Personality Traits of Nurses

00:01 In this series, management of care, we're gonna talk about the professional characteristics of a nurse.

00:06 Also, we're gonna define for you our scope of practice as a nurse and the five rights of delegation.

00:13 So, let's take a look at the character traits of the nurse.

00:17 This may seem really silly to you but there are actual, real traits that are really important for us as a professional and we are one of the most important, trusted professions out there. This is a badge as a nurse we wear proudly.

00:30 So, let's look at these nine quality traits for professional nurse.

00:35 Number one is dependability.

00:38 Man, I can say this as a broken record but being in management, a dependable nurse is a wonderful nurse.

00:45 Just showing up for your shift, being reliable, me knowing that you're gonna be there as a manager to be there and take care of our patients.

00:53 That says a lot for us as nursing managers in hirability.

00:57 Next, the competence as a nurse.

01:00 So, this is going to be ever-changing throughout your nursing career but it's really important for us to stay competent in our field, especially our specific patient population.

01:10 Next, let's talk about accountability. I can't stress this one enough either.

01:15 So, I've got to be responsible for the care I give to my patient, right? If I wasn't, that's a scary nurse.

01:22 So, first of all, I wanna make sure that the care I give is the right care but also, hey, sometimes, we don't know.

01:30 Nursing is hard, it takes a team, and sometimes, it takes other resources.

01:34 So, if I don't know, I need to make sure that I find out. Also, here's the other side of it.

01:40 We like to think as a nursing professional, we're not gonna make mistakes.

01:44 Hey, sometimes we do but it's all about being accountable for your actions, being honest, and making sure you follow-up so the patient is safe.

01:54 The other piece is a problem-solver. Boy, we're gonna do this all day, every day long and I think you understand problem-solving is a big piece of nursing.

02:04 So, every time that we provide care, we've gotta make sure we evaluate that care.

02:11 It seems kind of rudimentary but if we don't follow-up on the actions that we do, how do we know it works? Also, how do we know it doesn't work? So, evaluating our care and the care we give is really important to make sure our patient proceeds through their successful patient journey and getting better on a road to health.

02:30 Also, coordination, man, already, we've got lots of hats, right? So, here's just another one, coordinating care.

02:39 So, our patients have many trips in the hospital, man, they're going to surgery, they may be going to x-ray, they're going in and out, maybe physical therapy's coming in the room.

02:48 Well, nurses, our job, it's coordinating all those care so the patient gets all the treatment that they need.

02:55 Here's another really important trait is communication.

02:58 Being a great communicator and being therapeutic with our relationships to our patient.

03:03 If we don't communicate proper treatment, the meds we're giving, how's a patient supposed to know what's going on? And I'll be honest, if you don't communicate with me, I probably am not gonna be the most compliant in what you want me to do or probably not gonna wanna trust you very well.

03:19 And next, let's talk about delegation.

03:22 So, this is talking about, how do I know when to assign a task to the appropriate personnel? The reason why we delegate, we wanna make sure that we do things efficiently in providing care and as nursing, this saves us time. We're gonna get into this a little bit more later.

03:38 And lastly is an educator. Well, I'm up here educating.

03:43 Obviously, I think it's important but here is the deal as a nurse, being an educator and being informative to our patient, sometimes we really have no idea how much they don't know about their disease process.

03:56 Maybe they've been dealing this with for years and years.

03:59 You have no idea how many times a patient said, "You know what? I had no idea." I'll give you a great example and I love using this with my students.

04:08 When I'm administering medications with my student, I always have my students say, "Hey, this is your anticoagulant drug, your blood thinner for your irregular heart beat." I've had patients go, "Man, I've been on that for years and I had no idea." And then, as a nurse, eventually, I'm thinking, "Oh, man, that's really scary." So, little things like that, we can always educate in little things that we do but it's oh so important for compliance, number one, and also, to inform your patient what's going on.

04:38 So, we just talked about these nine character traits in nurses who integrate these qualities provide high-quality patient care.

04:46 So, each individual patient has different needs, right? We need to assess these needs as a nurse.

04:53 So, my diabetic patient one room may be totally different than room B.

04:58 So, keep this in mind that not all diagnosis means the same patient.

05:02 The other thing we have to consider is alternatives for a patient.

05:07 Not everything that we think will work is gonna work.

05:10 So, always make sure you have a backup plan and alternatives to treatment.

05:15 And again, we kind of touched on this earlier but evaluation.

05:18 So, we have all those great character traits.

05:21 We may put these into practice but if we don't evaluate what we do, we're not sure what's the most successful for that patient. So, make sure to evaluate.