A New Blog Series: 12 Steps to Becoming a Nurse Scientist

The raison d'être of nursing is caring that promotes health, prevents illness, and facilitates healing.  Nursing care can include not only following established evidence to support individuals, families, and communities across the lifespan but also creating the evidence that supports nursing care.   If you have ever wondered….

“Could I be the one to generate evidence that improves patient care?”

“Do I have what it takes to become a nurse scientist?”

“Am I smart enough? Brave enough? Have what it takes to generate evidence that guides how nurses fulfill their purpose—their raison d’être?” 

Spoiler alert: If you’re asking these questions then you have what it takes to be a nurse scientist.

This series will describe 12 steps or milestones to becoming a nurse scientist.  These steps will describe common steps to becoming a nurse scientist beginning with wondering “is this for me” to generating evidence that answers “why,” to mentoring others to generate evidence that provides the justification for nursing care. The brief descriptions of these 12 steps will inspire you to reflect on your motivation to improve nursing care and remind you that nursing science needs your unique perspective, skills and curiosity to improve the welfare of patients.

Are you ready to take the first step?

In nursing school, you learned that nursing practice is based on evidence. Some of the evidence that supports nursing practice is based on tradition (think about why nurses in the past performed daily bed baths for all patients or applied heat immediately following a soft tissue injury). Nurse scientists generate evidence through conducting research that provides the justification to continue or change nursing practice. For example, the study by Hua, et. al., (2015) generated evidence that ”Virtual reality distraction significantly relieves pain and anxiety during dressing changes and reduces the time length for dressing changes as compared to standard distraction methods among children 4-16 years of age.”*  

The first step to becoming a nursing scientist is your desire to improve patient care through being the person who generates the evidence to direct nursing care. This desire is commonly manifested as recognizing a problem with nursing care and wanting to find a solution. You may hear yourself asking “Why do we do it this way?” “There has got to be a better way” or “I wonder if patient care could be improved if we tried…?” If you’ve asked these or similar questions than you’ve achieved the first step to becoming a nurse scientist – Igniting the spark of curiosity and stoking the desire to improve patient care through research. 

*Hua, Y., Qiu, R., Yao, W.Y., Zhang, Q. and Chen, X.L., 2015. The effect of virtual reality distraction on pain relief during dressing changes in children with chronic wounds on lower limbs. Pain Management Nursing, 16(5), pp.685-691.

Becoming a nurse scientist, like becoming a nurse, involves a process of socialization into the role (Conway, 1992 in a seminal work). There are both formal and informal ways that this happens. The first formal way is knowledge acquisition through coursework. PhD programs in nursing, like most other fields, are not accredited as they are considered terminal degrees. Despite this, there are common sets of courses in theory and knowledge development, research methods, statistics, and often cognate courses (courses that are specific to the area of focus of the dissertation). For example, if one’s dissertation is focused on medically fragile children and their families, it would be expected that a cognate course may be a doctoral level sociology course on family.  

A second formal approach may be a series of required meetings or seminars that are focused on nursing science. In some cases, these may be presentations by nurse scientists on their programs of research or it may include small group discussion of important topics like the publication process. 

A third formal approach, which may or may not be required, would be involvement with a research team as a team member. Some schools of nursing require this while others do not. There are many benefits to this approach, particularly when it comes to how research projects are undertaken and the many nuances of the process. If you are considering a school that does not facilitate or require this, you may want to seek this kind of experience out as it is invaluable in your socialization into the role. 

Finally, you may want to undertake a post-doctoral program following completion of your PhD. Post-docs, as they are known informally, range from one to three years. Most provide a living stipend for living expenses but they may be lower than expected. For example, the NIH post-doc stipends start at $62,000 per year. The advantage of a post-doc is that the time is focused on expanding your research skills through additional training and support and that you have protected time for grant writing and manuscript preparation. Many of the highest research intensive schools of nursing require or at least strongly prefer new PhDs to have undertaken a post-doc. 

