Abstract
M.Cur. (Professional Nursing Science)
Career planning of learner nurses, has been identified as an important tool to improve the
retention of nurses in the health care system (Department of Health, 2008:12).
First year learner nurses leave the nursing profession because they experience dissatisfaction
in nursing as the career of choice. Miller and Marvin [ca 2008] state that career planning
leads to greater ownership of work roles, taking initiative, and ongoing professional
development. People involved in career planning are better collaborators, more likely to get
along with their co-workers and supervisors, and more likely stay in and add value to the
organization. Little has been done to improve career orientation of nurses, which has been
identified as an important tool to improve nursing in the health care system (Department of
Health, 2008:12).
After six months of training, first year learner nurses starts to leave the nursing profession
because they experience dissatisfaction in nursing as the career of choice. This problem is
assigned to a lack of career orientation at nursing training colleges. It was unclear how first
year learner nurses experience nursing as a career of choice, after having been exposed to the
academic environment and nursing practice setting for six months in nursing.
The central statement of the study was that learner nurses after entering nursing as a career of
choice could be orientated on career planning that requires a career plan with guidelines or
actions to be followed during their first year of nursing.
The purpose of this study was to explore and describe the lived experiences of first year
learner nurses on nursing as a career of choice with the intention of describing guidelines on
career planning for learner nurses at a nursing college in the Johannesburg Region.
Purposive sampling was used and all (52) first year learner nurses who have been in training
for more than six months at a nursing college were selected as a target population.
.Interviewing by means of narrative story writing, in-depth individual unstructured
questioning of the participants, focus group interviews was conducted until saturation of data
was achieved.