| Bernhard |
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Joined: 06 04 2010 10:19
Posts: 122
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wonderful topic! I spent years in this job, and also worked as the team. One day, a UK trained RN told me I was a poor NUM, for pretending I was one of the staff on the 'floor'. He insisted that to be a 'real' NUM I should be stricter, distant, and an administrator. I took his info on board, and saw the reality of his advice, and used some of it, but in defence of my nurses, against constant deployment to the wards whenever our (ICU) workload had dropped. The job is difficult, and though the staff invited me to every party, they didn't realise that although the job was 9 to 5, I started at 7am (so to do my real work before 9am)and stayed till 7 or 8pm (so that I could do the real ICU NUM work). This was because during the day we had to go to every chart meeting, art meeting and fart meeting in the hospital! Budgeting regulations, performance standards, accreditation, staffing fights (to get the staff numbers up!), and cups of tea! One day, while I was on a bed, performing CPR during an arrest, there was a tapping at the door, and when we turned, there was a nursing administrator ( my "colleague" as I was one too!) who advised me while tapping on her watch, that it was 'morning tea' (for the administrators) and that "surely the 'nurses' knew how to do CPR" without me! - NUMs are another life force, and my wife frequently woke up at 3am to threaten me with death if I didn't stop typing up lectures (because that's what we NUMs also did till 3am, since we didn't really get enough time to properly run the ward in the daytime).
Today, I tell RNs that if they want to be a NUM, just to do one overtime a week, as then they'll earn more than the NUM. If they do 2 overtimes a week, they'll earn more than a Nurse Manager.If they work 7-8 shifts a week, they'll get more than the D.O.N., and all without having to live and breathe the job even at home, while forever wondering if the their staff see them as dragons, aliens, or Adolf Hitler.
I actually loved the job, and my staff are still my friends, wherever they may be around the world (I did push many out of the ward, so that they wouldn't stagnate in one place). The best nurses, those I wanted to work with forever, I pushed the hardest.... and they've all worked overseas as a result.The work is done for the experience, and not greatly for the money, as there are better ways to make the $$$ without possibly alienating yourself from the nurses that once were considered colleagues. |
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