Through my experiences as a nurse and nurse leader, I have accumulated core skills that I felt made a difference in making work life easier for me and other nurses at the bedside and in frontline leader roles.
These topics provided the foundation for our Journey.
To confirm these foundational topics for Saving Nurses, I turned to 20 brilliant nurses I have worked with to complete a needs assessment survey to identify their priority topics they believe would make their work lives better.
This is what these nurses come up with:
- Nurse engagement
- How to be staff’s voice
- Building supportive relationships with new nurses
- Motivating change through evidence
- Communicating system level goals to bedside nurses
- How to communicate to staff when you don’t have enough information from administration
- Moving from helplessness to empowerment
- Palliative care
- Helping families in crisis
- Conflict resolution
- How to handle ‘sour apple’ staff
- Dealing with bullies
- Daily survival skills
- Workload management
- Setting priorities
- How to inspire career growth
- Staying aligned with self and boss
- When to stop talking
- “Cure burnout” !
- Self care
- Self-awareness to self actualization
- Achieving clarity of thought
- Letting go and self forgiveness
- Emotional intelligence
- Healthcare changes
- Reimbursement trends
- And yes…as always – Staffing levels & budgets
How are we going to tackle these lofty topics?
I believe work life and leadership skill development requires inner clarity and courage.
The Saving Nurse experience will provide opportunities for you to explore your thoughts and feelings while you reflect on the content presented. It’s our thoughts and feelings about topics and situations that drive our actions. This is where growth and change happens.
This journey will benefit you at work as you develop and apply your own style of work life and leadership skills with growing clarity and confidence in yourself, others and nursing.
Other requests:
Can we have a chat room?
Can we post questions for others to respond?
How about a workbook?
Webinars would be great.
Let me just say that my technical knowledge and skills are growing and not there yet. I’m sure there are formats that can accommodate this. We’ll explore this as we go…
For now, Use the Comments section following each post. I will respond to each comment and you can respond to each other’s comments. Post your questions there as well. I’m sure that some questions and comments will generate future posts.
Fabulous!
I hope your holiday preparations are bringing you Joy!
Pat
Pat- I am delighted to find you and look forward to watching this journey. I am no longer working, for MANY reasons. One of the primary reasons though is the level of disenchantment and discouragement I experienced in healthcare due to my inability to truly create lasting impact for my staff and my patients. Seeing your picture here and reading your blog brought a smile to my face tonight, and I know in my heart that this is where you are meant to be! Bless you as you share your passion for nursing and nurses. I learned so much from you when we worked together, and I know those who find you here will experience the same.
Hello, Juanita!
What a delight to hear from you.
Thank you for your kind words.
pat
Hello Pat! What a suprise to see your name come up in my Facebook Feed. I too suffered from severe burnout after just 8 years of nursing and the burnout built up and up until I had a complete emotional breakdown one night on arrival to my unit and just couldn’t do it anymore. I was a complete wreck…my husband had to be called to drive me home. That was over 2 years ago and I still have not been able to set foot inside that hospital again. My burnout was so bad that I just let my nursing license expire and am now retired. What stood out for me though was just how supportive my charge nurses, manager and PSA were on that awful, final shift. There was no blame, no bitterness, no anger…just pure love, warmth and total support, compassion and caring. They ‘nursed’ me in true nurse fashion, made sure I was safe and supported and let me go with hugs, not criticism. I still feel guilt for running out on my shift and, in my eyes, letting my team down…but not a single one of my leaders or colleagues has ever, ever given me anything but support for my decision. It stood out for me as a situation where true nursing love and light just shone so brightly for someone in desperate need of that care, and I will be forever grateful that I experienced what it is like to be a patient, in receipt of that care…on the ‘other side’ instead of being the giver. I am passionate about giving support to other nurses, CNA’s and healthcare staff, and often receive text messages or calls from colleagues who are close to burnout, stressed and despondent and always take time to listen and try to provide encouragement and support. I think this blog will be an excellent resource for healthcare providers and want to thank you for providing this. Best wishes!
Dear Lynda,
What a beautiful story you tell here… about how you were cared for by your fellow team of nurses. These were exemplary actions of love and support. I am sorry for your experience of burnout. I sense that the wise, caring actions of your colleagues put you on the path of healing.
I appreciate your recognition that the Saving Nurses journey can help others.
I hope your strength continues to grow.
Pat
Hey Pat! LOVE LOVE LOVE your website! You are truly my mentor and role model and I cannot say enough about you to my fellow peers! You inspired me to do better and to learn from your actions in my leadership skills. Can’t thank you enough.
Dearest Charlotte,
Thank you!