We would first like to start this blog off by saying that nurses are often under-appreciated and their job often is thankless. We know how hard nurses work, and we are only answering “how to be a better nurse” from a practical and educational standpoint with tangible and reasonable solutions. We do not want anyone to be too hard on themselves. We do not know one “bad” nurse. There are many reasons one would desire improving their nursing skills within their career, and that is the reason we are supplying areas of improvement for nurses as well as areas of improvement for new nurses. Here are four tips for how to be a better nurse:
Single, Double, and Triple-Check
One of the most important areas of improvement for new nurses is to always triple-check your work. Becoming a better nurse starts with ensuring that your communication, nursing skills, and documentation as a nurse is accurate. Improving your nursing skills depends on building rapport with your healthcare teammates by proving to them with your actions that you are dependable. Don’t get us wrong, everyone makes mistakes, but the best way to become a better nurse starts with not making unforced medical errors. It is vital to patient safety, trust, and leadership roles to be reliable. Plus, ensuring that your work is correct will also alleviate stress and tension when you get home allowing you to focus on other things outside of work. Nursing is not meant for you to always wonder if you made a mistake. By rechecking your work you can know for yourself and not have to guess.
Ask for help, be a team member
Improving nursing skills takes more than just you. You have a team of people to assist you, provide solutions, give advice, double-check your decisions, and it is important that you use them. Areas of improvement for nurses include your fellow providers. In the same breath of double-checking your work, you have a plethora of people who can help you if you are not sure. There is a line between constantly asking for help and being unable to do your job, and also asking for assistance to make the overall situation safer. It is respectable to want to become a better nurse through utilizing the experience and knowledge of those who have possibly done this longer or more times than you have. It takes all of us being our best to improve for everyone.
Pursue Continuing Education
To be the best nurse you can be for the duration of your career it is important to stay up-to-date on nursing information. This includes areas of improvement for new nurses as well as areas of improvement for experienced nurses. There is a ton of valuable information provided to nurses that is at all of our fingertips. It is important to read evidence based practice articles and new research coming out in the profession. It is important to improve your nursing skills through reading your in-services and staying up to date with facility policy. It is important that nurses adapt to the ever-changing healthcare world in order to continue to excel. There are also many conferences that nurses can attend where continuing education credits are offered. It is a unique experience to attend conferences, as well, because nurses put on the majority of nursing conferences. Nursing conferences truly provide a wide aray of information for the new graduate nurse up until to experienced nurse. They are not only a great source of information for you, but they also give you a sense of community with nurses who most likely work in the same area of health that you do and want to learn right along with you. Plus, who can turn down a vacation? Areas of improvement for new nurses are directly related to the newest nursing information, healthcare information, and industry information that we can get our hands on. You don’t want to be the nurse that has no idea about a hospital-wide, nation-wide, or nursing-wide change that directly affects you. Read up! It can only help!
Take Care of Yourself
Areas of improvement for nurses are a moot point if you, the nurse, are not taking care of yourself in other aspects of your life. Nursing is a caring profession, and at times a sad profession, and it requires your best self the majority of the time in order to cope with the various obstacles you encounter on a daily basis. If you want to know how to become a better nurse, start by examining points of contention for you in the profession, with your coworkers, with patients, and learn how to handle them to protect yourself. If you can sail smoothly with your relationships with other people you will be in a better mindset to contribute, care, and make decisions. Areas of improvement for nurses will always include self-care. We do not want to lose any more nurses or continue with burnout. It is easier said than done, we get it, but the more we can support each other, take care of ourselves, and learn our coping mechanisms the more we can improve as a profession.
How to become a better nurse really depends on our attitudes. Nursing is really hard. We totally get it. A lot of improving your nursing skills surrounds your motivation and ambition to work on the way you nurse outside of your job. The way that we prepare for our shifts and the way that we reconcile our emotions, decisions, and mistakes will be the factors that affect the outcome of our nursing.
Takeaway: If you’re asking “how to be a better nurse,” then you already have what it takes to be a great nurse. You have committed to a selfless life of taking care of complete strangers. These are tips to hopefully reframe your mindset into patient safety and personal safety. That is it! We are so appreciative of what nurses do, and we would never want to bring them down. A lot of insecurities stem from lack of experience, and that will come with time. You are a nurse, and that is the best decision you could make for yourself!
Wanderly.us