Scholarly nursing practice from the perspectives of early-career nurses

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.