I interviewed my older sister to ask her about her experience in being charge nurse and having a leadership role. Something thatI learned about leadership in nursing from this interview is that you have to do at least a year if not more as a floor nurse to gain experience. This helps you get to know your patient population and your co-workers. I also learned that you have to go through a month of charge nurse orientation where you learn how to run the floor, how to create assignments, and what your resources are for troubleshooting when an issue arises. Something that surprised me about this role was how many different resources there are to support you while you are working as charge nurse. These resources include having a “back up” charge nurse working the same shift with you, an on-call manager, nursing supervisors, attending and evident doctors, ancillary support stage, and many online and paper policies to refer back to, I was also surprised how many opportunities for certifications she had while she was charge nurse. During this time, she had the opportunity to become oncology certified, bio therapy and chemotherapy certified, IMC trained, and telemetry trained. She also had the opportunity to orient new staff and precept nursing students which is an another form of leadership role. In my interview, my sister emphasized how important it is to prioritize a work life balance. She finds it helpful to make personal connections with co-workers. I agree that having friends around you while you work would make for. a better shift. She also makes time during the week to put her mental health first. For her, this self care looks like spending time with friends and family, and taking one day out of the week to get all of her chores done so that he is stress free for the remaining days of the week. This interview was just further insight into how well my sister takes on a leadership role. She is still young and has only been a nurse for 5-6 years, however she uses her knowledge and ability to work and collaborate with other people to make her a great leader and charge nurse. I will use all of the information she gave me when I am in my nursing career. She taught me a lot about how to deal with conflict and ethical issues which I feel is something I will have the most trouble with in the future.
