Vejen ind i hospitalet

This project contains a study of how special courses offered by employers for newly educated Bachelor of Nursing graduates in their first nursing job influence their learning environment. Our focus is on the possibilities and limitations for their learning.
Our study is based on different sorts of empirical material. The empirical material contains publications, laws and declarations and empirical material we produced ourselves in the form of a focus group interview.
We have chosen three theories in this project to base our analysis on. We have used Jørgensen and Warring’s model for learning in working life to systematise our analysis, the theories of situated learning by Lave & Wenger and the theory of the development of the public sector by Kathrin Hjort to qualify our analysis.
From our studies we conclude that newly educated nurses find it extremely hard to function in their first nursing job. Their education hasn’t prepared them for their professional career. They describe their meetings with their new work as a culture shock. The working conditions make it necessary for the newly educated nurses to distance themselves from the working communities. This influences their possibilities of adapting a professional identity. This again makes it more difficult to get accepted in the communities of practice. The newly educated nurses find in their participation in the special course an opportunity to enter a community of practice, which may help them construct a professional identity. In this community of practice there are only newcomers, and the success of transferring the newfound identity to their normal nursing job is up to the individual nurse.