Nurse Manager Experience Help

nurseprnRN, BSN, RN · Mar 29, 2014

We get these requests a lot, so if there are any other students out there who might get this kind of assignment, listen up:

Part of your faculty's reason for giving you this assignment is to get you to go out there and speak to a management RN face to face. A big email blast is not a substitute for shoe leather. AN is not Google.

See, in nursing, you have to learn to speak to a lot of people you would not otherwise encounter; you might find yourself out of your comfort zone. This is part of nursing, a huge part. An anonymous respondent online, well, you don't really know who we are, do you? We could be the truck driving guy living next door for all you know.

So if all you do about learning new things is "Go to the keyboard and hit send," then you are limiting your chances of actual learning a valuable skill you will need all your working life. Also, your faculty will not be impressed by your citation of an anonymous nurse on the internet.

That said: Where will you find a management nurse? Think outside the (computer) box.

Local hospital: go to the staff development/inservice education office and ask one of them. They value education and will be happy to chat or to hook you up with someone who is.

Go to the public health department downtown. Ditto.

Go to the local school department and ask to speak to the school nurse manager. Ditto.

Go to a local clinic / physician/NP office. Ditto.

Go to the local jail and ask to speak to the head nurse there. Ditto.

Go to the local AONE (Association Of Nurse Executives) chapter meeting. There is one not too far from you, if you care to find it. Your faculty will be far more impressed by that than by your citing an anonymous forum on the internet. You don't know who we are.

Notice all of these say, "Go to..." and not "Email..." Remember that part about meeting new people face to face and comfort zone.

Go!

khardin619 · Mar 29, 2014

Thank you for your response GrnTea, you brought up good, valid points!

This assignment actually is for an online course and the instructions are to specifically search online for a nursing group like AN and ask a question about leadership/management.

I have talked to many floor nurses and a few management nurses while in a clinical setting about having a management position and I have gotten mixed opinions so I thought it would be interesting to get the "why or why not" perspective.

Any help would be appreciated!

Thank you again.

Clovery · Mar 30, 2014

Following GrnTea's advice would be a great way to possibly get your foot in the door for employment after you graduate.

nurseprnRN, BSN, RN · Mar 30, 2014

There's a great list called Nursenet, small but generally inhabited by nurses at higher levels, listmom'ed by Naja MacKenzie at the University of AZ, but with members all over the world. Don't let that description put you off-- they are a great bunch of guys and gals; We used to get regular sign-ups from students in a particular program to come and bounce evidence-based practice questions off us. Google them and see what you get there! I would be thrilled to have students come visit us again. :) (we all sign our real names there, too).

Lev, MSN, RN, NP · Mar 30, 2014

I'm not a nurse manager. From what I have seen, nurse management is a very tough balancing act between keeping or making your staff happy and complying with upper management. Nurse managers have accountability for the nursing care on their unit, so if you nurses and CNAs are not doing their job properly it is on you. Currently, nurse managers have to deal with budget cuts and decreased hiring by hospitals. This is usually out of their direct control and comes from upper management. In my hospital, in the past several months, all requests to hire new staff must be approved by the hospital president who is obviously not a nurse. It used to be they could email HR and it would usually be approved if there was budget for it (like if a staff member just left). Now, people leave and they do not approve replacement positions.

khardin619 · Mar 30, 2014

Thank you so much for the resource GrnTea! I will share the group with my cohort. :)

khardin619 · Mar 30, 2014

Thank you Lev