Professional Paper

This paper offers a summary of leadership in accordance with the article titled “Showing the way with gracious leadership” by Kroning et al. (2020). It also presents the impacts of this article to my future nursing profession. At the end of the paper, a summary of the key findings is presented.

Assigned Article Summary

Supporting employees’ needs and establishing strong mutual relationships with team members is among the highest priority for gracious leaders. By doing this, gracious lead ensure that both patient and health organization expected results are attained (Kroning et al,, 2020). Nurse leaders need to ensure that conflicts and clashes are avoided by constantly offering support to their employees’ nursing needs inclusive of patients’ needs by creating a peaceful work environment. 

According to Kroning et al. (2020), “gracious leaders work to create a team environment in which nurses find joy in working toward and achieving their goals” (p. 49). In line with this, good leaders are those that empathize and show compassion to fellow team members because myriad challenges face individuals working in the nursing field. Some of these challenges include issues associated with understaffing, patient acuity, and an aging patient population which may overwhelm nurse employees, however, the nurse leader should portray that the efforts put by the team members are appreciated and is of value in influencing the attainment of organizational goals. Consequently, this enables the nurse employees to feel appreciated and is likely to have a positive impact on their mental health resulting in reduced stress levels. 

Impact of Assigned Article Content on Future Practice

I have no doubt that the content published in this article will have a stupendous impact on my nursing practice in the future. For example, I know that I will embrace the qualities of a gracious leader to inflict positive team, organizational and patient outcomes. Additionally, I feel that I will strive to be a leader that respects my employees’ and patients’ needs allowing me to prioritize them before my individual needs. Also, the fact that the article emphasizes the importance of nurse leaders building solid relationships with nurse employees would influence me to be friendly and communicative to my future team members. This will make it easy for my future team members to feel free with me and share their professional and personal issues with me for assistance. 

Conclusion

It can be deduced that gracious nurse leaders prioritize their nurse employees with regards to their needs and expectations and they care less about their individual success. This is why nurse employees under such leaders register high work engagement and understand how to cope with the stress associated with the nursing practice that promotes organizational optimal outcomes. To conclude, nurse leaders act as inspiration and mentors and this is why good leadership sets a good example for nurse employees that help them to improve performance and achieve organizational goals and objectives. 

References

Kroning, M., Carey, A., & Crawford-Rosso, S. (2020). Showing the way with gracious leadership. Nursing, 50(4), pp. 47-49. https://doi.org/10.1097/01.nurse.0000657064.68013.7b

In the article, “Lower incidence of late tamponade after cardiac surgery by extended chest tube drainage” the authors discuss whether the length of postoperative chest tube drainage would have an affect on decreasing the chance of late cardiac tamponade occurring (Khan, J., 2019). Previously the standard was to remove the chest tube the morning after the cardiac surgery was completed unless per protocol, there was an air leak or drainage greater than 50 mL (Khan, J., 2019).  Pericardial effusions and late cardiac tamponade can cause complications with patient recovery. while early tamponade occurs within the first few days postoperatively related to bleeding, late pericardial effusions are thought to be caused by post-pericardiotomy syndrome, an inflammatory condition triggered by surgery or other pericardial insult (Khan, J., 2019).  In this study the authors found that leaving the chest tubes in for a longer period of time greatly reduced the instances of cardiac tamponade because it allowed for extended drainage time. According to Khan, J., (2019) any amount of pericardial fluid increases the chance  of cardiac tamponade.

     I chose this article because working on Cardiac DOU we receive patients status post open heart surgery that come to us with chest tubes. As nurses we are responsible for managing the chest tube system, monitoring the patients drainage and reporting to the surgeon. I have noticed more recently that the surgeon has been leaving the chest tubes in longer post operative even if the drainage is less than 50 mLs. However, I did not know that preventing late cardiac tamponade was the reason for the extended placement. I am going to ask the surgeon next time what his thoughts are on this subject. I am always amazed when I read about Florence Nightingale. She was definitely wise beyond her years as she cultivated her theoretical foundation of nursing practice Chamberlain College of Nursing, 2021). I imagine it was probably a nurse that initially discovered a sign or symptom of cardiac tamponade during an assessment which led to the reinsertion of a chest tube. Then a doctor somewhere said, “I think we should leave the tubes in longer and see how the patient does with post-op complications”.

References

Chamberlain College of Nursing (2021). NR351 Transitions in Professional Nursing: Week 5 lesson. Chicago, IL: Online Publication.

Khan, J., Khan, N., & Mennander, A. (2019). Lower incidence of late tamponade after cardiac surgery by extended chest tube drainage.

     Scandinavian Cardiovascular Journal, 53(2), 104–109. https://doi.org/10.1080/14017431.2019.1590630