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Discussion

Staff development frustrations

  • Admin

My little perioperative specific education team is running into some serious roadblocks with the management team of one of the departments we cover. Traditionally, we have been included in all email route lists for each department. This allowed us to see any common themes that might indicate a widespread rather than targeted educational intervention, see weekly updates that included names of new staff hired (that sometimes were neglected to be passed onto us even though we initiate and manage orientation), and so on. This manager came on about a year ago and one of the first things she did was remove us from all of her emails. We went to her and asked to be put back on and were- temporarily. We’ve since been removed again. 

This manager has also, without first coming to us with requests or even communicating with us at all, gone to the director and said we haven’t been meeting their needs. Um hello, maybe actually say something/email/send smoke signals?

Needless to say, we are beyond frustrated with the situation. As it is, it averages out that each educator on the team covers about 275-300 staff members. On average we are managing orientation for 25-30 people at a time (down from our record average 8 months ago of 45-50 at a time).  Of course those who come to us with needs and actually communicate are going to get attention first! We are not mind readers!

So what tips do you have for working with this type of manager vs educator scenario? How can we get through to this management team that direct communication and not running to the director behind our backs is a good and necessary thing?

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    • Featured Replies

    Ask to have a meeting with the director and manager to discuss strategies to support her team more.   Then you can innocently bring up the fact you have been removed from email communications etc and how this may be contributing to some of the poor communication etc.

     

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    • Author
    • Admin

    The director flat out refuses to get involved. 

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    One of you is going to have to request to have coffee and find out the rest of the story, as they say. Express sincere desire to work together. It should be someone with a personable demeanor who is good at professionalism and good at communication. There is some kind of story here; if one had to guess it's either that there is bad blood somewhere or something more simple such as maybe she just envisions something quite different as far as how education is decided upon and planned for her staff. Or maybe she doesn't have a good vision of her own but doesn't care for the way things are currently done.

    She has been neither professional nor communicative, but in the end that isn't as important as whether or not there is a way to work together that meets the needs of both groups.

     

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    Rose Queen, did you ever get this situation straightened out? Have you been able to remain in education with Covid going on or are they adding additional roles to your job?

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    • Author
    • Admin
    26 minutes ago, TheMoonisMyLantern said:

    Rose Queen, did you ever get this situation straightened out? Have you been able to remain in education with Covid going on or are they adding additional roles to your job?

    Sort of. The manager has two supervisors under her who have been brought into the education fold and do communicate. Right now I’m still in education. My partners have left me... so I’ve got the 250-300 people covered by the other two added to my own now ?. Our surgeries are ramping up- we’ve been running surgeries for all patients who are going home, all patients who are already here (came in through ER), and half of patients who need to be admitted. Next week we ramp up to 75% of patients needing admitted. Several have had their surgeries cancelled with little notice as surgeons fight it out who gets to have the designated slots for patients needing admitted. So once we make it through the 75% and 100% levels, we have a backlog of nearly 1000 cancelled surgeries to get through. On top of the others that are already scheduled. I may end up pulled into staffing at some point. 

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    5 minutes ago, Rose_Queen said:

    Sort of. The manager has two supervisors under her who have been brought into the education fold and do communicate. Right now I’m still in education. My partners have left me... so I’ve got the 250-300 people covered by the other two added to my own now ?. Our surgeries are ramping up- we’ve been running surgeries for all patients who are going home, all patients who are already here (came in through ER), and half of patients who need to be admitted. Next week we ramp up to 75% of patients needing admitted. Several have had their surgeries cancelled with little notice as surgeons fight it out who gets to have the designated slots for patients needing admitted. So once we make it through the 75% and 100% levels, we have a backlog of nearly 1000 cancelled surgeries to get through. On top of the others that are already scheduled. I may end up pulled into staffing at some point. 

    Wow, 1000 canceled surgeries... You guys are going to be busy for a while as long as things stay open. Do you still work in any of the surgeries per diem or help with call? Do you like your current role? Sorry for the interrogation, your posts are one of my only windows into the OR world LOL 

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    • Author
    • Admin
    1 minute ago, TheMoonisMyLantern said:

    Do you still work in any of the surgeries per diem or help with call?

    I did for a brief time when I first came into the role several years ago. I also did so at a time when much of the cardiac team (my specialty before the educator role) was quarantined due to exposure at work (back in the beginning before much was known and precautions put in place). 

    I am usually not in the call role unless there is desperation as I would not be paid for it without an approved incentive plan as I am salaried. 

    3 minutes ago, TheMoonisMyLantern said:

    Do you like your current role?

    I love it! I mean, just like any other role out there, it has its downs but they are far outweighed. 

     

    7 minutes ago, TheMoonisMyLantern said:

    Sorry for the interrogation, your posts are one of my only windows into the OR world LOL 

    I love talking about the OR! And I’ll have an article series coming up soon too

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