Where Are Our Leaders?
Written: Oct 22 '00 (Updated Oct 22 '00)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: ending abuse
Cons: none
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| moonflowerck's Full Review: Nursing Profession |
I have been an R.N. for 28 years. My range of experience encompasses nearly all aspects of critical care and pediatrics. I am a bedside nurse; that is my forte. I give quality nursing care; I am a good teacher; I am empathetic and intuitive. However, I am not a leader. My experiences in various leadership roles during my career were neither fulfilling nor very productive. I have accepted this personal limitation and instead have devoted my energies to excelling at bedside nursing. I no longer accept positions of leadership, as I think it would be a disservice to patients as well as my colleagues.
There are many nurses who do accept these positions of leadership. They are nurse managers, nursing directors, some even become presidents/ CEO's of the institutions that employ them. These leaders can be found in the various inspection and enforcement agencies which regulate health care facilities. They become active, powerful figures in our various nursing organizations and licensing boards. What happens to them? They seem to forget they are, first and foremost, nurses. They not only allow, but participate in, and perpetuate, the various abuses that nurses are, and have been, enduring for so long.
They are the ones who should be saying "no, my nurses will not be abused and our patients will not be given less than quality care". They must begin to demand that nurses be treated as professionals by physicians and employers. They must remember and demand that everyone else remember that patients are human beings and not commodities.
The nurses in the inspection agencies should be more closely scrutinizing "actual" versus "paper" staffing practices on a surprise, unannounced basis. They are in the unique position of having the power to enforce standardized nursing practices. They can impose penalties for noncompliance, but in my experience, this potentially very effective weapon is severely underutilized.
While I understand and agree with the importance of a good education for nurses, I think the emphasis on higher and higher entry level degrees for nurses that for so long has occupied our various nursing leadership organizations has also contributed to the problem. This allows nurses with little or no bedside experience to step into these leadership roles. They have no idea what bedside nursing entails and cannot, therefore, be truly effective as a nurse and/or patient advocate. There should be a national standardized requirement for a minimum of four years of actual bedside nursing experience.
We, who are bedside nurses, must begin to demand that our leaders become our advocates. We must demand that they remember and/or learn what quality bedside nursing entails. We must learn to use our power as a collective group to demand the transition of our nursing leaders from corporate "yes-men" to independent professionals whose primary responsibilities are to patients and other nurses.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
moonflowerck
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Member: Cathy Koretz
Location: Metairie,LA
Reviews written: 2
Trusted by: 1 member
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