For the informal approaches, these are generally classified into mentoring, networking and exposure, in some way, to the professional role. Mentoring is invaluable as it may give you access to a network of other nurse scientists working in your specific focus area. In many cases, your assigned dissertation advisor provides this kind of mentoring but it is also in your best interest to seek additional mentoring. This additional mentoring can open doors for you in the future. A good choice in a non-advisor mentor may be someone who is in your same focus area of study, particularly if your advisor’s focus area of study is different than yours. 

Networking may be best done through the regional nursing research societies in the US: Eastern Nursing Research Society, Midwest Nursing Research Society, Southern Nursing Research Society and Western Institute of Nursing. The Council for the Advancement of Nursing Science is a national group that supports nurse scientists. Some other organizations may also be valuable depending on your research focus. For example, for nurses studying heart failure, the Heart Failure Society of Americamay be a good choice. Networking may give you access to nurse scientists who can act as mentors. 

Exposure may be the most vague informal approach but perhaps the most important. You want to learn the “habits of the mind” or to learn how to think like a nurse scientist. The best way to do this is to observe how nurse scientists work, the kind of work that they do, the kinds of things that they produce (e.g. grant proposals, funded research studies, publications, presentations, involve as grant and manuscript reviewers, and so on). By doing this with nurses in academic settings, you will also learn how nursing works in the higher education environment. For example, what are the ways to succeed with promotion to higher ranks and tenure? Additionally, each nurse scientist has a specific career trajectory that you may learn through your exposure to them. There is not one route to success as a nurse scientist.  

As you learn the habits of the mind, you will incorporate the professional norms of scientists in general and nurse scientists in particular, you will develop professional skills, and you will form the professional identity of a nurse scientist. Yes, this is similar to the role transition from a nursing student to a professional nurse. In other words, you have been through the socialization process before. 

Reference:

Conway, M. E. (1992). The optimal environment for socialization of the nurse-scientist. Nurse Educator, 17(3), 24-27. https://doi.org/10.1097/00006223-199205000-00013

Pursuing advanced nursing education is a deliberate commitment  you made to shape  the profession’s future. It is more than earning a degree—it is a pathway to discovering, generating, and applying evidence that advances nursing science, informs practice, and improves patient outcomes.  As you continue your journey, your growing knowledge base forms the foundation for building the competence needed to create meaningful contributions to nursing knowledge, science and practice.

Now that you’ve reached this milestone, consider what has unfolded along the way. The personal and professional growth you’ve experienced has positioned you to make substantive contributions to nursing science, patient outcomes, and health systems. While the journey to becoming a nurse scientist can be demanding, it is equally rewarding. The evidence you generate and the knowledge you share have a ripple effect that extends far beyond your own work—touching patients, healthcare teams, and communities.

In academic and leadership roles, your influence stretches even further. With advanced education comes the ability to shape guidelines, influence policy, and lead innovation that transform care delivery. Looking ahead, your preparation as a nurse scientist equips you to tackle persistent healthcare challenges through evidence, inquiry, and creative solutions. Through your continued advancement, nursing itself moves forward—grounded in science, guided by compassion, and committed to improving health for all.

 At this stage, you will need to conduct an honest self-assessment of the things you are good at, the things you need to improve and experiences you’ll need engage in in order to become a nurse scientist. An honest self-assessment is challenging for most of us because as Stephen King says “We lie best when we lie to ourselves.” Developing this skill of being objective or truthful in assessing your skills and areas for growth will benefit your future trajectory as a nurse scholar. All of us are endowed with skills we do well AND have areas in which we could improve. Honestly identifying these personal characteristics allows you to avoid a “blind spot for improvement” as well as not being too hard on yourself. Identify your strengths—clinical expertise, curiosity, persistence, or communication skills—that will serve you as assets in conducting research. Just as importantly, recognize areas for growth, such as needing experiences with various research methodologies, statistical expertise, or engaging in scholarly writing, and seek opportunities to strengthen these areas for growth through coursework, mentorship, or collaboration. Consider the experiences necessary for you to develop the skills you will need to achieve your goals. These experiences may include participating as a team member in conducting a research project, presenting scholarly work at a conference, coauthoring a manuscript or pursuing advanced education.

