Nurses that Squat

the Muse, RN

is proud to announce

a revolutionary new theory of Nursing:

The Step-Up & Move-Your-Butt-Along Theory of Nursing Practice

***

Perspective:

Nurses train for their role, take their Boards and become licensed to practice by the State in which they plan to work. Then, they get a nursing job and spend the rest of their work-life in that role.  They squat.

Yes, yes – some nurses actually are handed a next-level position – Charge Nurse, Preceptor, Asst Mgr – and then they squat.  Others pursue higher levels of nursing practice – nurse manager, nurse educator, infection control, wound care, patient educator – and then they squat.

The problem with all these squatters-for-life is that they are clogging the system with their old, worn-out thoughts and actions about Nursing and nurses.

MOVE ON!, I say.

STEP-UP!

GO BACK TO SCHOOL! and LEARN SOMETHING NEW!!

BE A PART OF THE NEW WAVE!!  …HELL, LEAD IT!

After 2 – 5 years, you have mastered your work assignment.  Without something new to do, to think about, to create – YOU BECOME A P.I.A.  You bitch, moan, grouse, put on self-righteous airs and wander around like you own the place.  You have mastered the ability and the workload of your position and compressed the actual hours needed to do the work into 10-12 hours/week.  You now have 20-28 hours to wander and act like you’re doing something important – when what you are really doing is annoying the hell out of those of us that are.

You think you are fooling us, too, with either 1) your constant hair-brained busy-ness or 2) your calm, laid-back exterior – but you’re not.  We are not fooled that in the 7 (10? 20?? 30?!?) years  that you have been squatting in your position, the world of science, customer service, labor management, finance and nursing practice in general has PASSED YOU BY.

Squatting makes you stupid and ineffective.

Really.  The squatters-for-life have impacted nursing negatively to the point of breaking us.  New and exciting nurses cannot get past them.  They are blocking the way and have held us back  – and down – for the last 30 years.

GET OFF YOUR ASS and MOVE IT ALONG, Honey.

***

The Theory

Every 5 -7 years, a nurse needs to be reinventing her/himself.  Back to school and/or a new clinical role and/or a new creation and/or a new initiative to add to the theory and practice of nursing.  It energizes! and changes perspectives without very much effort at all.  It calms and relaxes, too.  Learning, sharing and helping others inspires greatness.

The nurse is still functioning at work, but now there is something wonderful to fill up those other 20 hours!  Without this type of required mind-stretching and change, the working nurse will fall off the curve.  The curve does not stop…and neither should the professional.

Move Your Butt!

Keep the same position, if you like – just update it.  Constantly!  Excite it.  Have some passion about making life better for the nurses around you.  And, see that they get a hand-up.  Keep them moving toward you and through you and around you to higher and higher places.

(Psssst…Nurses that are moving are better employees.)

Love the New Grads! – pull them to you and harness their New Grad passion.  Let them teach you what is new and important.  Support, create and insist on a dynamic workplace where your Senior Clinical Staff are rewarded and supported for their creativity, back-to-school dreams, and dedication to the care and well-being of their patients.

Pay the Movers well.  Rank them.  Recognize them – publically – for their specific contributions.

Weed your Garden of Squatters.  Recognize the signs and symptoms of the illness and either get them going or GET THEM OUT.  They are poisoning the rest and serving no good purpose… and they are, I propose, a direct cause of your nursing turn-over.

For only by making room for and actively assisting the progression of nurses to move to you and past you will the system be better for us all.  The paths will open up and the flow will settle to a constant rate rather than what we have now… a log-jam and then job abandonment.  New nurses need to see and feel that there is more than just their clinical care of patients, day in and day out – that more is routine and required after clinical mastery and that it makes for robust, fun and exciting teams.

Nurses with a passion to be more and do more deserve to run into open arms, not walls.  They deserve a boost, not a glare.  Only when we have relieved the ranks of Squatters, will the profession of Nursing rebound… with loyalty, retention, energy and pride.

Step-Up & Move-Your-Butt Along!

Or get out of the way already.

__________

And there’s a nursing shortage WHY?!