During my time in ambulatory, I observed a remarkable perioperative nurse and leader, Sherri Santos. She was obviously the boss, and it was clear that she knew her purpose and had a love for her work. I immediately recognized, “That is who I want to be,” and I became an OR nurse.

My time working in the OR taught me to be a team-focused, mission-oriented leader. Bringing the best out in people involves actively engaging them while allowing each individual the space to creatively solve tough challenges within their roles and responsibilities. I seek to empower individuals and teams and serve as a consultant, as well as a cheerleader and coach.

I have learned so much from watching people creatively solve problems and accomplish remarkable things. To be able to recognize that being too prescriptive actually hampers your team is an important skill for a leader to have. There are multiple ways to accomplish any task, so keeping the focus on patient safety, staff safety, and good outcomes is more important than micromanaging activities. This style respects the experiences, backgrounds, and skills present within your teams. And while this approach is not always effective with junior staff, it is essential when managing mature, highly skilled teams.

You need to be a good follower. Communication is a primary skill in that followers need to really want to contribute to the end goal. If you are passionate about your role, if you enjoy and love what you do, it does not feel like work, and it makes that road a natural outpouring of your priorities and values.

What I bring to the table has been shaped by that. Organizational skills that come out of the OR have led to involvement in project management. The planning and lifecycle of the OR, surgical services department, and facilities planning have naturally led to strategic planning. We are all about data and outcomes in the OR, which drove me to informatics. We tend to be revenue generators, so I pursued better understanding of budgeting and finance. Our profession points you towards some very success-oriented skill sets that empower leaders in today’s healthcare environment.

When I think about leaders that I admire, it is the doers who stand out. They are focused on making everybody better and delivering the highest quality outcomes. The nursing professional development types are those heroes to me. Without them, we would not have our profession. With the “silver tsunami” upon us, professional development leaders will continue to prove themselves invaluable. Too often, professional development is something that is done in the back hall, in the last room on the right. It should be front and center. If we are truly trying to mature our teams, we need to ensure these professionals are heavily utilized. They need to be a part of our highest strategic and operational planning conversations. Without professional development at the core of what we do, we would be left without the opportunity to pass along essential skills and the full spectrum of our perioperative body of knowledge.

An effective OR nurse has such an incredible global awareness of the tempo, skill sets, and personalities within the facility. The ability to anticipate the needs of a demanding surgeon, maintaining irrigation fluids in orthopedics, and multi-tasking as a continuous activity requires a certain amount of grit and resilience. Finding yourself, knowing who you are, and demanding a standard from yourself, all of that is growth. No matter how much you want to adapt or grow, there is power in experience over time through the countless lessons we learn in the surgical suite.

No one can control the universe, and the human factor is the most unanticipated component of our work. With all of the influences on the contemporary workplace, leaders will continue to be challenged. I have always viewed every challenge as inherently possessing opportunity. Taking a step back and recognizing foundational components of challenges or conflicts can help us to mature and grow as a person and leader to the benefit of our teams and organizations.

In a recent podcast with First Case, I touched on strategies for engaging teams and leading in the OR. Everyone expects us to innovate and do more with less, and you can get there with a growth-oriented culture, with LEAN processes that eliminate redundancy, and with always prioritizing the patient outcome. I am an informatics officer and believe that mining good data—and by “good,” I mean purposeful data that aligns with your strategies and your goals—helps leaders effectively identify and implement the culture, processes, and priorities that will drive their teams and departments to success.

That the OR is a boring, unfriendly, cold, inhospitable environment. Yes, there is risk, and yes, there can be dynamic interactions with other professionals, but we are all there to do the right thing for our patients and get things done. Something I quickly came to appreciate was that, if I had done my job right, when I closed my locker at the end of the shift, I was truly done for the day. I could leave work and not think about it until my alarm went off the next morning. That was not something that I could do as a nurse on an inpatient care unit.

I point them back to why they joined the profession in the first place. If you can’t do that, your team will look elsewhere for validation and fulfillment. The COVID-19 pandemic has brought many undesirable changes: the disappearance of elective procedures, the curtailing of human interactions in our roles, the inability to go out and do our normal routine, and many others. As leaders, we need to help our teams continue to see the impact of their work and remind them that there have been past challenges, and that like before, we are going to get through these tough times.

Those who are successful in guiding their teams to a sense of safety and finding ways to still capitalize on opportunities—and there are still opportunities out there, even in this current climate—will be remembered tomorrow as leaders who took care of their teams. Any nurse who takes the time to be introspective, and to reflect and develop themselves, will succeed regardless of conflict or obstacle.

Human connection is everything. To be bold enough to pursue tough challenges is great, but never be afraid to ask for someone to come alongside and help you along that journey. Too often, we think we have to know it all and be it all to develop respect and achieve success in our professional lives. Over the years, I have come to appreciate that our profession is full of remarkable people who want to contribute and support their peers on their journeys.

Along my career, my two proudest moments have been about that human connection with patients. I was able to help a young woman whose spouse had been deployed through a very tough surgical experience. Being able to be there for her during that event still stands out for me. The other experience was providing care at an orphanage in Africa to a young man who had a remarkable wound. When taking the bandage off, seeing his response to that one-on-one care, it still creates emotion in me more than a decade later.

The connectedness we have with our patients and our communities is having a much greater impact than we realize. Even if we do not speak the same language, doing right by humanity is still the calling card of nursing.

Believe in what you personally have to offer to our perioperative community and healthcare as a whole. Perioperative nurses possess a portfolio of skills that naturally flow into opportunities across every area in healthcare. Executive healthcare leadership is hungry for the skills that are inherent to experienced perioperative nurses. Evidence-based practice, revenue cycle, and date-driven decision making are all high-demand and high-value skills. Pursuing what aligns to our strengths while growing in areas where we may need to do so is vital for personal and professional success.

When you find your passion within our profession, keep stepping up your individual contribution and the level at which you are contributing. Very quickly, you will find yourself succeeding with a unique skill set that adds value at every level on your professional journey.

I believe that everyone reading this is a unique talent, a one-of-a-kind professional, and an impactful contributor who can lead our profession. To take it one step further, no matter who we are, we each possess the germ of an idea that can change healthcare. We need to continue on our journey of personal and professional growth, and with a healthy dose of curiosity, we will find our unique perspective and strength from which that idea will come. Each of us has that potential, and we should pursue opportunity until we find it.

Reference

First Case Operating Room Podcast. Season 2, Episode 7. February 14, 2022.