Leadership and Role of the Advanced Practice Nurse

Chamberlain College of Nursing NR510 Leadership and Role of the Advanced Practice Nurse

Guidelines for Advanced Practice Nursing

Role Self-Assessment Using Benner’s Novice to Expert Model

Stage 1: Novice	The Novice or beginner has no experience in the situations in which they are expected to perform. The Novice lacks confidence to demonstrate safe practice and requires continual verbal and physical cues. Practice is within a prolonged time period and he/she is unable to use discretionary judgment.
Stage 2: Advanced Beginner	Advanced Beginners demonstrate marginally acceptable performance because the nurse has had prior experience in actual situations. He/she is efficient and skillful in parts of the practice area, requiring occasional supportive cues. May/may not be within a delayed time period. Knowledge is developing.
Stage 3: Competent	Competence is demonstrated by the nurse who has been on the job in the same or similar situations for two or three years. The nurse is able to demonstrate efficiency, is coordinated and has confidence in his/her actions. For the Competent nurse, a plan establishes a perspective, and the plan is based on considerable conscious, abstract, analytic contemplation of the problem. The conscious, deliberate planning that is characteristic of this skill level helps achieve efficiency and organization. Care is completed within a suitable time frame without supporting cues.
Stage 4: Proficient	The Proficient nurse perceives situations as wholes rather than in terms of chopped up parts or aspects. Proficient nurses understand a situation as a whole because they perceive its meaning in terms of long-term goals. The Proficient nurse learns from experience what typical events to expect in a given situation and how plans need to be modified in response to these events. The Proficient nurse can now recognize when the expected normal picture does not materialize. This holistic understanding improves the Proficient nurse’s decision making; it becomes less labored because the nurse now has a perspective on which of the many existing attributes and aspects in the present situation are the important ones.
Stage 5: The Expert	The Expert nurse has an intuitive grasp of each situation and zeroes in on the accurate region of the problem without wasteful consideration of a large range of unfruitful, alternative diagnoses and solutions. The Expert operates from a deep understanding of the total situation. His/her performance becomes fluid and flexible and highly proficient. Highly skilled analytic ability is necessary for those situations with which the nurse has had no previous experience.

Source: Benner, P. (2001). From Novice to Expert: Excellence and power in clinical nursing practice.

Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall Health.

Instructions: The levels of Benner’s Model reflect movement from reliance on past abstract principles to the concrete experience. An individual’s perception of situations change as experience is gained. To help better understand your perspective on your new role, complete the following self-assessment. Refer to the model to guide your perception.

1. What areas of your career do you most want to focus and further develop?

2. What do you look forward to most about your new role?

3. What do you fear the most about your new job?

4. What do you most hope to gain from your new experience?

5. Adapting to a new position/work setting is stressful and overwhelming. List three ways in which you cope with excessive stress.

6. What are your goals and objectives for your first, second, and third months in your new position as well as the remainder of your first year?