Realizations of a New Nurse #1: I Am Now the Educator

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By Kinsey Morgan, RN. Kinsey is a new nurse who lives in Texas and currently works in the ICU in which she formerly spent three years as a CNA.

In nursing school, there is a growing push to educate future nurses on the amazing breadth of roles within the nursing profession. As a student, you are in some way exposed to the role of nurse as leader, advocate, healer, educator, team player, and researcher. Even this list is not exhaustive. These roles are certainly vital and important and worth teaching about in school.

As a brand new nurse, I haven’t personally encountered all of these roles yet, but there is one in particular that I encounter—and embody—every day: that of educator.

One of the most humbling realizations I’ve had since recently becoming a nurse is that I am now the educator. I’m glad to know that there are other nurses around me, as well as many resources from which to glean knowledge, but I am daily faced with the fact that people now look to me for answers. There are times when I feel outside myself, for while I give correct answers, hearing myself giving them is a little surreal. I’m sure these feelings subside with time, but I hope that I always remain somewhat in awe of the amount of trust my title elicits.

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2016-11-21T13:11:31-05:00November 7th, 2011|career, nursing perspective, students|4 Comments
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Staff Nurses at the Center: Joyce C. Clifford’s Still Radical Notion

By Katheren Koehn, MA, RN, who is a member of the AJN editorial board

It was with great regret that I read of the passing of Joyce C. Clifford last week. She was a nurse whose career as a nurse administrator and leader was spent empowering nurses, from the bedside to the boardroom. Much has been written since her passing about her nursing leadership at the administrative level. I would like to take some time to recognize her as a nurse leader who empowered nurses at the bedside.

I first learned of the work of Joyce C. Clifford from a staff nurse who’d moved from Boston to Minneapolis in the late 1980s. The entire time this nurse and I worked together she was in mourning for the hospital and job she’d left behind in Boston. Almost every day she talked about how wonderful Beth Israel was and how great it had been to be a staff nurse there. She talked about primary nursing, nurse autonomy, and interdisciplinary respect. At the time, none of these terms were familiar to me, but I knew she was telling me that “my” hospital, where she now worked, could never measure up to the fabulous BI.

I next learned of the work of Dr. Clifford through the book Code Green: Money-Driven Hospitals and the […]

2016-11-21T13:11:32-05:00November 4th, 2011|career, nursing perspective|7 Comments
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In Defense of On-the-Job Learning in the ICU

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By Marcy Phipps, RN, who is a regular contributor to this blog. She emphasizes that the identity of the impatient practitioner described in this post has been altered in significant ways to prevent any chance of recognition.

“This is why new nurses have no place in critical care!” said the trauma physician. “I’m sure she’s a fine nurse, but she should be getting experience with these situations on the floor!”

The issue of whether new nurses should work in critical care comes up from time to time. It seems to polarize people, and it always touches a nerve with me. I was hired directly into the ICU upon passing the boards, as were many of the nurses I work with. My hospital offers a program to new graduates that includes training and education specific to critical care and an extended clinical experience with a preceptor. Admittedly, there is a steep learning curve, but I wouldn’t consider it unsafe—and comments that suggest the contrary irritate me, because they undermine new nurses and foster negativity.

This patient probably would have pulled his PEG tube out no matter how experienced his nurse was, and I’m not sure the step-down floor would have been a “better” place for a new nurse to manage that situation. The patient acuity is lower on the floor, but there are also fewer nurses around to help out, and a […]

2016-11-21T13:11:33-05:00November 2nd, 2011|career, Nursing|6 Comments
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Views expressed on the blog are solely those of the authors or persons quoted. They do not necessarily reflect AJN’s views or those of Wolters Kluwer Health/Lippincott Williams and Wilkins.
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