Why nurse mangement?

psychRNmom2 · Oct 12, 2014

I love the challenge. I love that I can have an impact on patient care on a greater scale. It's incredibly rewarding to see an entire unit improve because of decisions I have made. I love developing nurses and helping them grow and develop. I love how much I am growing and learning as a person and as a professional in my role. What do I dislike? It's tough sometimes being the punching bag for patient and family grievances especially when they are being completely irrational and at times verbally abusive. It's hard making tough, unpopular decisions. I really don't like having to discipline people either, but again if people do not want to improve or meet expectations then they need to move on.

KellyRN2013 · Oct 19, 2014

I would have to agree 100% with the other post. I love the challenge. You are in control and you determine the outcome of your facility. You get to train the nurses and educate them. You make sure they follow all of the rules/state regulations for your specialty. I work as a DON of a 120 bed assisted living facility. I have roughly 30 some employees underneath me. I do hate disciplining them, but if they do not do their job then they will get disciplined. The administrator and myself love our job. All of our employees know that we love them and care about them dearly. We can all get along and joke but we can all be very serious when we need to be. We create a fun learning environment for our nurses and make sure that our residents are our top priority. Yes, you will deal with difficult family members along the way but it is so worth it when you can turn their negative perception into a positive one. The most important thing as a manager is that you must be fair to everyone. You can not treat any staff differently. You also have to be able to separate friendship from leadership when you are in the management role. I am the DON but I have an open door policy and if someone calls out then I am the one who works the floor. You want to go in with an open mind. You don't want to be the manger who just sits behind the desk. You find that employees will love to come to work and have a lot more respect for you if you show them that you will get out on the floor and work and get just as dirty as they are. If you decide to go into management make sure you have training. When I started my DON position, I was not trained well but I have learned over the past year how to become a good manager and my company has put me through training. I think as the DON it is very rewarding when your employees go back to school, when they light up when you reward them for the great jobs they have done, when we pass our state inspections with little to no citations (this facility was on a provisional license when i came and now we have our full 1 year license), when families tell you how well your staff are doing with their loved ones and how they would recommend your facility to anyone! It is just a wonderful feeling. You are their manager, boss, mentor, educator, and friend/family!