Lisa Beccaria

Background: Preparing midwifery graduates to be confident, competent, and resilient is essential for workforce sustainability, yet students report a disconnect between academic preparation and clinical realities. Increasing care complexity, workforce shortages, and variable clinical learning environments globally highlight the need to examine how educational strategies support effective transition to practice. Objective: To map and synthesise the evidence regarding educational approaches, learning experiences, and transition-to-practice factors that influence preparedness for professional practice among midwifery students, and to identify gaps in the existing literature to inform a coherent and future-ready educational framework. Methods: A PRISMA-ScR-guided scoping review was conducted across seven databases. Data were extracted through a standardised template and analysed using narrative synthesis. Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed-method studies were examined for learning approaches, practice conditions, and transition experiences. Results: Three overarching domains and seven sub-domains were identified. Reflective practice, blended learning, simulation, and collaborative approaches were widely valued but inconsistently implemented. Students frequently experienced transition shock, limited scaffolding of higher-order thinking, variable supervision, with misalignment between curricula, competency frameworks, and clinical expectations, leading to uneven confidence and skill development. Educator capacity constraints particularly in feedback, reflection, and simulation pedagogy were recurrent barriers. Positive clinical environments and structured reflective opportunities consistently strengthened competence, identity formation, and readiness. Conclusion: Midwifery education is evolving towards contemporary, competency-based pedagogies, yet persistent inconsistencies undermine the reliability of graduate preparation. Strengthening curriculum coherence, standardising key learning experiences, investing in educator capability, and embedding structured reflection and simulation are essential. A unified educational framework that integrates these components is required to enable confident, adaptable, and practice-ready midwives.

Background: Healthcare is a dynamic environment for nurses, with early career nurses (ECNs) needing to adapt and learn while also meeting care demands. Effective support systems, mentorship, and continuous professional development are vital in facilitating their transition while navigating competing demands. The aim of this study is to interpret and understand the meaning of ECNs’ professional experiences four years after completing their bachelor’s degree in Australia. Method: A qualitative descriptive design using a hermeneutic phenomenological approach was used as part of a longitudinal study. Follow-up semi-structured interviews were conducted among twenty-five ECNs between 2022 and 2024 using purposive sampling to recruit ECNs who had graduated four years ago. Thematic analysis was used to analyse data while adhering to the consolidated criteria for reporting qualitative research (COREQ) guidelines. Results: Four themes emerged among participants, which encompassed professional growth and unwavering commitment, ongoing professional adaptability, feeling stuck with limited choices, and continual learning amid career challenges and personal life demands. Conclusions: Change is needed to ensure professional learning becomes a shared responsibility among policy makers and healthcare leaders and to ensure that professional learning leads to more nurses taking up further study, thus increasing the safety and quality of care delivered in the healthcare environment.

Aim: This study explores emergency nurses’ lived experiences of cognitive mental workload (CMW) within high‐pressure, resource‐limited environments, where excessive mental demands may compromise both clinician well‐being and care delivery. Method: An exploratory qualitative research design was used with registered nurses ( n = 10) working in Australian rural emergency departments. Online semistructured interviews were conducted in 2023. The collected data were analysed using reflective thematic analysis. Results: The data analysis revealed four primary contributors of high CMW among nurses during care delivery, namely, external demands, excessive cognitive processing, emotional demands and individual characteristics. Despite challenges in describing the phenomenon, participants clearly associated their high CMW to adverse patient outcomes like patient harm and near misses as well as negative impacts on their own welfare, such as burnout, compassion fatigue and intention to leave profession. Conclusion: This study offers new perspectives on emergency nurses’ CMW experiences, foregrounding their lived experience in high pressure, emotionally charged and dynamic clinical settings. By giving voices to the often overlooked phenomenon in nursing, it has revealed the critical impact of the health professional’s CMW on their well‐being, patient safety and care quality. Implications for the Profession and Patient Care: In depth knowledge about the phenomenon can inform tailored measurement tools and targeted strategies for nurses, to reduce errors and enhance care delivery. Impact: Policymakers can integrate the insights to strengthen healthcare infrastructure and policies that reduce error‐related patient harm and support nurse well‐being for reducing resource and financial expenditure.

Aim: Emergency nurses work in an environment of high cognitive mental workload. Excessive cognitive mental workload may result in patient harm and nurses' burnout. Therefore, it is necessary to understand nurses' subjective experience of cognitive workload. This scoping review aimed to curate literature about the subjective experience of cognitive mental workload reported by nurses and psychometric measures of the phenomenon.Design: The scoping review was conducted in accordance with JBI methodology and reported using PRISMA extension for scoping review checklist.Methods: A priori protocol was created with Peer Review of Electronic Search Strategies checklist and registered in the OSF registry. Databases including PubMed, CINAHL, ProQuest, Scopus, Science Direct, Web of Science and Google Scholar were searched. Published reports were reviewed against the eligibility criteria by performing Title and Abstract screening, followed by Full‐text screening. The initial search yielded 1373 studies. Of these, 57 studies met the criteria for inclusion in this study.Results: The search revealed five general measures of cognitive mental workload and their variations. Only one customised measure specifically for medical–surgical nurses was found in the study. Identified measures were collated and categorised into a framework for conceptual clarity. NASA Task Load Index and its variations were the most popular subjective measure of cognitive mental workload in nursing. However, no measure or self‐report scale customised for emergency nurses was identified.Patient or Public Contribution: The findings of this scoping review can inform future research into the cognitive mental workload of nurses. The findings have implications for workplace health and safety for nurses and patients.

Introduction: Personal, community, and environmental factors can influence the attraction and retention of regional, rural, and remote health workers. However, the concept of place attachment needs further attention as a factor affecting the sustainability of the rural health workforce.Objective: The purpose of this rapid review was to explore the influence of a sense of place in attracting and retaining health professionals in rural and remote areas.Design: A systematic rapid review was conducted based on an empirical model using four dimensions: place dependence, place identity, social bonding and nature bonding. English‐language publications between 2011 and 2021 were sought from academic databases, including studies relevant to Australian health professionals.Findings: A total of 348 articles were screened and 52 included in the review. Place attachment factors varied across disciplines and included (a) intrinsic place‐based personal factors; (b) learning experiences enhancing self‐efficacy and rural health work interest; (c) relational, social and community integration; and (d) connection to place with lifestyle aspirations.Discussion: This rapid review provides insight into the role of relational connections in building a health workforce and suggests that community factors are important in building attachment through social bonding and place identity. Results indicate that future health workforce research should focus on career decision‐making and psychological appraisals including place attachment.Conclusion: An attachment to place might develop through placement experiences or from a strong rural upbringing. The importance of the relational interactions within a work community and the broader community is seen as an important factor in attracting, recruiting, and sustaining a rural health workforce.