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.