The role of physical design and informal communication

3.2 Graduate Nurse’s Familiarity with 6N
A focused interview revealed that the GN had worked on the unit as a nursing
assistant for a year and a half prior to being hired after graduating from nursing
school. This experience meant that the GN began orientation being very familiar with
the staff, procedures, and culture of 6N. However, while there was certainly an
advantage to this familiarity, there was also a down side to having previously worked
on the unit as a nursing assistant. When she entered the unit in the new role of
registered nurse, some of the staff assumed that she already knew everything because
she had worked on the unit before. This was difficult for her because the
responsibilities of RNs are much different than the responsibilities of NAs.
Consequently there was still a large knowledge gap that she had to bridge, and it
seemed as though the staff sometimes overlooked this fact.
This difficulty may have been reflected in the GN’s assessment of the unit in
the culture section of the survey. The survey was administered at week 2 and week 8
of orientation to test if the GN’s perception of the unit changed over time. The
combined mean of T1 and T2 was somewhat lower at 4.50 than the staff mean of 5.0
(Figure 18). This lower score may be a reflection of the GN’s difficult experience
trying to fulfill the sometimes unrealistic expectations of staff who assumed she knew
more than she actually did. Based on the T1 and T2 means, 4.27 and 4.73
respectively, it seemed as though her perception of the unit culture grew slightly more
positive over time.
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