Becoming a nurse scientistinvolves blending clinical expertise, research skills and leadership qualities so your self-assessment needs to focus on your clinical competency, methodology and statistical skills, critical thinking, scholarly writing, and leadership capabilities. There are a variety of approaches to conducting a self-assessment of your strengths and opportunities for growth. How to conduct these self-assessment approaches is well documented in the literature and include creating an individual development plan[1], skills matrix/competency assessment[2], and 360-degree feedback/mentoring[3]. The outcome of any self-assessment you conduct will allow you to identify the next steps you need to take to becoming a nurse scientist based on what you do well, skills you need to develop and, most importantly, identifying the experiences you need to become a nurse scientist.

References

1. Thompson, H.J., et al., Use of individual development plans for nurse scientist training. Nursing outlook, 2020. 68(3): p. 284-292.

2. Rebholz, M.O.H., A review of methods to assess competency. Journal for Nurses in Professional Development, 2006. 22(5): p. 241-245.

3. Center for Creative Leadership. (2022, September 16). 360 Degree Feedback Best Practices: Linking Your Assessments to Your Talent & Business Strategies. https://www.ccl.org/articles/leading-effectively-articles/360-degree-assessment-feedback-best-practices-guidelines/

 Obtaining a PhD or doctoral research degree (e.g. DNS) involves changes in the way you think about the world, and these changes may cause feelings of fear, doubt, vulnerability, and anxiety. During your education for these terminal degrees, you begin to realize how little you actually know and how much of your current knowledge is based on tradition or what someone else told you is true. You may notice fears, doubts, or vulnerabilities creeping into your thinking. This may result in anxiety and self-doubts because you are questioning the accuracy of the knowledge you believed to be true. You may begin to consider how little of your knowledge is based on empiricism and is vulnerable to others asking “can you support your position with evidence?”  Early in my doctoral training I regularly received feedback to my written assignments that included “you need to support your position with evidence from the literature.” This feedback caused me anxiety because I interpreted this feedback as me not having the capacity to generate an original idea and every position I might take in the future had to be based on what someone else has already stated. It took me a while, and many paper revisions, to resolve this paradox and to begin thinking like a scientist. For example, I “knew” exercise improved health, but until I could support this proposition with evidence this statement was merely my opinion and susceptible to my peers, mentors and teachers responding with “can you show me the evidence for why you believe this to be true?”. This “socialization process” in doctoral school taught me how to think differently. During this critical step in becoming a scientist my peers, advisor and mentors were teaching me how to gain knowledge through scientific methods. I learned the literature is a rich resource for knowledge and I was developing the skills to evaluate if this knowledge was developed through sound scientific approaches. As well, I was learning how I could develop new knowledge using rigorous methodologies that I could contribute to the literature.  

Thus, the feelings of fear, doubt, vulnerability, and anxiety you experience as you begin thinking about the world differently during the process of becoming a scientist are expected. These emotions are not signs of inadequacy but markers of growth. You can mitigate them by acknowledging what you’re feeling and leaning on your peers, mentors, and teachers who understand the journey and can help you strengthen your ability to seek, evaluate, and generate evidence. Over time, this support, combined with your own growth as a scientist will transform your fear, doubt, vulnerability, and anxiety into confidence and in your capacity to be a scientist.

Limit thinking and actions that block your ability to pursue your goals such as perfectionism, people-pleasing, and academic insecurity.

The Cost of Perfection: Struggles of the Academic Nurse Scientist

Nurses are often known as high achievers—expert clinicians, leaders, and problem-solvers who “go the extra mile.” Many nurses pursue doctoral education and move into roles as faculty and nurse scientists, where they suddenly feel under a microscope. The feeling that every paper, lecture, slide deck, or grant must withstand relentless scrutiny can become paralyzing rather than productive, sometimes termed “paralysis through analysis”. This “pursuit of success” can, in reality, begin to limit your productivity. 

The most successful academics are not the ones who get everything right on the first try. The most successful are those who pursue ambitious goals, excellence, understand the limits of high achievement, and are willing to fail, revise, and try again. The alternative is getting stuck in perfectionism and never feeling like your work—or you—are ”good” enough.

