Introduction
As the subject of the interview, the senior nurse of the intensive care unit (ICU) of a Miami hospital, Mrs. S., is engaged.
Mrs. S. is a registered nurse with a BSN degree. She has been working in this hospital in her current position in the intensive care unit since 2018. Prior to that, she worked in the surgical department, but after receiving her academic degree, she retrained as a senior nurse. In 2018, she completed an online program at one of the state universities and received a BSN degree. After confirming her qualifications, she received a new position in the ICU.
Leadership Style
Mrs. S. notes that she adheres to transformational leadership as the foundation of her work in the ICU. She mentions the study by Kiwanuka et al. (2020) and remarks that this method of control over colleagues allows her to self-develop professionally due to her work as a role model. The senior nurse notes that she is aware of the difference between leadership and management and does not intend to exercise her authority through intransigence and inflexibility. Conversely, she interacts with the staff actively to be aware of the weaknesses and strengths of her colleagues and direct the team’s efforts in the right direction.
Throughout her nursing career, Mrs. S. studied additional literature that helped her identify the key areas for developing professionalism and essential skills. She drew attention to the leadership styles of her senior colleagues and analyzed the existing practices applied in modern nursing management. After completing additional training and receiving a BSN degree, Mrs. S. got an opportunity to put her knowledge into practice in the new department. During two years of work here, she has managed to establish productive interaction with colleagues and learned to control the work process to make the necessary adjustments timely.
Mrs. S. states that after getting a new position as a senior nurse, she was able to implement her ideas for the effective distribution of duties in the team. She argues that in her previous position, she noticed some managers’ controversial decisions but did not have the authority to challenge them. As an example, she cites a situation where she and her colleagues were instructed to schedule shifts on their own, which ultimately led to conflict among employees. Starting her work as a senior nurse, she was able to assess the range of her tasks and draw the necessary conclusions regarding the possibilities for optimizing the workflow. Due to her professional background, she has developed an individual professional communication strategy and gained recognition from employees who trust her and value her as a senior colleague.
Future Planning
According to Mrs. S., she promotes peer-to-peer knowledge sharing as one of the principles aimed to enhance nursing leadership development algorithms in her practice setting. The senior nurse cites the research by Fleiszer et al. (2016) and states that productive collaboration based on an adaptive employee engagement strategy is an effective tool for enhancing her colleagues’ leadership potential. In addition, Mrs. S. notes that improving individual knowledge and skills is a valuable contribution to the formation of the necessary attainments, and the role of professional interpersonal communication is high.
Mrs. S. notes that she is a member of the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses (AACN), which gives her access to a large database of educational materials and online resources for individual professional development. She remarks that in the future, she plans to become a member of the Emergency Nursing Association. The nursing union at the clinic where she works is another organization she participates in and is one of the coordinators.
According to Mrs. S., due to her participation in the AACN, she has an opportunity to interact with nurses from different fields and improve her knowledge constantly. In general, in her opinion, professional organizations serve as an incentive for advanced training and motivate productive activities by providing the possibilities for evaluating the efforts and outcomes of other specialists’ work. Moreover, membership in these associations impacts gaining leadership skills productively and allows employees to obtain valuable knowledge about which modern methods and practices of interaction with personnel are the most effective and suitable.
Current Issues and Trends
As Mrs. S. argues, in the time that has passed since her coming to the clinic, working conditions have become better due to the active work of the administration. The delegation of powers is a trend that simplifies control at different levels. However, the individual aspects of working as a senior nurse are challenges. Specifically, Mrs. S. recalls the study by Sabone et al. (2019) who note that infrastructure filling is one of the significant difficulties. Working at the ICU requires the constant renewal of equipment, and at Mrs. S.’s clinic, a few years ago, it was hard to realize this perspective on a tight budget. Another challenge the senior nurse mentions as a crucial obstacle to a productive workflow is staffing.
Mrs. S. remarks that due to the fact that the administration of the clinic has become more attentive to the technical equipment of the ICU, this challenge does not have a significant impact on her practice. The infrastructure is updated as needed, although delays occur sometimes. At the same time, staffing, as she states, creates problems for the effective provision of care for patients in severe conditions. The senior nurse has to spend much time distributing the workload fairly, but individual colleagues are not always satisfied with their labor conditions. This, in turn, imposes additional responsibilities on the team leader and forces her to coordinate the schedule competently to reduce employee fatigue.
At the local level, the considered challenges are solvable since, according to Mrs. S., the work to attract new qualified employees is ongoing, and funds are allocated to update the ICU infrastructure. However, at the national level, in her opinion, these problems are significant obstacles to the optimization of the nursing sphere. Failure to provide all clinics with the necessary equipment and the proper number of personnel degrades the quality of care. From a global perspective, these challenges are even more significant. For instance, in developing countries, the lack of funding leads to poor quality nursing services. Labor shortage, as Mrs. S. argues, affects the status of healthcare systems and the ability of medical health facilities to provide people with qualified care, which reflects on the authority of employees negatively.
Conclusion
The interview with Mrs. S., a senior nurse of the ICU at one of the Miami clinics, has given an opportunity to analyze the aspects of her professional activities and her vision of individual responsibilities. She adheres to a transformational leadership style, participates in the AACN, improves her knowledge and skills regularly, and works to promote leadership practices among colleagues. As the challenges in her practice setting, Mrs. S. notes periodic difficulties with infrastructure upgrading and staffing. In her opinion, at the local level, the administration of the clinic copes with these problems. However, nationally and globally, the challenges threaten the quality of medical assistance and are the barriers to nursing care development.
References
Fleiszer, A. R., Semenic, S. E., Ritchie, J. A., Richer, M. C., & Denis, J. L. (2016). A unit-level perspective on the long-term sustainability of a nursing best practice guidelines program: An embedded multiple case study. International Journal of Nursing Studies, 53, 204-218. Web.
Kiwanuka, F., Nanyonga, R. C., Sak‐Dankosky, N., Muwanguzi, P. A., & Kvist, T. (2020). Nursing leadership styles and their impact on intensive care unit quality measures: An integrative review. Journal of Nursing Management, 1-10. Web.
Sabone, M., Mazonde, P., Cainelli, F., Maitshoko, M., Joseph, R., Shayo, J., Morris, B., Muecke, M., Wall, B. M., Hoke, L., Peng, L., Mooney-Doyle, K., & Ulrich, S. M. (2019). Everyday ethical challenges of nurse-physician collaboration. Nursing Ethics, 27(1), 206-220. Web.