Question: Transitioning to Total Patient Care Most nursing students begin their clinical training by doing some form of functional nursing care and then advancing to total patient care for a small number of patients. Reflect back to your earliest clinical experiences as a student nurse. Which tasks were easiest for you to learn? How did you gain mastery of those tasks? Was task mastery a time-consuming process for you? Was it diffi cult to make the transition to total patient care? If so, why? What skills were most difficult for you to learn in providing total patient care? Do you anticipate having to learn additional skills to feel comfortable in the role of total care provider as an RN? What higher level (nonfunctional) skills do you think will be the hardest to learn and be confident with?