The new nurse manager survival guide Part 1.

Abstract

Leading in a time of crisis We created this series to offer new nurse managers basic tenets of leadership to help them succeed in this pivotal organizational role Little did we imagine the chaos and disruption that were in store for all of us as the coronavirus pandemic has changed life as we know it Hospitals have been reconfigured for the sole purpose of creating maximum capacity for infected patients Elective surgeries and routine procedures have been canceled;ORs and postanesthesia care units have been turned into patient care units to provide ventilator support with anesthesia machines when there are no more ICU beds New protocols are being created and implemented in real time as physicians and nurses learn what to do and when to do it as they go Clinicians are required to make immediate choices about how to best care for huge numbers of very sick patients who appear in EDs with breathtaking rapidity, and the ethics of allocating scarce resources when the pace is fast and actions need to be decisive have their own emotional toll 1 Rigid hierarchies and siloed fiefdoms that have characterized hospitals are rapidly breaking down as new models of teamwork take hold This energy pulsating in hospitals is in sharp contrast to the eerily empty streets outside silenced by shelter-in-place orders 2 No nurse manager practicing today has experienced anything like the coronavirus pandemic;this will be a formative event for all nurses as we move into an unknown future None of us has managed this degree of chaos, complexity, and uncertainty before so, in a sense, we're all new nurse managers trying to find our way Here are some things to think about that may be helpful to you as you navigate this new reality