Strong Nursing Management Empowers the Why

“Our managers are effective leaders because they care for us, which empowers us to care for others, and for this we are indescribably grateful.”

I recently had the opportunity to speak at the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses (AACN) UCLA Chapter 2018 Leadership Symposium, which centered around AACN’s current theme, “Guided by Why.” Along with AACN president Christine Schulman, other nurses and I explored the importance of staying connected to our “Why” in the midst of considerable challenges in and to our profession.

I found myself considering not only my original answer to “Why do I want to become a nurse?” but also “Why do I stay in nursing?” I found that a significant part of my answer to the second question has to do with the managers I am privileged to work under. It is their strong management that continually fuels my underlying “Why.”

Genuine care for staff well-being.

Our managers demonstrate to us time and again that they see and value us as people, not just cogs in a wheel that needs to keep turning at all costs.

Self-scheduling allows for flexibility. In our unit, we have self-scheduling: all nurses determine their own shifts, so long as every shift is staffed with the minimum required number of nurses and everyone […]

2018-03-05T08:23:27-05:00March 5th, 2018|Nursing, nursing career|1 Comment
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Will Millennials Stave Off a Threatened Nursing Shortage? Hard to Say

Photo © Cultura Creative (RF) / Alamy Stock Photo.

The aging of the baby boom generation means that a large proportion of the U.S. population will soon be living with health conditions that may require complex care. At the same time, it’s estimated that a million nurses will retire by 2030, resulting in an enormous loss of experience and knowledge, not to mention the possibility of a national nursing shortage.

Millennials to the rescue? It’s complicated.

Can millennial nurses help mitigate the effects of this workforce shift? As discussed in our February AJN Reports, “Nurses Pass the Baton: Exit Baby Boomers, Enter Millennials,” millennials (born between 1982 and 2000) are becoming nurses in larger numbers than any generation before them. In fact, the nursing workforce is expected to grow by 36% between 2015 and 2030.

Why this surge of millennials? Commentators have speculated that those who reached adulthood during the recent recession may be drawn to the relative job security of the nursing profession, or that […]

2018-02-16T08:42:08-05:00February 16th, 2018|career, Nursing, nursing career|0 Comments
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There from the Start: A Hospice Nurse Looks Back

A painting of Dianne Puzycki, RN, hangs in Connecticut Hospice in New Haven.

At age 82, Dianne Puzycki has yet to retire from nursing—she still works the night shift once a week at Connecticut Hospice in Branford, where she’s been employed since the organization’s inception in the 1970s. Founded by Florence Wald, it was the first hospice in the United States.

Puzycki started her career in 1955 at Memorial Hospital in New York City, caring for patients with cancer at a time when death and dying wasn’t openly discussed. “We weren’t allowed to talk about that. It really haunted me for years,” she told AJN in a July profile. Several years later, she encountered two influential women: Dame Cicely Saunders, who founded the first modern hospice, and Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, who introduced the concept of the five stages of grief in her groundbreaking 1969 book On Death and Dying. Seeing them speak piqued her interest in the hospice movement, and she began volunteering for Connecticut Hospice, which eventually led to a full-time job.

Throughout the decades, says Puzycki, she’s witnessed hospice care constantly change and improve. She recalls that in the past, more patients used to stay […]

2017-07-26T09:35:44-04:00July 26th, 2017|Nursing, nursing career|1 Comment
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Establishing the Evidence for Clinical Ladder Programs

Nursing Advancement Before the Clinical Ladder

When I took my first job as a hospital staff nurse, pretty much the only path to advancement in the clinical setting was moving into an administrative position. Nurses moved up by becoming nurse managers, then supervisors, and eventually nursing directors. It was considered unusual for someone to stay at the bedside for many years.

Benner’s Novice-to-Expert Model

Then along came the clinical ladder—a way for nurses to advance clinically. Patricia Benner’s landmark work on identifying the hallmarks of novice-to-expert practice laid the foundation for identifying the different stages of acquisition of skills (see her article on the topic published in AJN in 1982; free until May 22).

Evolving Competencies Require New Paths to Advancement

But while the competencies nurses need to practice effectively are vastly different today, many hospitals haven’t updated their clinical advancement programs to reflect the knowledge, skills, and attitudes (KSAs) that nurses need to practice effectively in today’s complex health systems. Moreover, there’s been little research to provide the evidence for identifying the various competencies and the associated KSAs. Our original research article in the May issue provides that evidence.

Creating an Evidence-Based Progression

The authors of “Creating an Evidence-Based Progression for Clinical […]

2017-05-12T10:50:46-04:00May 12th, 2017|Nursing, nursing career|0 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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