Venting about Leadership class

[mercedesbattista]

I'm in a BSN program here in FL. Supposed to grad in April but I'm a semester behind now because I failed Leadership class. So now I won't grad til July. It was an easy class so I think I put so much effort into my OB/PEds class I didn't keep a 70 avg. in Leadership.

I was bored out of my mind in this class & couldn't focus. We were supposed to be learning about delegation & communication but instead the instructor turns the class into a free for all discussion. He talked about facebook, mypace, how women & men communicate. All but what I need to know to pass this class. The whole time I'm sitting there like would you guys please shut up so he can teach us what we need to know for the test.

So the test comes & there's questions on it like what is the formula for the hospital revenue? What task would you give an LPN or PCT? What the hell! I didn't even remember him going over that. So I'm retakin the class now & he's doing the same thing. AAAAAARRRRGGGHH! I'm bored in Nursing Science III, but you better believe I'm reading every single chp. to make sure I pass. It's the easy classes that get me.

Ok, I'm done venting, thanks for listening.

[chuckz, BSN, RN]

To be honest, that is my biggest fear. I am not motivated to study for my community or family class at all. I just would rather by studying pharm or even psyche or OB. I have to force myself to read the books in the community class.

Good luck to you.

[Bortaz, MSN, RN]

It's a pretty boring class, I agree.

[mercedesbattista]

I know how you feel about community. I barely passed family community. We had to do a windshield survey & go out to neighborhoods, walk up to people & ask them questions! That was crazy

Well try to stay focused, we have to get thru these bs classes.

[Daytonite, BSN, RN]

at least you know what you will be tested on. depending solely on lecture notes to get through a test was a huge gamble with a serious price on it. i was a nursing manager. believe me, the formula for hospital revenue is something you will need to understand if you ever get stuck sitting in on an administrative meeting with the other managers. i post the principles of delegation all the time on the student forums. you will probably be tested over them on the nclex. you really need to know who does what task and how to follow up when delegating. communication is a huge issue when one is in a leadership position. it includes listening. in my bsn program we were required to take an entire principles of communication class in addition to english and speech. why were we learning conflict management, i was asking at the time. now, i know. even with all that background, as a new manager i had to attend several seminars to help me learn how to manage and lead. despite what you believe, leadership is not as easy as you seem to believe. neither is communication. psychiatrists, psychologists and counselors spend their careers perfecting their therapeutic communication techniques. there are threads on allnurses where nurses lament about coworkers who are subordinate or nasty to them and they have no idea how to deal with it. nurses quit jobs because subordinate staff won't listen them. a nasty cna can sabotage work to make the rns work more stressful--literally run them out of the place if an rn doesn't know how to deal with someone like that. there are some mean people in the working world and you are likely to run into some of them if you work in the profession long enough. i know i sure did. not everyone who works in healthcare is nice.

being a staff nurse was easy; being a supervisor and manager was a lot harder.

[mercedesbattista]

All of what you just talked was on our tests. Last week we were going over "change" but he goes off on these tangents that have nothing to do with lecture. It drives me crazy. But now I realize I'm going to do some self teaching if I want to pass this class & get those NCLEX questions correct.

[Daytonite, BSN, RN]

he is probably discussing what he has learned from experience. i never worked so hard as i did as a supervisor and manager. it is mental work. it is all problem solving. it is almost impossible for school to provide you with practical examples for you to experience. the first time a cna hung on the phone talking with her friends while everyone else was running around trying to get breakfast trays passed i was really miffed. all i kept thinking was, "don't yell at her." but i needed to get her lazy orifice off the phone and back to work. i had another employee who found a manipulative way to work 40 hours of overtime almost weekly. my director of nursing almost blew a gasket when she heard about this. how can someone work 80 hours a week consistently? turned out he was also stealing narcotics as we came to discover. how do you assess someone's overall behavior to do a job? with experience. it is so much easier to give a medication or start an iv. really. using one's brain is way harder.

[SheriLynnRN]

it is so much easier to give a medication or start an iv. really. using one's brain is way harder.

wow. i'm sure you didn't mean that they way it comes across. i've really valued and respected things you've posted before. this seems to imply that staff nurses aren't using our brains in our daily work. if it's just sticking needles in people and handing them pills, what on earth did i go to school for?

[tmesk]

You are going to school because you want to provide excellent care to sick patients! Management goes beyond the 'task' part of nursing, it's the business aspect of nursing. Although we dont' like to think of caring for sick people 'a business', it is. It's hard when your dealing with employees who dont' want to do their jobs. Not to mention being responsible for patients, employees and sticking to a budget.

[Daytonite, BSN, RN]

wow. i'm sure you didn't mean that they way it comes across. i've really valued and respected things you've posted before. this seems to imply that staff nurses aren't using our brains in our daily work. if it's just sticking needles in people and handing them pills, what on earth did i go to school for?

and you have never been in a stressful manager's position, have you? did i say that giving a medication or starting an iv didn't involve using my brain? what i said was it is so much easier to give a medication or start an iv. when you have had days of mental problem solving you are dog tired.

i think you answered your own question. if your day is just sticking needles in people and handing them pills, what on earth did i go to school for? beside sticking needles in people and handing them pills i was stamping out all kinds of small fires that were popping up (problem solving). that requires critical thinking. isn't that what you do on your job? before you restart an iv you make a decision (brain--thinking) that there is a problem and it has to be done, don't you? so there is more involved than just the procedure. before giving the pills you must consider the reason the pills are being given and their side effects (brain--thinking). so there is more involved than just the procedure.

[SheriLynnRN]

and you have never been in a stressful manager's position, have you? did i say that giving a medication or starting an iv didn't involve using my brain? what i said was it is so much easier to give a medication or start an iv. when you have had days of mental problem solving you are dog tired.

i think you answered your own question. if your day is just sticking needles in people and handing them pills, what on earth did i go to school for? beside sticking needles in people and handing them pills i was stamping out all kinds of small fires that were popping up (problem solving). that requires critical thinking. isn't that what you do on your job? before you restart an iv you make a decision (brain--thinking) that there is a problem and it has to be done, don't you? so there is more involved than just the procedure. before giving the pills you must consider the reason the pills are being given and their side effects (brain--thinking). so there is more involved than just the procedure.

no, i've never been a manager. i may have mistook the intended meaning of what you posted. i was simply pointing out that your statement seemed to devalue to role of a staff nurse as compared to a manager. i would venture to guess that most staff nurses are dog tired at the end of our shifts...and not just from the physical work. the critical thinking takes it's toll as well.

[tmesk]

Sometimes I'd rather be physically tired than mentally tired. You have to understand that being a manager is a tough job. We take it from all ends...patients, staff, director's, vp's. Yes, we are not physically on the floor all the time, but it's our job to manage an entire unit and that is not an easy task by any means. I can only speak for myself but it's a hard pill to swallow when your told 'make sure your meeting the needs of your staff...but who is meeting my needs as a manager? Managers have a great deal of expectation placed on them and are given little encourgament or reward. It's a frustrating job and the only thing that keeps me going is that I work with great nurses and patients. THey make it all worth while.