What is one of your qualities as a nurse that is both a strength and a weakness?

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Specializes in Rehab/Nurse Manager.

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Has anyone ever thought about how their own personal qualities can both help and hinder them in their nursing practice?

For example, I've been very frustrated at work lately.  When I think about why, one thing that comes to mind is my desire to be efficient, productive and successful.  I'm very detailed and goal-oriented and set out everyday with a list of things I hope to accomplish.  

This mindset is a strength in that I am typically very good at ensuring that all important issues are addressed.  However, it is a weakness because I can become very frustrated when things don't go as planned.  I become annoyed when a patient’s preferences or needs change my plan for the day or the week.  In my mind, I know my work is about the patient, and not myself.  However, my desire to accomplish every goal every day, and my tendency to be very list-focused, sometimes causes me to forget this.  I get angry when I'm not able to get something done, and I have to take  breaks to adjust my priorities.  I force myself to focus on the patients and not on myself.   This can be very challenging for me to do when I'm frustrated. 

I can also be a bit of a perfectionist--I don't like any mistakes of any kind.  Therefore, when I am working on something that requires me to focus on the details, such as entering a medication order, I get easily annoyed when someone interrupts me.  I forget that they are just looking for help and not trying to bother me. On the plus side, I have found and corrected many mistakes by being detail oriented. 

How about you? What are your examples? How do you try to correct your weaknesses to make you a better nurse?

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Specializes in Psych (25 years), Medical (15 years).
3 hours ago, SilverBells said:

Has anyone ever thought about how their own personal qualities can both help and hinder them in their nursing practice?

In 1983, my first nursing instructor said, "Sometimes you will be fired for doing the right thing".

I was a bulldog when it came to injustices or others behaving without principles and somebody was affected. However, I did not try to correct that bulldog trait to the very end.

I lost my job yet saved my integrity.

"Once you give up integrity, the rest is a piece of cake."
-J.R. Ewing

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Specializes in ER.

I can't stand by and keep my mouth shut. 

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Specializes in Psych (25 years), Medical (15 years).
12 minutes ago, canoehead said:

I can't stand by and keep my mouth shut. 

Canoehead, I heard that a tea made from dieffenbachia leaves will help with that because it's supposed to freeze the vocal cords.

My medical nurse wife Belinda is brewing me up a pot as we speak.

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Specializes in ER.

I can sit on my hands, but I can't seem to get through a staff meeting without speaking. I'm the annoying kid that asked too many questions in classes.

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Specializes in New Critical care NP, Critical care, Med-surg, LTC.
1 hour ago, canoehead said:

I can't stand by and keep my mouth shut. 

I have the same problem. I'll read or hear something, whether it's from management, the union, or coworkers, and I'll tell myself to let it go. Sometimes I make it only a few hours, sometimes as long as weeks, but generally I'll end up speaking up when it's something I feel strongly about. The only good thing about it is that people know I'm pretty straight forward and I've spoken both in support of, and against, all the entities that I listed above. I try to always be balanced and rational in my feedback, leaving emotional responses out of it. But it's still sometimes a bad idea to get involved, and it takes my time and energy away from focusing on my patients, even if only for little a while- like to point out why the latest stupid policy is, in fact, stupid. But sometimes it's a strength when people have used my feedback to make a positive change. 

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Specializes in Med-Surg.

I tend to be a patient and tolerant person.  This is useful in dealing with new grads and students.  This is not useful when I need to say no and speak up and I don't.

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Specializes in Private Duty Pediatrics.

I am so very distractible, but with that comes the ability to be flexible, to go with the flow, to switch to a different goal when necessary.

I can be spontaneous, without fussing that my well-laid plans didn't work out.

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Specializes in CMSRN, hospice.

I am diplomatic and typically able to sympathize with others' viewpoints, even if not necessarily able to agree with them. It's extremely helpful in communicating with patients and their families; it is rare that I have a patient (at least in their right mind!) who doesn't have confidence that I will advocate for their goals of care. It also comes in handy when offering education or alternatives they hadn't previously considered, as they're more likely to give real thought to what I have to say.

Being agreeable is not so great when I end up picking up or switching shifts with coworkers that end up destroying my schedule; I hate to tell people no. It also isn't great when dealing with those one or two people in every unit who are miserable in life and take it out on the rest of us. There are times when I wish I'd stuck up for myself and at least tried to interrupt a toxic pattern of interactions with certain coworkers, but I don't in the moment because I can't stomach the temporary discomfort of healthy conflict.

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Specializes in Occupational Health Nursing.

This is the same as what other nurses have... We love what we do...and hospitals and facilities take advantage of that, grabbing that attitude towards work to maintain wages as it is, letting units understaffed and since we love what we do, for the longest time we overlooked that we are already being manipulated and taken advantage of. 

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Specializes in Psych (25 years), Medical (15 years).

I can't help but noticing and proclaiming the existence of patterns.

On typical pattern on these forums is "We nurses are good and those administrators are bad" Over and over and over again into infinity.

People like to play the good victims and wallow in the mire as they wear their thorny crown. And rarely does the discussion go beyond the endless ping pong game of "yep, they're bad" *bop!* "that's because we're good" *bop!* back and forth and back and forth.

"If only they'd change, everything would be alright."
"Yep, we don't need to change because we're nurses and we're good."

And so it goes.

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Specializes in ER.

Is this a job interview question? If so, here are some sample answers:

1) I care so much about my patients, it can sometimes emotionally drain me.

2) I am very detail oriented,  sometimes to a fault. 

3) Some people say I'm a workaholic. I love my work too much at times...?

 

 

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