The first year as a staff nurse: the experiences of a first cohort of Project 2000 nurses in a demonstration district

This paper describes the experiences of eight staff nurses who were students in the first cohort of a Project 2000 course in a pilot district during their post-qualification year. A qualitative approach, informed by phenomenological methodology, was adopted in order to present these experiences alongside the meaning attributed to them by the nurses. Taped, focused group discussions, using semi-structured interviews, were analysed. This yielded five themes which describe the structure of these experiences from "coming out of school' through to the acknowledgement and confidence in themselves as a different kind of nurse to those trained on previous traditional courses. The findings suggest that the vision of the United Kingdom Central Council in proposing Project 2000 courses is likely to be realized. These nurses had gained the competent technical and clinical skills expected of any nurse. However, they also displayed skills previously absent in newly-qualified nurses, such as evidence of analytical decision-making and confident interpersonal skills, which are likely to enable them to take an equal place amongst other members of the multi-professional team in the future. Although competent practitioners, the process they had undergone to reach this had, at times, been traumatic. The implications arising from the study are that more attention needs to be paid to the personal and professional development needs of Project 2000 nurses, both at the end of the course and in their first post-qualifying year.