I learned a lot during the interview process with the nurse leader I chose. She was willing to describe different hardships she faced while executing her leadership role and shared the various accomplishments she has made as well. I learned that leadership is a role that not everyone is qualified for and takes a variety of skills such as delegation, time management, and empathy to be an effective leader. Not all leaders need a special title to show that they are able to fit the leadership role however in a hospital setting there are given titles to the leaders which allows staff members to locate them and know who to reach out to when something is in question. 

The biggest challenge my nurse leader faced was her age. She is a new nurse and was appointed the leadership position of charge nurse and is now managing other nurses that have been in the career longer than she has been alive. She explained that some of the older nurses do not feel as though they have to listen to her because they have more experience as a nurse than her. 

The most surprising thing I learned in the interview was that as a night shift charge nurse, there are a lot of responsibilities that she has to handle on her own. During the night there aren’t many healthcare professionals with leadership roles in the hospital. During the day, there are various healthcare professional leaders around to ask questions or advice from. Being a new nurse and a new nurse leader is a huge responsibility to take on.

Listening to all the positive feedback I received from my nurse leader about her position really made me believe that this is a role I can potentially take on down the line in my career. It reinforced that I don’t need to have many years of experience to become a leader, I can use the skills I developed throughout my life to emulate a leader. The interview process changed my thoughts on how difficult it really can be to become a leader. There are so many challenges leaders face because every person and situation is different. There isn’t a single method to problem solving. Throughout my future career I plan to utilize the knowledge I received from my nurse leader in every aspect of my nursing career. I believe by doing so I will become a great leader, official title or not. Being a nurse on the floor that co-workers feel comfortable asking advice from is a goal of mine one day.

EMILY WNEK

28 Hammond Farm Road Haverhill, MA 01832

Phone: 978-891-0403

Email: ewnek@une.edu

Objective: I am a senior nursing student with an expected graduation of May 2021. I am looking to enter into a new nurse role where I can utilize my clinical/empathetic nursing skills in a hospital setting 

Education

Bachelor of Science in Nursing at the University of New England, Portland, ME

May 2021

• Student Nursing Association (2017-2021)
• Love Your Melon Club (2018-2021)
• Hospital Volunteer (2016-2017)
• Please see Clinical Summary Supplement for specific experience in clinical rotations

Honors

• Dean’s List (2017-2021)

Certifications

• Certified Nursing Assistant- State of Maine
• Basic Life Support CPR certified (expiration: September 2022)
• Collaborative Institutional Training Initiative (CITI) 
• Social and Behavioral Sciences Responsible Conduct of Research (Basic Course)
• Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI): Basic Certificate in Quality and Safety
• Mandated Reporter Training

Skills

• Epic/Cerner computerized medical record systems

Work Experience

• Store Manager, Dunlap’s Ice Cream                                     September 2015-April 2018
  • Delegated tasks to coworkers during shifts, oversaw safety of employees, opened and closed the store
  • In charge of the stores registers and all income received from customers
  • Scooped ice cream, made fried dough, acai bowls, and specialty sundaes
  • Gained customer service skills
• Child Care Provider, Nanny                                                               May 2019-August 2020
  • Cared for three children under the age of ten, Monday through Friday 8:00am-5:00pm
  • Drove children to daily activities, provided all meals and snacks, assisted with homework and summer reading assignments

Clinical Rotation Summary

Senior Practicum                                                                                              Fall 2020-135 Hours

• New England Rehabilitation Hospital
  • Administered common medications applicable to patients recovering from strokes and other neurological injuries such as Heparin, Gabapentin, Opioids
  • Assisted with PEG tube care, insertion of Foley Catheters, and IV pumps
  • Aided with documenting various pressure ulcer staging
  • Preformed Neurological focused assessments
  • Skilled in giving shift change report and interprofessional communication

Medical Surgical Rotations

• Maine Medical Center- Oncology Unit                                           Spring 2020-90 Hours
  • Cared for critically ill patients with varying types of Cancer
  • Aided a physician with a bedside Lumbar Puncture and Bone Marrow biopsy
  • Observed the process of administration for Chemotherapeutic drugs
  • Assisted with wound staging and dressing changes
  • Administered medications with observation from a clinical instructor
• Maine Medical Center- Oncology Unit                                              Fall 2020-90 Hours
  • Preformed Head-To-Toe physical assessments
  • Documented on computerized medical records
  • Researched medications prior to administration
  • Assisted with postmortem care and observed therapeutic communication relating to the dying process
• New England Rehabilitation Hospital                                                   Fall 2019- 90 Hours
  • Performed Head-To-Toe assessments
  • Accomplished in recording  patient’s vital signs and recognizing abnormal findings
  • Practiced therapeutic communication
  • Facilitated with ambulating and activities of daily living for patients 

