Discussion 1
3. Your are the charge nurse for the day and have a new nurse orienting on your unit. She ambulates a post op patient by herself and the patient falls. Review the video in this module on giving Constructive Feedback and safe delegation and post how you would handle and respond with constructive feedback to this new nurse.
As nurse leaders, we want our team members to be safe and effective. When our objectives are not met or a mistake is made, learning opportunities present themselves and are facilitated by constructive feedback. Mutual respect and mutual purpose allow us to achieve this. Its important that this feed back be presented in a way that isn’t offensive to the receiver and focused on the task itself, not the individual. In the case of falling incident, I would take the new nurse to a private area to discuss the situation. Hopefully no injury came from the fall, but reassuring the nurse that they are not being reprimanded is important so they will not become additionally stressed or emotional, making any learning unlikely. It should be understood we are looking out for the best interest of the nurse involved and the patients. If the nurse is flustered, this may need to be addressed at a later time. Next would be going over what happened/where things went wrong and what safety precautions were in place. Ideally the new nurse then would be able to lead the conversation in identifying how to prevent this from reoccurring in the future. A plan can be put into place when getting patients out of bed and its effectiveness reevaluated at a later date. If done effectively the new nurse will feel encouraged and motivated to continue to learn and ask questions. Constructive feedback can be a gift that fast tracks our knowledge and skills.
Discussion 2
1. What are the two things you specifically need to do to separate work from your personal/private life and how will you accomplish this? How will you control distractions/interruptions to achieving this separation and can technology hinder or assist you in this process?
Some of the things I will do to separate work from my personal/private life is to evaluate my own priorities by creating personalized plans considering family and friends, my finances, health, personal growth, and physical health. Making choice of what is important to me will help me manage my time, allot time for each part of my life activities.
Work is a very important aspect of my life because that generates money for me to participate effectively in other aspects of my life. I love to shop, buy good things for myself and family, travel to interesting places, and cook good for my family. I Make sure my work 12-hour shifts schedule is stable to be able to use the rest of my time off effectively for myself and other things I want to do to make me enjoy life to the fullest.
Second thing I work on is being firm with my time and plans. If I am off and spending time with my family, I make sure I do not pick up over time at work. My children’s education life is very important to me. So, on my off days I try to see where they are with their academic work and help if need be.
I spend time to cook with my kids – teach them how to cook and do some house cleaning so they can get used to this habit when they grow up, living on their own. Throughout the year, I make sure I utilize my vacation hours to take off from work to relieve job stress, travel to some peaceful place and relax, getting my mind off work related issues and enjoy life as I want.
When I am off from work for four days, I make sure not to check my emails until I return to work because I want to set my mind off work related stuff and focus on other things I must do in my personal/private life. When I am home, I ask my family to put their Ipad and phones away so we can have personal interaction and conversations. When I am off from work, I set time to check my personal phone text and messages so I can rest more with no interruptions.
Managing time and prioritizing what I want in life is what will make me work towards separating work from personal life.
