I am a nursing student vs. I am a nurse

At a recent ‘get to know the wedding guests before the wedding’ party (top idea, by the way!), I got chatting to Sandra, a palliative care and community nurse.  We got on famously and spent a good part of the evening ranting about women’s health rights and the social determinants of health. It was amazing.  She sits on the recruitment panel for new grad nurses, and explained how when interviewing potential candidates, they always look for people who identify as nurses rather than recently-graduated nursing students.   

Our lecturers have been really consistent with their constant reminders that nursing is not what it used to be.  Nurses have increased decision-making capacity and responsibility and are no longer the handmaidens of doctors.  We’re also reminded frequently that we need to think of ourselves as nurses, not nursing students.  There’s that same message again. What is the difference? What does it matter?  Is it a confidence thing or perhaps the idea that as you think, so shall you become?  

As a first-year nursing student, I feel so inexperienced and unconfident.  The amount of knowledge I am expected to attain is massive and daunting, and it seems impossible that we’ve only got another two and half years to go. We get more clinical hours than most universities, but still not enough for me to feel confident and ready to startI often wonder whether the older system that my mother went through of studying while on the ward is better than the university training I’m getting.   Thankfully, most hospitals have new graduate nursing programs to support new nurses.   Given all this, it is sometimes difficult to see myself as a nurse, but I am getting better at it.  Today, parked at a computer in the library, the person next to me asked what my assignment was for.  I told her that it was nursing, and her response was “wow, so you are a nurse?”  “Yes, I am”, I said.  And it felt good.