“Exceeds expectations”

So, it’s evaluation season. Doing my own eval is uncomfortable for me. It feels like I am tooting my own horn, so to speak. I don’t like talking about myself. I don’t want to sit down and tell you about the great things I’ve done over the past year.

So, I sit down for my eval with my manager… As we start going over each section she tells me the ratings she has given me.

They were all “exceeds expectations”!

What?

I have been a nurse nine years. Every eval I have gotten was rated “fully meets”. I was always content with that. However, for the first time I exceed. My manager started mentioning all the things I’ve done that’s she’s noticed. She gave me compliment after complement for the care I deliver. I honestly didn’t know she paid that much attention. She manages over 100 nurses, she’s always on the move. However, she makes it a point to stop by our department and check in on us. She is always available. To be honest, she’s the best manager I have worked for. To know that with all she is doing, she still noticed my hard work, it felt great.

My actions are not so that I can be noticed. I just do what’s right for the patient. Ultimately, that who we are here for. I never thought I was going “above and beyond”.

It was a great feeling.

I’m in the right place. I’m definitely in the right place…

Appreciated

A while ago my nurse manager came down to the department I was in to check on me.

My nurse manager came to check on me.

The day was turning into a hot mess and I had to get help from our sister nursing department to help get things back on track and help me put out the flames. After things started to calm down, my nurse manager came down to where I was to check on me and do you know what she said? “Fred, I am so glad I hired you.”

Say. What?

Did… Did she just show appreciation for how hard I was working?

HOLY HELL MANAGERS DO THAT?!?

Turns out, good management does. I cannot even count how many times either my nurse clinician or nurse manager has popped up in the department giving us updates or just checking in.

I have never really had that happen before. In fact, I was so unused to it that the first time my nurse clinician came down to the department checking in I thought I was in trouble! I really thought I had gotten reported for something and was about to be written up! That is how little I was used to seeing management (unless they were asking if we updated our whiteboards).

I was talking to another floor nurse, in fact, the one from the last blog, and telling her about management coming and checking in and she was also flabbergasted. She, too, was only used to seeing management whenever there was an issue.

That’s sad.

I don’t place 100% of the blame on management, though. I know they are encountering the same problem. Their higher-ups only want to discuss what they are doing wrong, give them unrealistic expectations, and unrealistic time-frames to complete the unrealistic expectations. Meeting after meeting they get bombarded with complaints. It’s a miserable existence and I can totally understand why so many nurse managers leave the job.

This is a bigger problem with how hospitals are a business focused more on numbers than patients. It trickles down. Miserable management creates miserable staff, and that leads to the high turnover rates in the nursing field.

No one feels appreciated and that needs to change.

I am lucky enough to work in a department where I actually feel appreciated. Yes, we have our foolishness just like every other area in the hospital. However, I find myself far less stressed in this position. I want more nurses to be able to feel this way. I want it to get to a point where seeing management becomes a positive thing. I wonder how we, as a group, can change this?

My first nursing convention

By the time this blog posts I will have gone to my first nursing “convention”. It’s a one-day event sponsored by my hospital but it is a whole day of speakers and learning related to leadership in nursing.

It’s actually meant for nurses already in a leadership positions but being a leader is something that interests me and I would like all the help I can get. I want to become someone that other nurses can look up to. While I don’t really plan on managing a unit or anything like that, I do plan on obtaining an advanced practice degree and I want to be a leader in whatever field I decide to go into. I have worked with and under great leaders and I have worked with people in leadership that I wanted to stab in the eye with a pencil (I have been a mental serial killer quite a few times!) I don’t want to be the person that someone else wants to stab in the eye lol!

