Novice nurses’ successful transition to practice is impacted by their interactions with senior nurses. Ensuring that novice nurses are adequately supported during their transition to practice has wide-ranging and significant implications. The aim of this study is to explore the communication patterns between novice and senior nurses by applying an interaction analysis technique. Trimonthly onboarding evaluations between novice and senior nurses were recorded. The Roter Interaction Analysis System was adapted and deployed to identify communication patterns. In total, twenty-two interactions were analyzed. Senior nurses spoke more (64.5%). Task-focused exchange was predominant amongst senior (79.7%) and novice (59.5%) nurses. Senior nurses’ talk was concentrated in clusters of information-giving (45%) and advice or instructions (17.2%), while emotional expression (1.4%) and social talk (0.4%) were rare. Novice nurses’ talk was concentrated in clusters-information giving (57%) and positive talk (39.5%). The communication patterns between senior and novice nurses during the onboarding period indicate aspects of novice nurse transition that could be addressed, such as encouraging novice nurses to use these interactions to communicate more, or emphasizing the importance of social talk. These insights can be used to inform mentorship and preceptorship training to ensure that senior nurses are able to adequately support novice nurses through all parts of the transition to practice period.

Metaphorical expressions and conceptualisations are widely used in medical discourse to convey complex and abstract concepts. Our study uses a novel way to examine the spontaneous use of metaphors by emergency physicians as they articulate their experiences of practicing emergency care. These co-constructions shed light on the values and beliefs that shape their emergency care practice. We invited 25 Taiwanese emergency physicians to participate in one-to-one semi-structured interviews. Drawing on social constructionism theory, systematic metaphor analysis method and Metaphor Identification Procedure (MIP) we identified metaphorical linguistic expressions in their talk, grouping them into five-overarching conceptual metaphors. We argue that these metaphors underpin emergency physicians' experiences of practicing emergency medical care: Safety Net, Gateway, Market, War, and Sport. The Safety Net, Gateway, and Market conceptualisations highlight physician-patient relationships and the social mission, resource allocation, and consumerism aspects of emergency care practice. The Sport and War conceptualisations highlight the physician-physician relationship and the demanding, team-based nature of emergency care practice. We propose that the choice of metaphorical conceptualisation deployed by emergency physicians has implications on their embodiment of professional identities. This discussion of using metaphors to study professional identities contributes to the literature concerned with finding creative and innovative ways to research identities. Future studies may utilize metaphors to gain a comprehensive understanding of physicians' professional identities in other specialties.