Mental Health Rotation

• Spring Harbor Hospital                                                                           Spring 2020- 45 Hours
  • Participated in various therapy sessions such as gym, music, and group therapy
  • Engaged with patients diagnosed with varying mental health disorders
  • Participated in team rounding prior to the start of my shifts
  • Aided with the preparation of discharging patients to different facilities or home to their families

I chose my nurse preceptor as my nurse  leader. I chose her because she was only a few years older than me and had already accomplished so much in her career relating to the leadership aspect in nursing. She was newly appointed as charge nurse and was also her first time volunteering to be a nurse preceptor. Taking on two leadership roles at the same time can be very difficult, especially for a young nurse. Her leadership role as charge nurse was a formal position that she trained for prior to my arrival to preceptorship. She was still learning the ins and outs of being the charge nurse all while having me to teach. I believe her position as my preceptor was also considered a formal position, because she was responsible for ensuring I follow proper protocols, administer medications, and patient safety was protected at all times. I was lucky enough to stay on the floor during my whole preceptorship and learn many hands on skills whereas other peers had to use virtual preceptorship assignments. By having hands on experience during the COVID-19 pandemic, I believe I was able to see a lot of leadership skills from everyone on the floor. My preceptor possessed many leadership skills such as delegation, time management, and respect to colleagues. During preceptorship, there were various challenges that came up that I was able to see how my preceptor used her leadership skills in handling. The issue of COVID cases on the floor was a huge issue my preceptor had to handle. Many nurses didn’t have the proper PPE to enter into the designated COVID areas so sorting patient assignments to ensure that people with the proper PPE were always working each shift to take care of the COVID patients was very difficult and required some nurses to work overtime every week. Being the person responsible for creating the shift assignments posed stress to my client because it was difficult to make sure everyone was being treated fairly, however, my preceptor never became overwhelmed and was very open and honest with her coworkers when creating assignments and tried her best to allow everyone’s input. I definitely am interested in learning about how my nurse leader is able to manage work and life balance. As a future nurse I believe that understanding that balance will be very important when starting out to help prevent burnout. 

https://files.uneportfolio.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/860/2020/12/EBP-poster-final.pptx

Overall, I believe my group and I executed the project very well. We were able to use our own knowledge on what we believed would benefit the unit we have been attending clinical on for two semesters. Especially since we had two semesters of clinical on the same unit, we were able to develop a strong understanding of what the patient population specifically needs to help make the outcome of their hospital stay better. We chose to focus on the prevention of hospital-acquired Infections in patients in an Oncology unit. From knowledge, we knew that infection prevention is a serious priority for oncology patients because their immune systems are suppressed which increases their risk for infection. We chose to search for ideas on ways to help decrease and or prevent these infections from occurring. We found that hand hygiene is a vital part of infection prevention. It seems like a basic skill that everyone should understand, however many times it is overlooked or not done properly. Performing proper hang hygiene can decrease the risk of infection immensely. Improving nursing practice standards on hand hygiene, central-line care, and other procedures where bacterial, fungus or viral infections have a chance of entering the body is essential to decreasing a patient’s risk for a hospital-acquired infection.

The Nurse Educator on the unit was very receptive to the research we presented to her. She completely agreed that hand hygiene is essential to infection prevention and unfortunately is at times overlooked or not taken seriously. She suggested adding a supplemental hang hygiene review for healthcare providers to attend to demonstrate the importance of hand hygiene, specifically in relation to oncology patients. Also, ensuring that the proper standard of practice for central-line care is being executed. Many oncology patients have central-lines and proper care of those central-lines greatly influences a patients risk for infection. Overall, the Nurse Educator was please with what we presented and was happy that we had an understanding of the importance on using evidence based practice to help make the unit function better for the patients benefit!

Link to Topic Proposal:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1b7Sfxi9dD9C8I_YlXiBTn1Uoo-_gqAUTqqxtzdPqlcI/edit?usp=sharing

Reflection on Topic Proposal:

Developing a topic proposal has been an interesting process. At first the entire project seemed to be challenging however, as time went on I became interested in the formality of steps that are completed in order to develop a proposal. Completing each step in the process makes the development of the final proposal extremely easier. I found that choosing a topic that relates to the floor in the hospital that I attend clinical on made the project more personal. Having experience on the clinical floor by talking to patients, nurses, and other health care professionals helped me to think of what I wanted to center the proposal around. I believe the hardest part in developing a topic proposal was the research. Often times I have a hard time locating articles that have adequate information that will support what I am looking for.

My group worked very well together during this process. We were able to share thoughts on the topic at clinical and over the phone which made communication easy. We also put all of our information in a Google Doc so we were able to write the document at the same time so we could see everyones information. This also allowed for easy updates to the project itself. I am very glad to have been in a group with the members I was because we all got our work done in a timely manner and put effort into this topic rather than just considering it another assignment.