Challenges for Newly Credentialed Athletic Trainers During Their Transition to Practice

Key Points

• During their transition to practice, newly credentialed athletic trainers faced challenges in making decisions, developing confidence, role ambiguity, communication, and mentor accessibility.

• Employers should expect new employees to encounter challenges and assist by providing proper orientation and mentorship, especially during the first year of the transition.

• The challenges newly credentialed athletic trainers described were consistent with those experienced by other new health care providers, such as physicians and nurses.

The initial transition into clinical practice as a newly credentialed health care provider is a stressful time and has been referred to as the shock of clinical practice.^1,2 The shock and stress attributed to this transition process are often due to the assimilation into a new environment and the individual's expectations of that environment.³ For nurses, the first 6 to 9 months are their most vulnerable in regard to medical errors, job dissatisfaction, and work stress.⁴ Questions surrounding the readiness of the newly credentialed athletic trainer (AT) have attracted heightened interest in recent years.^5,6

Transitioning into practice is a dynamic process whereby a person undergoes a transformation, which results in the opportunity to redefine and develop one's identity and assimilate into a new role.³ During this time, health care providers have faced many challenges, including job stress, lack of knowledge and confidence, heavy workloads, too little support, inadequate time-management skills, inadequate critical thinking, and conflict.^7–10 Challenges in communication, time management, and the expectations of residency directors affected internal medicine interns.¹¹ The transition process for the AT often accompanies a period of uncertainty, and as such, the AT must overcome the attendant challenges and obstacles.¹²

The transition can be both exciting and challenging and must be examined¹³ so that we can determine the need for support and socialization into the role. However, very little is known about the challenges faced by newly credentialed ATs during this transition process. Presently, in the athletic training literature, authors have examined 1 specific practice setting, such as the secondary school¹⁴ or collegiate¹⁵ setting. Thus, our purpose was to gain a heterogeneous understanding of newly credentialed ATs' transition into practice. We wanted to understand the challenges they faced as they were acutely transitioning into their first full-time...