Combining Nursing Leadership with Advocacy
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Combining Nursing Leadership with Advocacy
Within every nurse is the potential for a leader, but not every nurse may recognize this within themselves. Each individual carries a set of weaknesses, areas in which the individual may perceive or actually have a lack of knowledge, quality, or strength. Just as well, every individual carries a set of strengths, areas in which the individual may have strong skills or knowledge sets. Although having been a nurse for only a few years, I can see some leadership qualities in my own character. This has become more apparent after taking the American Association of Critical-Care Nurse Manager Skills Inventory. While this is being stated, there is much more I can do to become an even greater asset to my nursing profession. In this essay, there are four areas in which I will discuss the results of the inventory skills assessment: First, my personal and professional accountability as a nurse, second, career planning, third, my own personal journey disciplines, and finally my reflective practice reference behaviors and tenants.
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Combining Nursing Leadership with Advocacy
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Personal and Professional Accountability
When evaluating myself in the personal growth and development area, which include educational advancement, continuing education, career planning, and certifications, I would rate myself overall in the middle. Although I am not sure where my future will lead to, I have continued on in my education to gain a Bachelor’s in my field. There is so much further, but I am hoping to complete a Doctorate in Nursing as a nurse practitioner. Although I am not currently certified in a specialty, I have been working towards stroke certification along with studying for certification towards emergency medicine. Another area in which I could improve on is my association status, as I am a member of the Washington State Nurses association, but am not active in legislative processes or in bargaining procedures advocating for fellow nurses and patients. I do however, rate myself high when it comes to ethical behavior and practices as I feel evidenced based practice is prudent in providing safe, competent care to patients. It is also important that I show this dedication to others in my field because it is the best outcome for patients to receive current practices to decrease risk while maintaining safe practices.
Career Planning
“Nurses’ roles, responsibilities, and education should change significantly to meet the increased demand for care that will be created by health care reform and to advance improvements in America’s increasingly complex health system” (Institute of Medicine, 2010) The field of nursing continues to advance, which is what is desperately needed for the future. As we move forward in health care, according to the Institute of Medicine, sicker patients will stay home while the acute care setting will admit the sickest of the sick. As a nurse, I feel strongly that I know what my job description and requirements are. As I continue my education, this will change slightly in accordance with my level of education. As a nurse in Washington State, it would be a great asset to continue to pursue my education to the doctorate level, especially since this state is one of a handful of states that allows nurses at the doctorate level to practice to full extent of training and education. I do foresee a period in the future of increased turnover due to the current aging population in the nursing field. Until this time, with my education, I have an opportunity to assist new nurses through preceptor ships and mentoring with providing teaching using evidenced based practices to continue on the goal of providing safe competent care while also being cost effective.
Personal Journey Disciplines
Overall in this section, I felt there is great opportunity to really grow. Action learning and reflective practice I may participate in, but am not actually comfortable in these fields. While the comfort level is not there, I need to increase my participation as both the learner and later as the instructor as both are important in patient care and learning. I found that most of my education during the ADN program was based on lectures with memorization a necessity, but in reality, this is not an accurate portrayal of real life situations. By participating in both active learning and reflective practice, we all can not only learn proper techniques but using these will increase critical thinking skills which are essential. I have no experience in shared leadership and council management and rate myself a novice. Building on all three of these areas will increase my ability to perform better as a nurse and as a leader in my field. One article stated “Whether operating at the micro or macro level, empowered nurses can improve the environment and enhance delivery of quality health care” (Green & Jordan, 2004). I have a voice and this would be a great opportunity to use to improve the quality of the field of nurses. The greater number of voices, the greater the impact we all can have on the future of the nursing profession.