When Excellence Slips into Perfectionism

Perfectionism is a pattern of thinking and behavior where your work is never “good enough,” no matter how much time you spend revising it. You endlessly tweak manuscripts, class preparations, course sites, and slide decks, convinced there is always one more improvement to make it flawless. Over time, the self‑talk of “this still isn’t good enough” shifts from being motivating to futile. When faced with limited resources, tight deadlines, and competing priorities, seek a trusted colleague or mentor to serve as a candid “truth teller” who can guide you toward success with high standards and not perfection or flawlessness.

Instead of fueling excellence, this self-talk of striving for perfection can become counterproductive manifesting as procrastination, avoidance, burnout, and self-doubt. As nurse leader and scholar Dr. Rose Sherman (2020) observed, perfectionism is “a weakness masquerading as a strength”(p.24) and, if left unchecked, it can derail academic careers. The need for perfection also crowds out curiosity, creativity, and the capacity to take the kinds of risks that genuine scholarship requires.

Learning to Set Strategic Boundaries

One of the hardest early‑career challenges is learning to set boundaries instead of saying “yes” to every request from others for advising, mentoring, committee work, task forces, new courses—the list is endless. Saying yes to everything is often fueled by perfectionism and the fear of missing out (FOMO) , to not disappoint others, and to been seen as a “team player.” 

Strategic boundaries are guided by the essential allocation of time and energy reserved for scholarship, rest, and personal well-being and cannot be routinely sacrificed without consequences. To define your essential priorities, start with two anchors: (1) the criteria for promotion and tenure or graduation (if relevant) and (2) your personal goals for contributing to nursing science and practice. Then, work with a trusted mentor to practice responses such as “no,” “not now,” or “yes, with limits” to requests for your involvement in activities that do not clearly contribute to achieving these two anchors. A successful academic career does not depend on being a perfect scholar, educator, or citizen, but on striving for excellence and meaningful impact.

Reframing Your Scientific Identity

A key insight is shifting to view your academic identity as “under development” rather than a “finished” product. None of us are finished products. Embracing ongoing growth removes the pressure to be flawless and makes room for learning, experimentation, taking calculated risks, and recovery from missteps. Feelings of uncertainty is  a normal part of growth.

Share your experiences with mentors and peers instead of hiding them. Let yourself laugh about the messy drafts, technology glitches, and classroom surprises. Humor re‑centers you on excellence instead of perfection, and connection reminds you that you are not alone in these struggles.

Choosing Joy Over “Perfect”

Making time for joy, meaning, and self‑reflection is not indulgent; it is protective. When you notice yourself drifting toward perfection, pause and ask: “Is this about excellence—or about needing to be perfect?” Sometimes, a small attitude adjustment is enough to reorient you to the long haul of an academic life, which is a marathon, not a sprint.

Your students, colleagues, and the discipline of nursing do not need you to be perfect. They need you to be present, thoughtful, and willing to keep growing. Let excellence and not perfection guide your “good enough and submitted,” “good enough and taught,” and “good enough and shared” be the norms that sustain your career—and your well‑being.

Sherman, R (2020), The Perils of Perfectionism. American Nurse Journal 15(3), 24.

 Recognize what you need and then accept the guidance and support of mentors, peers, and students to help you develop into an educator, researcher, and leader. You are going to struggle if you try to do it alone.

The essence of professional nursing is caring and caring is based upon building relationships to help one another. This essential component of nursing is, at times, in contrast to the competitive nature of higher education. For example, consider the competition for the limited number of seats in most nursing undergraduate and graduate programs based on standard test scores,  class ranking and GPA. These metrics recognize the individual and foster competition, not collaboration, among nursing students. Nursing students who are given group assignments to teach collaboration and team work commonly request a component of the grading be assigned to their individual contributions to the assignment. Students making this request do not fully recognize that a group assignment, in addition to clinical content, is teaching them other valuable skills that will contribute to their future personal and professional success. Group assignments teach the student diverse approaches to problem solving, peer learning, group dynamics and negotiation, which correlate with greater individual achievement, better retention, and more advanced reasoning than solo learning (Sujatha and Govindharaj 2025).

