Notorious V.A.G.

What i learned:

• Why Stephen (and most guys) don't want to work on labor and delivery.  
• Reiterated that Joe is bilingual
• Nurses restrict change by not sticking together, throwing each other under the bus, and eating their young.
• In order to make change, and have more of an influence in the future of healthcare, we need to start sticking up for each other, and banning together to get things done.  Nurses make up 80% of healthcare providers, there is absolutely NO reason why we shouldn't also be the most powerful.

Strategic planning

Some how all of our lessons seem to somehow coincide with things going on at work.  Today in my managers meeting we were discussing one of our biggest issues, scheduling surgeries.  As of now we only schedule surgeries on Wednesday and Friday mornings.  Mohs surgery is done in stages, ie, the dr takes a single layer of the lesion at a time, processes it onto a slide, then checks it under a microscope to see if the margins are clear of cancerous cells.  He continues to take "layers" until the cancer is out.  Anyway, he is only in the room with the patient for maybe 10 minutes at a time.  So if we dont have other patients scheduled in between the Dr gets upset because he is "wasting time." Lately we have not been able to fill the schedule with surgeries like we used to.  Long story short, the other managers have been trying to just been buttering burnt toast.  I came out and said what is the real problem here? We ultimately decided that it was the way we are tracking cancerous biopsies.  We came up with a new system, fixed the broken toaster, and now im crossing my fingers that it works!

Change

Changing and implementing new policies and procedures can be difficult and frustrating, but they are sometimes necessary in order to improve efficiency and patient care.  This lesson taught me how important it is to introduce change gradually, to set goals, follow through, and involve all parties that will be effected int he decision making process.  Sometimes it is better to bring in an outside party to help come up with new ideas.  Someone who is not emotionally connected to a situation or organization is able to better identify areas of concern and come up with new ideas and solutions.