Abstract:

Resilience is defined as the ability to overcome adversity and includes how one learns to overcome and derive meaning from the difficult experiences (McAllister & McKinnon, 2009). Many new nurses leave the nursing profession within the first two years on the job, creating a need for inquiry to find possible retention solutions for hospitals. Hudgins (2015) found that there are significant relationships between resilience, job satisfaction and anticipated turnover. Institutions are now examining ways to integrate resiliency training into their curricula to address this issue. This presentation introduces possible strategies of resilience implementation in the classroom order to supplement the nursing education and improve professional preparedness for students in the program at Western Carolina University. As many studies have found, the nursing professor’s guidance is a crucial factor in the process of professional nurse development (Thomas, 2016), therefore this presentation provides an efficacious model by which other nurse educators may encourage nursing students towards becoming professionals with high levels of resiliency.

Keywords:

Nursing, resiliency, education.