Becoming a Nurse: A Selective View

Abstract

The young woman who enters a school of nursing is not only exposed to planned educational experiences but also to informal reality factors which profoundly shape her development. A shift from ego to role emphasis can be ex pected in the context of round-the-clock concern with profes sional conduct. The development of defensive mechanisms is stimulated by the stress of concurrent exposure to classroom and practice. Rapidly imposed adulthood, the reality of the human body, the modification of privacy and modesty seem to hit harder than the more dramatic but expected experiences with death. Caution, also, is learned when childhood dreams give way to patients' actual responses to nursing care and when the novice experiences the conflicts and stresses within the social organization of patient care. The development of a single-sex, quasi-isolated, close-knit student community adds to the role self-consciousness. The young woman entering nurs ing is a person desirous of being with people and of helping people but is also anxious to avoid blame and failure-producing situations. She seeks safe and controlled conditions within which to be with people. The effect of the total experience may be at variance with the objectives of the school and the profession. Consideration should be given to the character istics of the novice, the social context of the learning process, and the trends and aims of the profession.