Delegating: A Crucial, Sometimes Tricky Nursing Skill

Knowing where you fit in with the team.

Ralph Hogaboom / Flickr

As a new nurse I was entranced with my role. Throughout my schooling, I had worked closely with nurses and nursing instructors I admired, but out in the real world I was only beginning to understand how I fit in with the rest of the team. From those early years, I vividly remember two separate run-ins I had with nurse aides. I was so frustrated that they didn’t simply follow my instructions! Looking back, I think these disagreements were mostly about experienced workers “testing” me and our working relationship.

Delegation is not simple.

In “Delegating as a New Nurse” (free until January 10) in this month’s AJN, Amanda Anderson offers a wealth of practical information to help new and not-so-new nurses learn the art of delegation. I could have used her guidance back then. As she notes, delegation is not a “simple” task:

“It requires an appreciation of nuance and insight, both of which new graduates may lack. Delegation often requires skills that aren’t taught in nursing school and are difficult for preceptors to teach in the clinical setting.”

[…]

2018-12-26T10:34:48-05:00December 26th, 2018|nursing career, nursing roles|1 Comment
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Breaking onto Boards: Tips for Nurses

Photo by Steve Debenport / Istock.com.

A 2014 survey by the American Hospital Association found that nurses—the largest group of health care professionals—held just 5% of hospital board seats (by comparison, physicians held 20%). It goes without saying that health care organizations stand to gain valuable insight and leadership by including more nurses in the boardroom. But as discussed by Blima Marcus in this month’s Professional Development column, nurses face many barriers to getting a seat at the table. These include:

  • the perception of nurses as “background” care providers rather than leaders
  • the tendency of board members and executives to nominate candidates who they are already familiar with and who work in a similar field
  • lacking the knowledge and skills needed to serve on a board (i.e., leadership and organizational skills)
  • not being a part of the socioeconomic class often associated with board membership—often, members are asked to make donations to their organizations

Overcoming the barriers

While these barriers may seem daunting, Marcus notes that there are practical actions nurses can take to put […]

2018-12-18T10:03:55-05:00December 18th, 2018|Nursing, nursing career|0 Comments
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As Patient Handling Injury Rates Remain High, Schools Teach Outdated Methods

The old-fashioned way to reposition patients.

I haven’t seen draw sheets in hospitals for years now. “Back in my day,” those narrow sheets we placed across the middle of the bed were considered essential to patient care. Draw sheets were easier to change than the full sheet and they kept the bed neat. They always seemed to be hard to come by—probably because most nurses had stashed their own supply of them in patients’ rooms.

But more importantly, they were what we used to reposition patients. We used to work in pairs on turning rounds—one of us on each side of the bed, rolling the draw sheet tightly to get a grip, then sliding the patient up in bed or turning them on their sides. It was hard work, and no form of “good body mechanics” saved your back or shoulders and neck from strain when you needed to stretch across a bed—or, many times, climb on top of it—to move an unconscious patient. It’s no wonder that nurses and nursing assistants had such high rates of serious musculoskeletal injuries.

The institution of ‘No-Lift’ policies.

Then came electric beds, overhead lifts and transfer stretchers, and “No Lift” policies, which were based on data from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) on the frequency of injuries and supported by nursing organizations. Many hospitals and nursing homes implemented safe patient handling and mobility […]

2018-11-16T07:25:15-05:00November 16th, 2018|Nursing, nursing career, wellness|5 Comments
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Being a Nurse, or When Did You ‘Grok’ Nursing?

How does one “become” a nurse, as opposed to learning nursing skills? What is “being” a nurse as opposed to “doing” nursing?

On our Facebook page last week, we posted this query: “Professional identity is more than what you do—it’s a part of who you are. What does being a nurse mean to you?” One of the responses we received was, “Caring providers that own it, do right, work together and solve problems with innovative methods to improve care methods and optimize outcomes.

The respondent’s use of “own it” resonated with me: from the thesaurus, to own something means “to possess, preserve, maintain, hold, profess, declare, accept, have possession of…” To me, it hints at holding onto something valuable, being mindful of it and not losing sight of it.

This original post came about because I had recently attended a meeting at the University of Kansas School of Nursing, where a group of about 50 invitees were asked to brainstorm how nursing students develop a professional identity—How does one “become” a nurse, as opposed to learning nursing skills? What is “being” a nurse as opposed to “doing” nursing? Most of us say, when asked what we do, “I’m a nurse,” not “I do nursing.” And some of us identify […]

2018-10-05T10:42:29-04:00October 5th, 2018|Nursing, nursing career, nursing perspective|1 Comment
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The End of Summer Is Nearly Here: Use Those Vacations

Every July 4th at the end of the day, a friend used to say, “Well, summer is almost over.” And summer did seem to fly by in a blink after that day. Now here we are again, putting the summer of 2018 to bed as we face Labor Day weekend. This last chance at summer always seems a little sad. It’s the marker of so many things—the end of lifeguards at the beach, the last chance to get school supplies, the beginning of another school year. (That includes nursing school. Here’s some good advice for new nursing students that we collected a while back from our readers.)

Like many others, I recently spent a week on vacation with family. It took some doing to get things organized and some working ahead to meet deadlines, but it was worth it. As a manager, there’s no one to keep certain things moving while you’re gone. So the week leading up to vacation is a frenzied time, organizing and working ahead to cover deadlines, and getting ready to leave. Then, once back, there’s another frenzied time to try to catch up. My strategy is to check email once a day while on vacation. It keeps what I have to deal with […]

2018-08-31T07:59:34-04:00August 31st, 2018|Nursing, nursing career, wellness|0 Comments
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