A Comment on Nurse Managers

 A Nurse Manager who wears scrubs to work = Nice
A Nurse Manager who will step in and take patients when things are crazy = Priceless

I worked with two of my favorite surgeons this week. On Monday was Dr. Bee.  He is the chair of the neurosurgery department. He has clinic two days a week, does chairmanship stuff two days and then surgery the other two with a day left over for Synagogue.  The other was Dr. Yee, the chair of the orthopedic department.  His schedule is much the same. My question:  surgeons, doctors, medical practitioners all seem to maintain a toehold in their practice.  No matter how high or how involved they get in administration or hospital politics, they still do patient care.  Why is this not the same for Nurses? Once nurses make the transition into administration, they drop patient care and never look back.  Today, most nursing managers couldn’t do hands on care if they had to.  I think that this is horribly wrong for any licensed nurse.  I personally believe in leadership by example, and you can’t expect to be a credible leader if you don’t have any idea what is going on in the trenches.

 

It would seem that a nurse manager that has the skills to manage and has the ability to jump in and do patient care when things get bad are as rare as unicorns.