Fear and excitement mark the transition to autonomous, registered nurse

The transition from student nurse to staff nurse has been filled with emotions that have been both exciting and challenging.

First, there is the thrill of being signed off as a registered adult nurse and preparing all the documentation I needed for a job interview. Then there is making the application to the nurses' registration board and the challenges that come with starting any job.

Although this was a very productive period, there was an element of fear, which also played a big part in the transition from nursing student to fully fledged professional. As a newly qualified nurse, I was full of apprehension and self-doubt.

Before starting my management placement at the critical care unit, I set myself targets that I considered to be reasonable and that I hoped would ease the sense of self-doubt I'd been feeling in the run-up to qualifying.

These targets included being involved in a handover of a patient in my care, the delegation of tasks and being able to manage a patient load with confidence. My mentor and I allocated time to discuss these targets and ways that they could be improved by, for example, devising a format for handovers that allowed space to consider a patient's past, present and future care, providing an opportunity for a comprehensive discussion about a patient's past medical history, diagnosis, further investigations, current condition and future aims.