newly qualified nurses’ learning and knowledge development easier or harder in relation to the different parts of the nursing training. Interviews have been used to create data which have been analysed based on activity theory, a social theory of learning and different ways of describing knowledge. The research findings show that the activity systems have different knowledge cultures, learning processes and patterns of action. The study participants describe the differences in terms of being in ‘different worlds’. The newly qualified nurses do not always have the practical skills that are sought after and, therefore, cannot always act as independent subjects, but become marginalized non-participants who observe the course of events. Supervision and the rounds are the two most demanding duties during the first year in the profession, since these duties have been practiced to a limited extent during the nurse training placement. The supervisory function appears different to newly qualified male and female nurses. The women in the study feel that it is problematic to be a supervisor for older experienced assistant nurses, in that the assistant nurses do not accept them as supervisors. The men do not indicate this as being a problem, rather emphasizing that the assistant nurses support them in the supervisory function. During the rounds, the nurses must inform the doctor of the state of the patients’ health and care needs. The participants feel that it is difficult to live up to the doctors’ demands ahead of the rounds. In summary, my findings show that the different knowledge cultures in the higher education institution and the healthcare sector make the newly qualified nurses’ learning and knowledge development more difficult. During the first year in the profession, the newly qualified nurses learn to be nurses, and they talk about themselves as nurses in a totally different way than at the start of that year. The changed way of talking about themselves indicates that they have recreated their identity from student nurses to nurses.