A pivotal moment in the journey toward becoming a nurse academician is recognizing that you need and will benefit from relying on the support and collaboration with mentors, faculty, and peers. No one is able to master the roles in academia of teaching, research, service, leadership, and often clinical practice in isolation. By identifying you need the support and collaboration of others in becoming a nursing scholar, you open the door to purposeful growth.

“He who looks outside, dreams; he who looks within, awakens.”  - C. Jung

Once you acknowledge you can’t “do it alone” in grad school the next step is accepting the guidance and support of mentors, faculty, and peers. These individuals can help you navigate unwritten rules of academia, refine your scholarly skills, and develop a clear trajectory for your career. This collaboration with others in grad school offers camaraderie and the perspective that the struggles you face are shared, common, and are not insurmountable. When you allow yourself to rely on others, you gain not only practical skills but a sense of community that will support you through the trials of graduate school. 

Trying to complete graduate school without the support of others often leads to burnout, isolation, deteriorating physical and mental health, and slow progress through the program (Pyhältö, Stubb et al. 2009, Schwarz Terra, Moraes et al. 2024). The essence of nursing, caring for one another, can be a critical component of academic, professional and personal success. By cultivating a support system of mentors, faculty and peers while in graduate school you will accelerate your growth to becoming an educator, researcher, and leader. The most successful nurse academicians are not the ones who never needed help, but the ones who recognized their needs early and seek the collaboration, wisdom, encouragement, and partnership of others.

Pyhältö, K., J. Stubb and K. Lonka (2009). "Developing scholarly communities as learning environments for doctoral students." International Journal for Academic Development 14(3): 221-232.

Schwarz Terra, M. E., C. P. d. Moraes, A. P. d. Souza and C. Santina Murgo (2024). "Correlations between academic burnout, coping and social support in college students." Psicología desde el Caribe 41(2): 2-2.

Sujatha, P. and P. Govindharaj (2025). "The role of group projects in enhancing soft skills." Humanities and Social Sciences Communications 12(1): 1-8.

   Identify and specify the ultimate goal of your science: how will your science positively impact nursing care and the health of who we care for?  These activities are  to constantly remind you why you are pursuing this journey toward being a successful academician.  

Playing the long game in becoming a nurse academician involves periodically revisiting the major goal for your science. The major goal of your science will likely evolve over your career and will cause a realignment of your  day-to-day work.   For some people, there is also the attraction of interesting opportunities that do not lead to the ultimate goal but are fun or intriguing.  The successful academic nurse is not tempted by the “shiny objects on the ground” but rather through thoughtful reflection in constructing a career road map that maintains a focus on a major goal.  This goal and road map may evolve over your career.  Without periodically reflecting on where your work is heading, it is easy to go in a direction that will not serve your ultimate goal. There are a number of resources that may help you with this reflection and (re)focus. 

Career cartography is one approach to developing your career road map. First developed for nurse scientists by Feetham and Doering1, the career cartography process consists of:  identifying a destination statement (where do you ultimately want to go), a visual career map, selection of a team to support you (e.g. mentors) and approaches to sharing your work. Examples of how the career cartography process is useful is described by Wilson and colleagues2 using case studies from four early career nurse scientists.

Another excellent initial resource is , The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People1.  The content of this text directs you to identify more precisely what you want to achieve with your science. For example, Habit 2, Begin with the End in Mind, suggests that you write a personal mission statement. As part of this, you identify where you want to take your work (note that it is not your work taking you somewhere) and the kind of scientist and person you want to be. The point is that without this road map, you may end up meandering from project to project or position to position without a clear focus. External forces (e.g. following the funding or a fun project) may tempt or distract you from where you want to focus your valuable time and efforts. With a roadmap, you know where you want to end up on the journey and a plan of activities to achieve this goal. 

The second resource that will help you operationalize the planned activities to achieve your goalis Getting Things Done.2  This text describes  a time management system that has a number of steps and processes that can be helpful in keeping your focus on your ultimate goal. One very helpful strategy is identifying, that for any goal , there is the next action to be taken or stated more humorously “A goal without an action plan is a hallucination.” These actions may be as small as sending one email to a potential collaborator or sourcing a citation needed for a manuscript. David Allen, the author of Getting Things Done contends that identifying the next action for any project reduces the flight of ideas and anxiety that many of us have with big projects. Using a well-known metaphor, you eat the elephant one bite at a time. There are other time management systems that are also effective. The point is that being organized and focused helps to reduce the chances that you will get off-track.

