NEW GRADUATE NURSES EXPERIENCE COMMUNICATING WITH RESIDENT PHYSICIANS: A QUALITATIVE STUDY

Abstract

Miscommunication between nurses and physicians is a contributor to a staggering number of sentinel events reported to the Joint Commission but remains a poorly understood dynamic in healthcare. A previous study completed by my faculty mentor addressed how residents view their exchanges with nurses, finding that the workload of the residents greatly affects how communication is shaped. This attempted to understand the perspective of new graduate nurses who are new to discovering how to communicate with resident physicians. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to understand how new graduate nurses experience communication with resident physicians. This study used a qualitative descriptive approach to understand the perspective of a new graduate nurse. Using an email campaign, we recruited nurses that graduated from the ECU College of Nursing in the past two years and were active in practice at the bedside. We conducted 8 interviews. Interviews were audio recorded and transcribed verbatim and analyzed using qualitative content analysis. Three major themes describing the new graduate nurses’ experience communicating with resident physicians were identified: Gaining Experience, Informal Communication, and Perceptions of Nurse Value. Understanding the components of communication between nurses and resident physicians, both positive and negative, provides insight into how it may be continually improved for future medical practice. Placing a greater emphasis on interprofessional communication within both nursing and medical programs would be beneficial once the students transitioned to the workforce.