There is firm evidence that the USA amidst a nursing shortage. Much is known about the many contributing factors but now nurses need to become proactive to help secure the future of their workforce. By forming partnerships within the profession and with other influential parties, nurses can be in the forefront of resolving their workforce issues.

Experiential learning in nursing programs includes role-play, simulation, and live clinical experiences. Anxiety levels can heighten during experiential learning as students attempt to gain psychomotor skills and transfer knowledge into critical thinking. Nursing students may experience anxiety that can interfere with learning and critical thinking. However, the presence of student anxiety can be used to initiate a purposeful caring transaction between nursing faculty and student. The caring transaction is a way for faculty to model both caring and presence, create experiential learning of caring by students, and lead students to initiate self-care interventions to manage anxiety through the nursing program and beyond. Multiple learning outcomes can be achieved as the students integrate faculty-modeled concepts of caring and presence into simulated or real clinical situations, reduce or manage their anxiety, and improve their clinical judgment and critical thinking skills.

Test anxiety is a phenomenon that can affect as many as 40% of students. Many nursing students are under great stress from long hours of study, a rigorous curriculum, and balancing work and family life. These stressors can lead to anxiety in many areas of the student's life, most notably in situations where he or she is being evaluated. This article will aim to discuss how the use of guided reflection can help the student actualize his or her feelings about test anxiety by using Johns's Model for Structured Reflection. By using cues from the model and structure provided by a guide, the student will partake in a journey to gain insight about oneself and discover ways to decrease test anxiety that can be incorporated into the student's holistic self-care plan.