Clinical Nurse Managers- Two Difficulties They Face Managing in Hospitals
The Clinical Nurse Manager has a tough role – they have to manage a department’s staff to provide the best care possible to its patients. This job of managing a team of nurses comes with problems that the clinical nurse manager must overcome. I’m going to be talking about some of the areas that a CNM will have to deal with working in a hospital with a team of nurses.
The clinical nurse manager has a reoccurring problem. That problem is understaffing. The CNM has to manage their team effectively to treat their patients which will continually prove to be a challenge. Many hospitals struggle with staffing problems and CNM’s often have to manage it by giving overtime to their nurses and sometimes involves the unpleasant task of asking their team to work on their days off.
Dealing with Conflict
Fortunately, this problem that management in nursing deals with is not as common as it could be considering the stakes can be very high in the hospital. Conflict in the hospital staff is often dealt with by the nurse manager. The clinical nurse manager will have to become adept at dealing with conflict appropriately. There is considerable pressure on nurses which can ignite conflict or balloon it’s size making it essential that the CNM can treat conflicts in her team or with management effectively.
Here’s a helpful link to a really informative journal article on conflict management strategies for nurse managers: https://journals.lww.com/nursingmanagement/fulltext/2012/02000/Keeping_the_peace___Conflict_management_strategies.13.aspx
You could imagine how the two mentioned challenges faced by clinical nurse managers can be interrelated. A shortage in staff causing a conflict. A conflict causing a shortage in staff. It is fortunate that conflicts among the team are rare and treated carefully and nurses are flexible in work often taking on overtime and extra days when it’s unwelcome. This certainly makes the job of the clinical nurse manager that bit easier.
