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+
Ordinary Heroes,
Ordinary Leaders
Barbara Van Slyke, RN, BSN, OCN, CRNIOctober, 2013
+What is happening?
Uncertain future of healthcare.
Roles of nurses are changing.
Is there or is there not a nursing shortage?
Are nursing schools teaching the right stuff?
Are “non-new” nurses not keeping up with the right stuff?
How best can you position yourself for the future?
+
Future roles for
nurses
Outside of the hospital’s walls
Chronic disease
Preventive care
Home Health
Teaching
Navigating
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+Objectives to Ponder
1. Our “ordinary” may be someone else’s act of
heroism.
2. Tell your stories.
3. Say “Yes” to the smallest opportunity.
4. Growing yourself also helps grow the profession.
+ “What is YOUR definition
of a hero?” --YahooSomeone who has helped you out through a hard
time.
Someone who saves your or someone else’s life.
Someone who jumps at the opportunity to help
another person.
Someone who is there for you.
A role model.
Anybody trying to help other people.
Someone who makes a difference in people’s lives.
+Ordinary Hero: PICC Nurse
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+Ordinary Hero: Emergency
Department Nurse
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Tell your storiesHeroes have stories that we
remember
� myths
� comic books
� films
Too shy? Change the “Hero” if
it helps. The point is that it is
a story about what a nurse
does.
+Memorable patients make
memorable stories
Think of a situation or a patient who left its mark in
your mind. Now take the memory and apply the
nursing slant to it.
The “little white-haired man.”
+Why are stories about what nurses
do important?
Because nurses are vitally important to Healthcare…but
no one seems to know that!
We just don’t talk about ourselves or what we do.
Do you tell your spouse/family what you do?
Does the media portray what you do correctly?
It is only once we start educating others as to what nurses
do that we will be asked to participate in healthcare
decisions for society.
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+Our seat at the Healthcare Table
isn’t just empty, it is slid back
against the wall at the side of the
room.
Who understands the
healthcare needs
more than nurses?
Who also know
society more than
nurses?
+You’re not a “handmaiden”, you
are a colleague, a consultant.
When you assess your 5
patients, how many
hundreds of data pieces
are you inputting?
+What do you say to your patients?
You find a decub on your patient. You assess it and
make all the calls necessary to get treatment started.
“Your doctor has
ordered a treatment for
your wound.”
“I wanted to make sure that
your wound is taken care of
so I called your doctor and
explained the need. He
agreed. A Wound Specialist
Nurse will be here shortly
to decide the best
treatment.”
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Patient’s in Outpatient
Infusion think that
what we do is
incredible. But is it
because they see that
it takes us 4 phone
calls to get that
needed prescription
for them?
In-patients never see
all that goes on at the
Nurse’s Station or all
that nurse’s do.
+A Hero is a role model, a leader.
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+
Leadership classes are part of the nursing curriculum.
The future roles for nurses will include many more
leadership skills.
Ask for and demand competencies
Look for on-line classes through nursing organizations
Not all leadership opportunities are necessarily
medical related.
No matter what the future holds, it
will need Ordinary Leaders
+Say “Yes” to the smallest
opportunity
Leadership skill building takes inner and
outer work. It takes both internal and
external sources of power.
You can start today working on your inner
skill building.
HIV/AIDS
Patient
Teaching
Presenting at the
Middle School.
County
HIV/AIDS
Advisory
Council
Governor
Appointed
Health Council
Board of
Directors of
Waterfall Clinic
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Met incredible people
Served on several different
Boards
Learned how to Fund-Raise
for Charities and Non-profits
Presentations
Involved in starting up
several programs
+Lessons Learned:
“ignored, silenced, and muzzled”
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“Professional associations such as the RNAO
encourage and support nurses to speak up
about their clinical expertise so health care
organizations and the public will understand
that this expertise goes far beyond nurturing.”
“During the SARS crisis, nurses discovered that
their clinical expertise did not guarantee that
they would be listened to or taken seriously.
Media savvy was required to communicate
with politicians and other decision makers.”
“At every opportunity, we must speak of the
clinical, organizational, and system knowledge
and skills we bring to our work, the difficult
activities we engage in, and the procedures we
perform. Collectively we can—and must—
create an authentic image of our extraordinary
profession.”
Doris Grinspun, RN, MSN,
PhD (cand), O.ONT
+
“To transform our organizations,
our communities, or our lives
we must first transform
ourselves.”
Delorese Ambrose
Leadership: The Journey Inward
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Thank you to my Co-Heroes,
who continue to make wonderful
new nursing stories to tell.
+References:
Ambrose, Delores, Ed.D. Leadership: The Journey Inward (Fourth Edition),
Kendall/Hunt Publishing Company, 2008.
Buresh, Bernice and Gordon, Suzanne, From Silence to Voice: What Nurses
Know and Must Communicate to the Public (Second Edition), ILR Press,
2006.
The Future of Nursing: Leading Change, Advancing Health, released
October 5 2010 by the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies.
Gordon, Suzanne, Editor, When Chicken Soup Isn’t Enough, ILR Press, 2010.
Oregon Health Professions: Occupational and County Profiles, released
February 2013 by the Office for Oregon Health Policy & Research.
Oregon Action Plan for Health
Rice, Chelsea, “Nurses Need a Long Drive to the Boardroom”,
HealthLeaders Media, April 15, 2013.