Reflective Practice Reference Behaviors/Tenants
In this area, I have rated myself overall as competent or just over competent. Personally, I feel I am tolerant and accepting of different beliefs and practices. When appropriate, I try to incorporate these beliefs into care. If for some reason, the practice or belief is unsafe, I try to be sensitive to their feelings while educating on safe practices. This can be difficult in this region due to the lack of different cultural groups, but with practicing using active and reflective techniques could further enhance these techniques personally, but with all those in the profession. I also find it important to keep my commitments and seeking knowledge. As being a single parent who worked full time while attending the nursing program I feel shows commitment to this. Additionally, if I do not know the answer to a situation, I will research it until I know the answer. I find that this is essential in being a nurse and a lifelong learner.
Conclusion
One article describes advocacy as “the process of building support for an issue or cause and influencing others to take action” (Family Care International, 2008). As a nurse, it is important for all of us to not only advocate for our patients, families, and communities, but we must also advocate for ourselves. ” It is important that all nurses engage in, and become involved in developing processes in their respective work settings to advocate for realistic changes that meet the needs of both patients and staff” (Tomajan, 2012) To advocate means to identify issues and work towards solutions and improvements. This will become even more important as we continue down the current direction of health care. Nurses make up the largest work force sector of health care, and the current workforce is aging. With a large influx expected of nurses, it will by my job to continue to develop my skills and passing those skills on to others both experienced and inexperienced. My current position as a relief charge nurse on a busy telemetry unit is a start. There is a lot more that I can do. Some of my goals include becoming more of an active educator for staff for current practices and for the changes that are coming. I also plan to advocate for more of a team atmosphere between all members of the care team. Often I hear that nurses fell underappreciated. Furthermore, many of my colleagues, my self-included, feel as if information provided is not appreciated. We have valuable information and play an even more valuable part of the care team. To advocate for this, continuing my own education and growing in all areas of healthcare would help significantly. Increasing knowledge and competency needs to be support by providers, employers, and ourselves for this to change. There will be a full time charge nurse position on which I will apply. It will also be important that I participate in our research studies to identify ways to improve our practice while relieving some of our stress in our current workflow.
My biggest goal personally is to be a participant in legislature. Recently I received an email from the American Nurses Association that the House of Representatives has passed the “Save American Workers Act of 2015″ that would change the definition of a full-time employee. Currently, a full-time employee is anyone who works thirty hours or more a week, but with this act, the full-time employee would be required to work a forty hour work week. According to the American Nurses Association, 1.69 million nurses and nurse practitioners work in a hospital setting, many of these employees, myself included, work a 36 hour work week. This would not only significantly affect our work schedules in trying to make up for a four-hour period, but more importantly it would affect the benefits that many of us are enrolled in. As it is, health insurance is expensive for the full-time employee, this change would almost certainly double my benefits if employers followed the current settings of allowing I found this disturbing for all of us in the nursing field as many of us are working a 36 hour week. If this is passed, I will help support the cause to at least guarantee nurses continued benefits without changes while allowing nurses to continue practice at the 36 hour work week.
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References
American Association of Critical-Care Nurses. (2006). Nurse Manager Skills Inventory. Retrieved from American Association of Critical-Care Nurses; The American Organization of Nurse Executives: www.aacn.org/wd/practice/docs/nurse-manager-inventory-tool.pdf
Family Care Institute. (2008). An advocacy toolkit for programme managers. Retrieved from Family Care Institute: www.familycareintl.org/en/resources/publications/66
Green, A., & Jordan, C. (2004). Common denominators: shared governance and work place advocacy-strategies for nurses to gain control over their practice. Online Journal of Issues of Nursing, 9(1). Retrieved from http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/490770 4
Institute of Medicine. (2010). The Future of Nursing Focus on Education. Retrieved from http://thefutureofnursing.org/sites/default/files/FutureofNursing2010ReportBrief.pdf
Tomajan, K. (2012, January 31). Advocating for Nurses and Nursing. OJIN: The Online Journal of Issues in Nursing, 17(1). doi:10.3912/OJIN.Vol17No01Man04
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