Registered Nurse, Interview Example

Summary

Registered Nurse (RN) Ms. Maria LeBlanc, an employee of Lakeside/Tulane Hospital and employee of Medical Vance Home Health Care, both of New Orleans, Louisiana was interviewed on October 6, 2009.  Ms. LeBlanc is 52 years old and has been practising as a registered for 28 years. Ms. LeBlanc practised in New Orleans, LA for the most part of her career except for practising one year in Florida following the two hurricanes Katrina and Rita that ran nearly destroyed the metropolitan New Orleans are in 2006.  Nurse LeBlanc works in the Obstetrician/Gynaecologist (OB/GYN) department especially minding post-operative female surgery patients and not particular concentration on mothers of delivery and newborns. She concentrates on cases such as hysterectomy’s, ovarian cyst removals or any other case dealing with the female reproductive system aside from giving birth.  Further Medical Vance Home Health Care which has a contract with the hospital employs her to conduct home visits for discharged patients that may require medical assistance immediately after leaving the Lakeside/Tulane. Throughout her career she has played innovative roles for acute sickness recovery as well as chronic recovery for “such diseases as female infertility and psychosocial and lifestyle issues”. (Boville, Saran, Salem, Clough and Jones, 2007).

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Introduction

During the interview I asked Ms. Leblanc about her role she plays at the hospital and her capacity with the home health care with particular reference to the length of time she had been employed as a Registered Nurse (RN) in each capacity? She informed me that she worked for Lakeside/Tulane for five years before relocating to Florida after the two hurricanes in 2006 and returned to Lakeside/Tulane one year ago. The Nurse has been working in the home health care industry for six months whilst working the part-time job at Lakeside/Tulane Hospital.  Prior to the hurricanes she worked full-time for the hospital.  I asked the nurse about her total experience as a nurse and she advised me that her total experience is of 28 years. She has been working since obtaining her RN license at the age of 24. She is originally from Louisiana.  I asked her what new innovative processes had she or the hospital implemented since the two hurricanes in 2006.  She advised me that the hospital merged with the number one hospital in Louisiana, Tulane hence the hospital is now Lakeside/Tulane.  She told me that she personally helped to train new RN’s that were hired after the hurricane for one year since she’s been back and she has added the new computer program which records all medications given to patients on the spot through verification through the patients hospital tag and further accesses the patients pain level to determine if the medication is effectively working.

Rationale

Ms. Leblanc, RN informed me there were two distinct reasons for her playing an innovative role in the training of new RN’s and the implementation of a new drug recording system. She noted that there was paper tracking of patients medication and often records were not accurate. Further there was no means to track if the patient was happy with the pain relief they were receiving. With reference to the training, the hospital lost many of its training coordinators after the hurricane and she was asked to coordinate training of newly hired RN’s because of her longevity of experience and well liked personality. Further Ms. LeBlanc kept track of pain medication authorized by the Medical Doctor’s for her home health care patients on her lap pc on a drug program provided by the doctor.

Analysis

The interview and questions posed to the RN went directly to the ideas needed to answer the discussion at hand. Background that was necessary to fully develop a plan was presented. I chose a nurse that was a seasoned professional that could offer an innovative and experience background for purposes of this study yet could suggest information on a niche area at the hospital as well as work away from the hospital. “An expected of 22,000 nurses by year 2020” expects that nurses much needed innovative skills will prove to become more essential to the medical community now and in the future. (Hillenbrand, 2009).  Ms. LeBlanc possessed over 10 years of direct OBGYN nursing experience with pregnant patients and with post-pregnancy patients caring for the patients and taking care of the administrative paperwork with regards to admitting patients, administering pain and antibiotic medications and applying IV drips. She possessed excellent communication skills, great bedside manner and PC skills. I was given the opportunity to view her PC skills on the drug computer system at the hospital and she was very organized and used the computer system with ease. I asked her to explain the system to me and she did so with a complete knowledge and understanding relating to the same reason the doctor’s use the system which is to keep track of the patient’s daily intake of medication, especially pain medication and to track whether the medication is useful in relieving a patient’s pain. The nurse further volunteered that she was up-to-date on her nursing skills with the latest OB/GYN refresher training course that was administered in-house through the OB/GYN doctors at the hospital.

Conclusion

In a traditional nursing environment a RN might typically be asked only to tend to the patient in basic ways such as to start an IV to run a drip for antibiotics and to give pain medications as per doctors orders as tracked in a chart or on a message board for the entire shift to view. Doctor’s suggestions have always been the only suggestions to follow and nurses’ points of view have been secondary and often overlooked. In today’s modern society, nurses are looked as being skilled with a very honorary education and doctor’s are beginning to respect their point of view and by delegating some authority to them and taking their suggestions.

References

Boville D., Saran M., Salem J., Clough L. and Jones R. (2007). An Innovative Role for Nurse Practitioners in Managing Chronic Disease:  Evolving Role of Nurse Practitioners Retrieved October 6, 2009 from, http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/568422_2

Hillenbrand A. (2009) The Changing Roles of Nurses Retrieved October 6, 2009 from, http://www.radford.edu/rumag/backissues/2004_s/pages/nurse.html

Interview with a Nurse:  Education and Experience Count (2009) Retrieved October 6, 2009 from, http://www.nursing-school.org/interviewnurse.htm