title: Scholarly nursing practice from the perspectives of early-career nurses.
abstract: Although clinical scholarship is an espoused professional ideal, how nurses develop and maintain a scholarly approach to nursing practice throughout different stages of their careers is not well understood. This qualitative study describes early-career nurses' accounts of pursuing professional practice as a scholarly endeavor. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 18 early-career nurses purposively sampled from an ANCC Magnet-designated tertiary-care facility. The data were analyzed using content analysis. Findings center on four major themes. I Need Skills First and My Practice Evolves explain how early-career nurses conceptualized their practice in its initial stage. I Think I Know What It Looks Like and I Am Not There Yet reflect their assessment of how their current practice level in comparison with their understanding of scholarly nursing practice. Nursing needs requires a new scholarly practice development paradigm for a multistage career beginning with a concerted focus on the critical first stage of practice.
authors.affiliation: Emmanuel College, Boston, MA 02115, USA. riley@emmanuel.edu
authors.forename: Joan M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Riley
authors.forename: Judy A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Beal
mesh_terms: D000124:Achievement; D000328:Adult; D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D002322:Career Mobility; D015400:Clinical Nursing Research; D004506:Education, Nursing / Q000458:organization & administration*; D005069:Evaluation Studies as Topic; D005260:Female; D006040:Goals; D006801:Humans; D009511:New England; D009729:Nursing / Q000379:methods*; D009740:Nursing Staff / Q000523:psychology*; D011214:Practice, Psychological; D013338:Students, Nursing / Q000523:psychology*; D055815:Young Adult