Interview on Nursing - Assignment Example

? INTERVIEW ASSIGNMENT SUBMITTED BY: SUBMITTED OF INSTITUE: This study was conducted to identify the challengesfaced by managers in fulfilling their duties, role and responsibilities; and to find out whether or not there is a difference in challenges faced by inexperienced managers and those faced by experienced managers. Two nurse managers were interviewed for this purpose. The interviews showed that the main challenges faced by managers are shortage of trained staff, inadequate training opportunities, lack of motivation, budget constraints and lack of team spirit. Detailed analysis of the interviews revealed that the experienced managers face more issues related to budget, maintaining the standard of patient delivery and implementing ethical code of conduct while dealing with patients while the relatively inexperienced managers face challenges like problem solving, authority issues and lack of efficient communication. 1. INTRODUCTION A nurse manager is responsible for conducting nursing programs in a large unit of a hospital; management related responsibilities of a nurse manager include: assisting in hiring employees, helping them in problem solving and goal setting, supervising the nursing quality in general, arranging for the training of personnel who need it and keeping a record of budget and supplies/equipment etc (Health care position study, 1990). According to Hirschfeld (1992), the first challenge faced by nurse managers is lack of synchronization of theory and practice, thought nurses are educated and apparently trained, but most of them come with practical experience that is not adequate; secondly, a general lack of sharing the care giving responsibility among nurses is also a challenge for nurse managers; thirdly, managers face issues due to the lack of nurses familiarity with different cultures and inability to deal with cultural diversity in hospitals. A study by Tourish and Mulholland (1997) revealed that within NHS there are many communication barriers among the nurses and their managers. The study further reported that experienced managers seem to have less communication issues as compared to the relatively inexperienced or newly hired/promoted managers. Another study by Mathena (2002) attempted to identify the challenges faced by nurse managers. The researcher reported that the main challenge faced by nurse managers is that they are often required to assume roles beyond their education and prescribed responsibilities and that in such cases, the leadership skills and styles differ among the experienced and inexperience managers. 2. INTERVIEWS Two nurse managers from different units of a large hospital were purposively selected for interviews. One of the two was having a significant five years experience while the experience of the other interviewee was less than one year. This was done to enable a comparison of the challenges faced by both the mangers. Each interview lasted 15 minutes, and was based on semi structured interview schedule, constructed flexibly to allow for any questions that might help in obtaining more relevant information to the topic. 3. SUMMARY OF FINDINGS The main findings of the interviews are listed below: The duties of a nurse manager according to the nurse managers include: keeping track of the budget and supplies, assisting the administration in hiring new Personnel, arranging for or providing training of the hired nurses, supervising the general performance of nurses, ensuring and implementing quality patient care delivery programs and problem solving for nurses, counseling them if needed. The main challenges faced by nurse managers include: shortage of trained nurses, lack of adequate training facilities, constrained budget, lack of participation of nurses in patient care awareness programs, de-motivation among nurses due to low salaries and increasing cultural diversity in hospitals. The experienced manager was mainly concerned with issues like nurse motivation and ethical implementation of high quality patient care delivery, while the relatively inexperienced manager showed greater concern over challenges like communication barriers, autonomy issues and negative attitude of the nurses. 4. SUGGESTIONS AND CONCLUSION In light of the above introduction and the summary of findings that followed, following are some suggestions and recommendations aiming at improving the nurse manager’s performance: Resources must be raised in order to enhance the nurse management in a better way. Nurses must be given some sort of financial bonuses or attractions to keep them motivated. The young nurse managers should be trained in problem solving, communication skills and leadership/authority related dealing with subordinates. Greater practical aspect must be merged into the educational programs designed for nurses, so that when they pass out, they are well equipped to deal with the patients practically. It can be concluded that mangers are well aware of their roles and duties. The experienced managers are internally better equipped to deal with their roles as compared to the inexperienced ones. The inexperienced managers usually face autonomy issues and communication problems. The main challenges faced by nurse managers in general are related to untrained staff. They are also a bit over burdened and do not have the time to personally train or counsel the nurses. Sometimes, the nurse managers are not well equipped to resolve the nurses’ issues. The interviews have signified the need of trained staff in hospitals and the need of training the inexperienced managers in communication skills and assertiveness. REFERENCES Health care Position study. (1990). Nurse Manager. (Online). Available at: http://www.oregon.gov/DAS/HR/class/ccrt/spec/6241.pdf Accessed August 9th, 2011. Hirschfeld, M.J. (1992). Challenges from the World Health Organization. Nursing Administration Quarterly, Vol. 16 (2): 1-3. Mathena, K. (2002). Nursing manager leadership skills. Journal of Nursing Administration, Vol. 32 (3): 136-142. Tourish, D & Mulholland, J. (1997). Communication between nurses and nurse managers. Journal of Nursing Management, Vol. 5 (1): 25-36. APPENDIX INTERVIEW 1: EXPERIENCED NURSE MANAGER Que: Hi, I hope you are doing fine, thank you so much for consenting to participate in this interview, I understand that you are busy, I will therefore take only a few of your minutes….are you free for the next few minutes? Ans: Yes, That’s all right, I’ll be happy to answer your questions. Que: What is your designation in this hospital and how long have you been working? Ans: I am currently a nurse manager and I have been working in similar capacity for the last five years. Que: Okay, so what are your duties, your role in the hospital…what do you do? Ans: Well, my main duties are to assist the administration in hiring new nurses, supervising them and monitoring the general nursing related tasks like goal setting for nurses, salary adjustments, problem solving and counseling when needed, training the nurses or arranging for their training, keeping track of equipment and making purchasing requests to the administration, evaluating the quality of nursing and executing the patient care programs. Que: Do you interact with patients? Ans: Not much, the nurses do that. I’m here to manage the nurses, to monitor their performance and make sure that high quality care is delivered to the patients. Que: Okay, so what are the challenges you face in fulfilling these roles? Ans: Mainly untrained or inadequately trained staff. Nursing is a sensitive profession and not everybody has the stamina to become a nurse. It becomes difficult to manage nurses who are not well trained. We then arrange for their adequate training but doing that within our given budget is again a challenge. Que: What other budget related issues do you face? Ans: Well, most nurses are not very highly paid and this causes them to lose interest in their jobs. Material/equipment needs are usually catered by the budget, but it does not allow for bonuses or salary increments for personnel. Que: Any other challenges you face related to nurse management? Ans: Yes, an important challenge is lack of involvement of nurses in patient care plans. When we do introduce some plan to enhance patient care delivery, the nurses are not very active in their participation. The reason again is that they are not very motivated due to low salaries and are already overburdened due to shortage of trained personnel. Que: Do you face communication issues? Ans: Not much, the nurses usually understand and execute what I communicate. Que: What do you think needs to be done to improve conditions? Ans: I believe that nurses should be more highly qualified and well paid. Trained nurses are more responsible and easy to manage. Resources should be raised to provide them with on the job training and the work load should be lessened for this purpose. All nurses must be educated practically about ethical code of conduct and practice with patients during training. INTERVIEW 2: NEW NURSE MANAGER Que: Hello, thank you for taking out time for this interview…What is your designation and how long have you been on this post? Ans: Hello, well, im a nurse manager and it’s been eight months since I started this job. Que: What are your duties as a nurse manager? Ans: I keep budget record, forward lists for needed supplies to the admin, deal with nurses’ day to day issues, ensure equal work distribution among them and look over the quality of care that is being provided to patients. Que: Which of the above tasks is most difficult and why? Ans: Well, the most challenging task is nurses’ problem solving. I think it is because I have so many other important roles, I find it very difficult to take time to analyze what the problem is and how the issue can be resolved. Sometimes they complain of one another so much that I have to make sure that they are not assigned to duty in the same timings or in the same ward. Que: Do you communicate effectively with them? Ans: I do communicate, but I must admit I face a lack of autonomy here. You see some of the nurses have been working here for more than last ten years. I am relatively new here and a lot younger than them also. They kind of don’t accept me as their manager yet. They often ignore my orders and I sometimes have to remind them again and again. Que: What challenges do you face in ensuring the delivery of quality patient care? Ans: Well, actually a lot. Firstly, the budget we have does not allow for a lot of things necessary for ensuring the delivery of an ideal patient care. Secondly, the nurses do not have much know how of what ideal patient care is and how to deliver it. Thirdly, some nurses have a negative attitude to work, they are not motivated to learn or improve at all and lastly; the patients from diverse cultures are difficult to satisfy. Que: How do you suggest these challenges can be met? Ans: An increased budget can certainly help. Nurses should be offered some bonuses to improve their motivation. Persons in a capacity like mine must be better trained in problem solving and communication skills. More learning opportunities should be created for the nurses and nurses should be made aware of how to deal with patients from diverse cultures. I believe there should be more improved training programs for nurses nationwide so that they are in better position to deliver quality care to patients. Que: Any other issue you would like to share? Ans: I have been taught during my course work about the best patient care delivery, and how to train nurses about it. I try to implement such training workshops to make maximum use of my learning; but the problem is that conducting training workshops is not very easy in practice. Nurses do not participate, mostly because they don’t have time to, if I make them participate, they don’t implement what I teach because they are not very motivated, mostly because of lack of financial incentives; this frustrates me because I feel it is my duty to abreast them with quality patient care delivery skills. Read More