Nurse Interview Paper

NURSE LEADER INTERVIEW PAPER

NURS 490 Nursing Leadership

Nurse Leader Interview Paper

Purpose of the Assignment

Purpose: To assess leadership style and skills in a current nursing leader and identify areas for personal growth related to nursing leadership.

Student Approach to the Assignment

I wrote this paper for my Old Dominion Nursing Leadership class . I had been working as a clinical tech during my associate degree studies at Northern Virginia Community College in a intermediate medical care unit at a local hospital. The nurse manager for the unit is someone I respected so I decided to interview her for this assignment.

Reason for Inclusion

This assignment was an attempt to learn about the style of leadership followed by the nurse manager on the floor where I was completing work during my final year of nursing school and performing clinical. I felt that this paper accurately conveyed what I thought of as good strategies for leading a busy floor in a large hospital.

Leadership

· Delegates and supervises the nursing care given by others while retaining the accountability for the quality of care given to the patient

The nurse leader that I interviewed taught me a great deal about delegation. She talked about how the nursing staff needed to rely on their fellow nurses in order to help them get through a shift. The nurses had to foster good relationships with each other in order to learn their strengths and weaknesses so that they could properly delegate tasks. The nurse may delegate only certain tasks that clinical techs and assistants are qualified to do and the nurses still need to supervise because they retain liability for the tasks that are performed.

Professionalism

· Demonstrates accountability for one’s own professional practice

The nurse leader interview helped me to realize that while the leader is in charge, she felt that she needed to be available to help when required. This nurse leader would perform nursing tasks to help the nurses on the floor and would remain in touch with what the issues were among the patients and employees. This helped her perform the requirements of her job most effectively. This taught me that nurses have certain duties and should find the best possible ways to perform those duties in order to maintain their licenses.

· Understands the effect of legal and regulatory processes on nursing practice and health care delivery, as well as limits to one’s own scope of practice.

This nurse leader helped me to understand the effects of current laws and procedures for the delivery of healthcare on the floor. The nurse worked hard to find ways to minimize falls and infections so that it would not penalize the hospital. This nurse leader found ways to remind the staff of requirements and ways to raise patient satisfaction. She also helped me to understand teamwork within the scope of practice so that I could delegate properly within my own practice.