Alumnus publishes survival guide on ward nursing

Newly qualified registered nurses now have a helping hand in their transition to practice journey, thanks to a new book, Transition from Student to Registered Nurse: A Guide to Help You Navigate Through Nursing Better.

Published last month, the book is written by Cai Junjie (BSc Nursing’15), a senior staff nurse from Ng Teng Fong General Hospital.

Mr Cai said that the book’s genesis was a guide he wrote when he returned to campus two years ago to facilitate a course transitioning final-year nursing students into practice. The guide, culled from his own experiences in a real-life clinical setting, was given out pro bono.

“I saw the students trying hard to grasp the intricacies of acute care in hospitals, hence I developed the guide to help ease their learning,” said Mr Cai.

When the manuscript was well-received by a few cohorts of nursing students, the course’s co-facilitator Associate Professor Liaw Sok Ying encouraged him to develop it into a book.

He was initially hesitant, thinking he was neither a good writer nor knowledgeable enough to publish a book. But his mind began to change when his colleagues and the nursing students he taught read his draft and had good reviews, giving him the confidence to work on it.

His experience as a newly registered nurse working in the hospital’s general ward also motivated him to write the book. “I often had to integrate bits and pieces of knowledge to get a clearer picture of what a nurse should know and be like in his or her practice,” he recalled.

“One of the reasons I wrote the book is there is none in the local context that compiles the skill sets and knowledge nursing students need to know to perform competently as a registered nurse,” he explained.

“Bible” for new nurses

He took two years to write the guide and even got doctors, fellow nurses and the full range of allied health professionals with whom an RN working in a ward would collaborate, to co-write it. NUS Nursing lecturer Wong Lai Fun was also co-opted to review the work. 

With sections contributed and vetted by a physiotherapist, occupational therapist, speech therapist, dietitian, podiatrist, pharmacist and medical social worker, the guide is an encapsulation of inter-professional education.

One of the reasons I wrote the book is there is none in the local context that compiles the skill sets and knowledge nursing students need to know to perform competently as a registered nurse.

The focus of the book is on the local tertiary and acute care setting – where clinical practice begins for most new nurses. “More than a ‘how-to’ guide, it discusses grey areas such as managing complex patient discharge/non-medical issues,” said Mr Cai. The book also emphasises the application of knowledge, he added. “For instance, students might have learnt assessment of fall risks; from the guide, they can pick up practical, translatable tips and rationale on how to prevent falls in the hospital.”

NUS Nursing has a track record of producing critically thinking nurses. The book will give these nurses a leg up in hitting the ground running after graduation, paving the way for patient advocacy and leadership, Mr Cai said.

“Nursing requires a lot of resilience. With a ‘bible’ to fall back on, our graduates’ experience transitioning into clinical practice can be less painful. This will allow everyone to make the cut during this stressful transition period,” he explained.

Recommended reading

What started as an altruistic project for Mr Cai, who no longer actively teaches the course, remained unmotivated by profit: the book was published using his savings, and without certainty of it becoming a required textbook for the module.

Since the book’s launch, however, the school has adopted it as recommended text, and many students have shown interest in purchasing it, he said.

Jarinda Ho, a final-year NUS Nursing student, said the book discusses the realities of clinical practice and can help graduating students like herself bridge the practice-theory gap.

“I found the book highly relatable and relevant. It doesn’t just lay out the steps for nursing procedures but also provides the rationale and pathophysiology behind them. The eye cannot see what the mind does not know, and this book will better prepare me to overcome the problems that may crop up during my initial transition,” she added.