Finally, memorialize your ultimate goal in some way. It may be that you have a phrase that you post above your workspace. Or perhaps there is a photo or drawing that you can use to remind yourself of your ultimate goal. The human brain is designed to address the immediate; looking at the big picture requires a mind-shift to the existential and it is well worth the time and effort to do so.  

1Feetham, S., & Doering, J. J. (2015). Career cartography: A conceptualization of career development to advance health and policy. Journal of Nursing Scholarship, 47(1), 70–77. https://doi.org/10.1111/jnu.12103.

2 Wilson, D., Rosemberg, M., Visovatti, M., Munro-Kramer, M., & Feetham, S. (2017). Career cartography: From stories to science and scholarship. Journal of Nursing Scholarship, 49(3), 306–314. https://doi.org/10.1111/jnu.12289. 

3 Stephen R. Covey, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, 2020 (30th Anniversary Ed), Simon & Schuster and https://www.franklincovey.com/courses/the-7-habits/

4 David Allen, Getting Things Done. The art of stress-free productivity, 2015, Penguin Books and https://gettingthingsdone.com/

  Step 9: Expanding Your Skills as an Academician: Opportunities and Pitfalls

Becoming a successful nurse academician requires intentionally and strategically developing new skills while building on the skills you already have.  These new skills may include teaching, giving presentations, scholarly writing, generating evidence (research skills), leading and working within groups, mentorship, and university and professional service. Intentionally developing skills involves purposeful engagement in new and novel experiences that expand your competency as an academician. Through the strategic development of these skills, you will refine your abilities to align with the specific content areas where you seek to achieve excellence.

Acquiring new skills requires trying new things, taking risks or operating outside your comfort zone. For example, there is a first time that every academician has confronted teaching a class session, submitting a grant or manuscript for peer review, leading a group project or engaging in a mentoring relationship. Engaging in these behaviors for the first time may evoke discomfort that manifests as worry/obsession, self-doubt, fear, anxiety or a host of other negative emotions. These emotional responses do not indicate inadequacy and are to be expected when you’re acquiring a new skill. Growth comes through discomfort because when you’re attempting to grow, you’re trying something new that you’re not yet proficient in. Acquiring competence in a new skill implies trial and error leading to expertise.  The only way to become proficient at a skill is to constantly attempt the skill (practice) and with each attempt (consistent practice) you will become competent and then expert at performing the skill[1].  Thus, becoming proficient, competent and expert in any new skill is a process of taking risks and accepting that trial and error and repetition is part of the process. Discomfort is normal in navigating new skills. 

Being intentional and strategic when developing new skills involves seeking opportunities that align with your long-term academic goals. For example, if your goals include producing and disseminating new evidence, a critical skill you will need to develop is scholarly writing. Few people are born as an expert in scholarly writing. Rather this skill, like all technical skills can be acquired and mastered through practice. This practice at scholarly writing involves taking the risks of submitting your work for review and receiving critique, constructive feedback and at times pose challenges about what you’ve written. With practice you learn how to cope with the worry/obsession, self-doubt, fear and/or anxiety associated with taking the risk of submitting your work for review and the inevitable critique, negative feedback and criticism you will receive. With practice you will learn how to respond to this feedback and negative emotions and your scholarly writing will improve.

Learning to take risks to expand your skills as an academician is a process, lies on a continuum and occurs at different rates for different individuals. This process is incremental and may evoke negative emotions that individuals respond to differently. Some individuals are discouraged while other are motivated by these emotions. A successful academician understands and anticipates that acquiring a new skill will involve taking risks, initially not performing the skill with expertise and negative emotions.  All successful nurse academicians take risks in learning new skills that align with their goals and persevere through the negative emotions associated with initially not performing the skill proficiently. 

1. Ericsson, K.A., R.T. Krampe, and C. Tesch-Römer, The role of deliberate practice in the acquisition of expert performance.Psychological review, 1993. 100(3): p. 363.