General – Page 6 – JRM Nurse Consultants

February 02 2017

Looking up to a Nurse

Have you ever thought about a nurse that you have worked with and looked up to? What qualities do you admire? The nurse that I would look up to would be someone who would be respected and trusted by her peers and her staff.

In every organization there are communication barriers, but overcoming them is part of being professional and respectful of others’ opinion. Another barrier that is seen in management is the inability to show respect to other team members and allow a learning environment. I agree that it is important for leaders to obtain feedback not only from their staff but from their peers. The leader must be able to deal with the different personalities of the team that he/she is managing without letting personal feelings get in the way.

February 02 2017

A True Leader

A true leader places their staff before themselves and will work the job that their staff does so that they are familiar with it. When I first moved to Florida, my first boss here was named Patty and she said to me when I started that she is the supervisor but she said to me that she will do the same job that I do. She taught me that being a good manager means knowing what your staff’s job is and how to do it. The reason being is because if you have someone who is out sick and there is not coverage, you will be able to jump in and help. When thinking about Patty, she was a great leader because she encouraged me in the decision making process (Baer, 2012).

As a nurse I admire her because she followed Kouzes and Posner’s leadership model. This model focuses on setting a vision, being a role model and enabling people to grow.

kouzners-practice-model

This is similar to John Kotter’s process for leading change in this day and age.

References

Baer, J. (2012). Theories of leadership. Leadership in health care (2nd ed., pp. 45-69). [Vital Source Bookshelf]. Retrieved from https://campus.capella.edu/web/library/home

February 02 2017

Leadership Attributes

When a nurse leads by example and is not afraid to do the work that the staff does, it makes for a strong leader. The people who follow that leader will know that although the nurse is in a position of higher authority, the nurse will still be humble enough to do the job the staff does and be able to explain it from their side and understand the position that they are in. Knowing the staff’s job by example, allows the manager to know the timeliness of things that need to be accomplished and the ability of each worker’s caseload and what they can manage. A good leader will follow the seven attributes to being a good leader vision, courage, integrity, humility, strategic planning, focus and cooperation (Baer, 2012).

References

Baer, J. (2012). Theories of leadership. In Leadership in health care (2nd ed., pp. 45-69). [Vital Source Bookshelf]. Retrieved from https://campus.capella.edu/web/library/home

February 02 2017

Why is Leadership Important to Nursing

Nurses are not often recognized for their professional expertise. I know that when Florence Nightingale started the very first school of nursing her goal was to change how people viewed nurses by educating the nurses (DeNisco & Barker, 2013).

Leadership is important to nursing because without it, there is not going to be anyone to educate new nurses. The baby boomers are retiring and we will need new teachers that are prepared to teach new nursing students as well as students at the graduate level. Recent studies show that nurses that are prepared with their bachelor’s in nursing experienced less pressure ulcers, deep vein thrombosis and hospital acquired infections in their patients. It was noted that although an associate’s degree is less costly and provides the care needed to a patient; by the year 2020 the goals are 80% of nurses will have their BSN and doubling for nurses with their doctorate.

There are organizations that provide nurses of higher education grants to conduct research and be able to make difference. In order for these research projects to be done, it is required that the nurse be able to write a solid proposal request for the grant. This may require the skill of a grant writer, but the nurse must be knowledgeable in the project and what it entails in order to help the grant writer correctly write the grant to fund the project that the nurse wants to do (Laden, 2013).

In Orlando, we have the Florida Nurses Association. It is an organization that will support nurses from the student level through the advanced level. The organization is involved in many things especially any that are legislative where a nurse wants to make a difference. The Florida Nurse’s Association has subgroups called Special Interest Groups ( Sigs), these groups will benefit the members because they are formed to specialize in something that a particular group wants to see changed. For example there is a group called Nurse Entrepreneur Special Interest Group, this groups supports nurses that have an entrepreneur business that they want to start or have started. If there is a group that you want to start for a particular interest that you have and it is not a group already listed here, then after speaking with leadership in the group, if they approve it, then you could start it. The group is responsible for having ten members in it in order for the group to work. A master’s and beyond prepared nurse would be able to conduct research needed for any new programs that need to be implemented.

References

DeNisco, S. M., & Barker, A. M. (Eds.). (2013). The slow march to professional practice. Advanced Practice Nursing (2nd ed., pp. 6-17). [Vital Source Bookshelf].

Ladden, M. D. (2013). The Case for Academic Progression: Why Nurses Should Advance Their Education and the Strategies that Make this Feasible. Retrieved from http://www.rwjf.org/content/dam/farm/reports/issue_briefs/2013/rwjf407597

February 02 2017

Medication Error by Covering Nurse

I was recently speaking to a nurse about an incident that occurred at her hospital. A nurse that was changing shifts asked another nurse to do her discharge teaching and administer a medication for her as she was busy. This is a frequent thing that is seen amongst many different facilities. The covering nurse administered a medication to the patient and he had an adverse reaction to it, because it was the incorrect dose. It is a scary thought to think that this could happen to any of our families staying in a hospital or as a healthcare professional that it could happen to us.

In speaking with the nurse she proceeded to tell me that the nurse at her hospital was too busy to attend to her own patient to do the discharge planning. She could have taken the patient herself and done a proper discharge planning and allow the new nurse coming on to take care of another patient, but instead she gave the nurse coming on shift her discharge. I would hope that in this day and age a nurse would not administer a medication or explain a medication that she is not familiar with. In talking with the nurse, I felt that the covering nurse should have verified the medication if she had a doubt about it as that is her license on the line.

The covering nurse needed to be more information seeking and applying standards of care. Regardless if the other nurse was busy, it is up to the covering nurse if she accepted the assignment to fulfill it correctly. This means she needs to be able to follow the standards of care in that unit (Rubenfeld & Schaeffer, 2014).

References

Rubenfeld, M. G., & Scheffer, B. (2014). Critical Thinking Tactics for Nursing Achieving the IOM Competencies (3rd ed.). [P2BS-11]. http://dx.doi.org/

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Category Archives: General

Looking up to a Nurse

A True Leader

Leadership Attributes

Why is Leadership Important to Nursing

Medication Error by Covering Nurse