I don’t feel like leadership=management position. Leadership, in my opinion anyway, has more to do with the person and less to do with the position. Some of my coworkers have been amazing leaders. Whether we have two codes going on simultaneously, admissions and discharges back to back, a super sick patient that is trying their damnest to circle the drain, or my personal fave: the wife and girlfriend trying to visit the trauma patient, there have been nurses that I worked with that immediately jumped in. They took the lead in the situation and helped turn chaos into control. I will say that in my experience most of those in management would have floundered in those very same situations. If you think about it, it is far easier to manage people than it is to lead them. You can’t be a leader while simultaneously saying “do as I say, not as I do”. At that point, a bad precedent has been set. I feel like a leader is going to search for the right way to do things and if they don’t know the correct way, they have no problem asking others for help. Leaders can provide positive feedback but also know how to provide constructive criticisms. The managers I have typically come across seem to be able to do one or the other, rarely both. That’s not to say I haven’t worked with management that wasn’t super badass. I will never forget one manager, Ron. He seemed so intimidating until I actually had to escalate a situation up to him. Long story short, I was working under “leadership” that wanted to be on a friendly basis with the team instead of lead the team. A certain situation continued to occur that ended up slowing patient flow. The supervisor didn’t want to step in because they didn’t want to hurt feelings. Well, you know me, I escalated beyond them to management. I remember exactly what he said to me when I walked into his office to complain “Shaunelle, don’t come to me with a problem without a solution.” We spoke and surprisingly I had a solution in my head without even realizing it.

His words changed how I handle situations to this day.

To me, that’s leadership. I want to be like that one day. I want to be able to not only provide solutions for my team, I want to encourage others to find solutions for themselves. So, off to the nursing conference I go. Hopefully next week I can come back and share some of what I learned.

Charge

I’m a charge nurse on my unit. I actually wasn’t comfortable taking on that role but my coworkers thought I would do well so I said ok.

Some days I regret that decision.

Don’t get me wrong, I do enjoy having new responsibilities. I like seeing nursing from a different perspective. I rather enjoy the decision making that is left in my hands.

I do not enjoy the stupidity that I encounter. For instance, our OR and ER are fully aware that because of the way EPIC is set up, we need an admission order placed by the physician so that bed center can place the patient on our bed board. If the patient is not on our bed board then we cannot pull them onto our unit list and thus we cannot get into their chart once they arrive to our unit. If we can’t get into their chart then we can’t see their orders. If we can’t see their orders then we can’t carry them out. They know this. It never fails, however, the doc will call us to tell us they need a bed but not put in the order. Once they arrive to the unit, they want to look at us crazy because we can’t start carrying out their orders and draw admission labs. It is now to the point that if the admission order isn’t in then we just don’t take report. Why? Why do we have to go through this!

I also do not enjoy the micromanaging. There is a list that charge nurses have to carry out each night. I have to check and see if everyone’s admission database is done, whether each patient has an up to date blood band, whether each patient has ICU and blood consent, whether each patient with restraints has an up to date restraint order, and whether or not each patient has a daily weight. Because heaven forbid we hold nurses accountable for their patients! I understand some of the list. I know when I have patients I rarely check the admission database. There are typically too many other things taking place for me to worry about that at 0034 in the morning. Consents though? As the nurse, I should be checking those. I feel like it’s micromanaging. More importantly, how are nurses going to form the habit of checking for consents and active blood bands if I am always doing it for them? It is my least favorite thing to do and everyone knows it.

Overall, I am still glad that I decided to become a charge nurse. I have a greater understanding of why assignments are the way they are sometimes. I understand how difficult it is to decide who is getting the next admission. I understand the frustration involved with moving patients out just to make room to get patients in. I realize now that the reason I am just learning of the admit I am getting, because ER is on the phone to give me report, is because the charge nurse is just learning of the admission as well. Things that I used to take as a personal strike against me no longer bother me. I realize the charge nurse doesn’t have the time to spiteful. It’s too damn busy for all of that. Being in charge has given me a whole new perspective.

Good morning to you too 😒

Hi management, how are you? It’s nice to see you all bright eyed and bushy tailed. You’re coming off of a full nights sleep. You have quite a bit of energy huh? Sure you do. 

I don’t.

I just finished 12 hours of getting my ass handed to me. I’ve done two CT trips tonight. I got a sh*t show from the OR. I got yelled at by a doc for labs not sent from the previous shift. I finally ate this morning at 5 am and that was at the desk. 

You would know this if you came in and asked me how the night was instead of complaining about the cup at the desk without a lid. No, I haven’t read the email you sent because I haven’t had the time. Yes, the EKG machine is sitting outside a room. You know what else is outside that room? The code cart. It’s been that kind of night… But you wouldn’t know that because instead of inquiring about your staff you came in with complaints.

Maybe, just maybe you could say “good morning” first. Maybe you could take 10 extra seconds to get a feel for the unit and how the night was. Maybe you can look at what we accomplished instead of what we missed. Maybe you could manage to come in with a little positivity… Maybe….