what do you like and don't like about your nurse manager?

[lily1289]

Hi! I might get a job as a nurse manager in a nursing home so i wanted to know everyone's input about what makes a good nurse manager. My background is in Med-Surg, never worked in LTC before but this job just landed in my lap so i'm having doubts about whether i can be effective in this role. What do you like and don't like about your nurse manager?

[NenjaRN]

A lot of people have major problems with our manager but day to day I really don't mind her. Maybe because I work nights and don't usually see her. :)

What does bother me on occasion is when she sends nasty grams upset about something when she has no clue. She is a diploma nurse that worked OB briefly and then became the OB manager fairly quickly. It has been a very long time since she was a floor nurse. Peds has been thrown in her lap on top of it and she really doesn't want us because she doesn't know Peds. I try to understand that, but she has no idea what it is like to take care of patients that are not healthy and children that are terrified, feel yucky and do not want to be left alone in their rooms. I know that not ALL birthing moms are healthy and things can go wrong, but it isn't the norm. She doesn't understand that in Peds when you have one patient you at LEAST have two (mom/dad!). We also have parents that leave their infants and toddlers so we're also trying to balance babysitting and nursing. We might not get a chance to do the busy work she leaves us exactly when she wants us to even when census is low because inevitably, things happen.

I know this is Peds and you're debating LTC but at the end of the day my advice remains, from the beginning be a "working manager". Don't lose your skills and knowledge of how working the floor really is. Even if you haven't worked LTC, get out there and figure it out - your staff will appreciate it! And don't neglect night shift...every now and then see if you can work a night too.

[nurseprnRN, BSN, RN]

the two best managers i ever had were similar in three ways: they hired us because we knew more than they did at the job we did, they were not threatened by that, and they worked their tails off to give us everything we needed to do the best possible work. with both i could go in and say, "i had this idea about doing thusandsuch," and they would both say, "sounds good. let me know how it works out." very empowering. their staffs loved them, but more important, they did terrific work because of them.

[Pepper The Cat, BSN, RN]

Our Manager seems to be completely out of touch with what is going on on the unit.

For example - just recently, a nurse came running into the nsg station and said "Mrs A is on the floor". So about 5 of us head into her room. The Manager (I'll call her Jane) was present when this nurse came into the station, and was right behind us as we headed into Mrs A's room.

As most of us enter the room, Jane goes into the staff bathroom (which was next to Mrs A' room). She never came into the room to see if she could help, run for equipment, assist in accessing the pt, whatever. It ended up taking 5 nurses to get this pt off the floor and back into the bed, and then the nurse responsible had to initate our Falls Protacol which included taking Neruo Vitals q 15 minutes for the first hour.

Where was Jane? We never saw her again after she went into the staff bathroom She never checked to see if the pt was OK, if her staff was OK after getting this pt off the floor and so forth.

So - what I am trying to say is, I would like so my Manager be a little more in tune into what is happening on the unit. I do not expect her to try and lift a pt off the floor, but it would be nice for her to say - I'll do the vitals/ get the blood pressure machine or even ask "Are you OK?" after we lift a heavy pt off the floor!

[Butterfliesnroses]

I feel that the nm's are very approachable. However one of them just doesn't seem to "get it."

[KelRN215, BSN, RN]

the two best managers i ever had were similar in three ways: they hired us because we knew more than they did at the job we did, they were not threatened by that, and they worked their tails off to give us everything we needed to do the best possible work. with both i could go in and say, "i had this idea about doing thusandsuch," and they would both say, "sounds good. let me know how it works out." very empowering. their staffs loved them, but more important, they did terrific work because of them.

these managers should come run a workshop for managers at my facility. if i approach my manager and say "i have an idea about xyz" the response i get is basically "our way is right, 1+1=2, it's always been 2 and it's always going to be 2 so this is the way we have to do things so you shush."

[nurseprnRN, BSN, RN]

well, i always do say "don't knock down the wall before you know why it was built," but if the rationale for the wall is no longer functional, that indicates that being open to new ideas is to be encouraged, not shushed.

i saw a great example once of a unit where every staffer was empowered to make changes without going thru a lot of hoops. it was a dementia unit, and one day the manager came in and noticed that somebody had painted the floor black in front of the doors. "what the heck....?" she said to herself, and went asking.

what she learned was that the nursing aides noticed that a similar tiled portion of floor elsewhere was something the dementia patients avoided-- apparently it looked to them like a barrier or a threat (maybe like a deep hole), and so they wouldn't cross it. sounded like a good idea to "erect" a similar "barrier" in front of the exit door, so one evening when the patients were in bed some of the aides painted the floor. brilliant.

can you imagine getting that through a formal approval process?

of course, other words i often live by are the classic jesuitical, "it's easier to ask forgiveness than seek permission.":d