Welcome to the personal website of:

Why focus on new graduate nurses:

New graduate nurses represent the future of the profession and thus are a precious resource in today’s nursing workforce shortage. Effort must be made to ensure that new graduates work in supportive environments that encourage their professional growth, career satisfaction, and personal wellbeing.

Findings from recent studies with new graduate nurses:

• 57% turnover rate after first 2 years of practice1
• 33% report experiences of bullying 2
• 34% report exposure to distressing verbal conflict that included statements that were rude, abusive, humiliating or unjustly critical in their first year after registration3
• 34% report that those conflicts had caused them to consider leaving nursing3
• 49% qualify as extremely burned out2
• 21% qualify as extremely cynical2

Research Focus:

Heather’s research program explores the following factors with new graduate nurses:

• Structural Empowerment
• Professional Practice Environment
• Workplace Incivility
• Workplace Bullying
• Burnout
• Engagement
• Physical and Mental Health
• Turnover Intentions

1 Bowles, C., & Candela, L. (2005). First job experiences of recent RN graduates: Improving the work environment. Journal of Nursing Administration, 35(3), 130-137.

2 Laschinger, H. K. S., Grau, A. L., Finegan, J., & Wilk, P. (2010).  New graduate nurses’ experiences of bullying and burnout in hospital settings.  Journal of Advanced Nursing. Advance online publication. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2648.2010.05420.x

3 McKenna, B. G., Smith, N. A., Poole, S. J., & Coverdale, J. H. (2003). Horizontal violence: Experiences of registered nurses in their first year of practice. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 42(1), 90-96.