describes an expert nurse as one who performs their job in a fluid, flexible, and highly proficient manner

describes an expert nurse as one who performs their job in a fluid, flexible, and highly proficient manner

As advanced practice nurses we have to have an understanding of how to be a leader. To be a leader takes many different types of skills. All of which we gain over time from learned experiences. Maintaining staff retention is a big problem in every nursing unit. Many nurses leave before they have had time to fully understand the area of expertise. Patricia Benner’s theory from novice to expert outlines the milestones we overcome throughout our nursing experiences. As we advance through our careers we develop more complex knowledge and application of nursing interventions as we care for patients in the same nursing specialty. Benner’s theory can be “applied to support the principles of nursing practice, education, evaluation, and professional development and leadership” (Mennella, 2016). During the time we will transition “from relying on abstract nursing principles to incorporating past nursing experiences that facilitate nursing actions” (Mennella, 2016). For example, how to take a blood pressure or how to insert an indwelling urinary catheter. These are first taught to us during our fundamentals class in nursing school. As we begin to advance through the five different stages we begin to take real life experiences and turn them into learning experience that will help to guide us in the directions of what is positive and negative in our nursing experiences. As an advanced practice nurse we will start at a lower level than we may have previously been. Reason being is that we are learning a whole new aspect of nursing. We are still nurses, but we have more responsibilities to take care of when it comes to managing a patient load and managing other nurses or aids who are caring for our patients. As we begin to gain experience and reach the expert level we will start to achieve more of a management role where we are the subject matter experts who can help to educate the nurses that are below us. The expert nurse is able to understand all situations and anticipate changes. Mennella describes an expert nurse as one who performs their job in a fluid, flexible, and highly proficient manner (2016).