Patricia Benner (From Novice to Expert)

– Born in Hampton, Virginia, and spent her childhood in California

– Received her Bachelor’s Degree in Nursing from Pasadena College in 1964
– Master’s Degree in Medical Surgical Nursing from the University of
California, San Francisco, in 1970 and her Ph.D. from University of
California, Berkeley
– Associate Professor in 1989 in the Department of Physiological Nursing in
the School of Nursing at the University of California, SF, then became a
professor
– 2002, Professor at the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences at
UCSF
– First occupant of the Thelma Shobe Cook Endowed Chair in Ethics and
Spirituality

 Views on the Metaparadigm

 PERSON
– “a self-interpreting being, that is, the person does not come into the world
predefined but gets defined in the course of living a life. A person also has…
an effortless and non- reflective understanding of the self in the world. The
person is viewed as a participant in common meanings.” (Tomey, 2002)
– Significant aspects that make up a person:
– 1. The role of the situation
– 2. The role of the body
– 3. The role of personal concerns
– 4. The role of temporality

 HEALTH
– Focused “on the lived experience of being healthy and ill”
– Defined health as what can be assessed, while well-being is the human
experience of health or wholeness.
– Described as not just the absence of disease and illness

 ENVIRONMENT
– “Situation”, because it suggests a social environment with social definition
and meaning.

 Skills Acquisition in Nursing: From Novice to Expert

 NOVICE
- Has no background experience of the situation in which he or she is involved
- Has difficulty discriminating between relevant and irrelevant aspects of a
situation.
- This is the level in which students belong.
- However, Benner proposed nurses at higher levels can be classified as a
Novice if they placed in an unfamiliar situation.

 ADVANCE BEGINNER
- Has a sufficient experience to easily understand aspects of the situation
- Can demonstrate marginally acceptable performance
- Guided by rules and oriented by task completion
- Eg. Newly graduated nurses

 COMPETENT
- Competent performance considers consistency, predictability, and time
management as essential components.
- A sense of mastery is acquired through planning and predictability.
- An increase level of efficiency is evident

 PROFICIENT
- The performer in this stage perceives the situation as a whole
- Is a qualitative leap beyond the competent
- The performer identifies the most significant aspects and has a better
understanding of the situation based on background understanding.

 EXPERT
- When the expert performer no longer relies on analytical principle like rules,
guidelines
- Viewed an Expert nurse as possessing an intuitive grasp of the problem
without losing time considering a range of alternative diagnosis and
solutions.