To bridge the practice gap between academic nurse training programs and workforce entry, hospital administrators have implemented nurse residency programs, designed to foster the experiential learning required for the development of new graduate nurse competency. These structured orientations to professional practice have varied in content design and delivery, resulting in inconsistent levels of new graduate nurse competency and inconsistent delivery of safe patient care. The purpose of this qualitative, multi-perspective, interpretive phenomenological analysis was to explore how a system-wide nurse residency program reconciled practice gaps related to medical surgical practice competencies. Purposeful, criterion-based sampling was used to recruit nurse educators, preceptors, and new graduate nurses from 14 hospitals within a single hospital system for semi-structured interviews regarding their perceptions on practice gap reconciliation during the nurse residency program. In vivo and focused coding methods were used to analyze responses individually, within, and between the role-based groups. Population themes were created to answer each research question related to the identification of learning needs, reconciliation of practice gaps and competency validation. The results revealed that practice gap reconciliation was hindered by the ineffective identification of learning needs, lack of individualized education targeted to those specific learning needs, and ineffective methods to verify competency and practice readiness. Additionally, preceptors were undervalued by allowing inexperienced and poorly trained nurses to assume the role. Lastly, there was a fragmented relationship between the new graduate nurses, preceptors, and educators, contributing to miscommunication, unclear expectations, and a lack of shared understanding of the nurse residency program related to each role. The results of this study contributed to a greater understanding of how new graduate nurses began independent practice with unreconciled practice gaps and where nurse residency programs should focus efforts for improved results. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com.bibliotheek.ehb.be/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]