Nurse Leadership Reflective Essay

The American Nurses Association states that an effective nurse leader inspires others around them by helping achieve fellow nurses to reach their highest potential in patient care. The leader I observed, E.E, is one of the charge nurses of the emergency department. The charge nurse is constantly performing several different tasks on the unit, sometimes simultaneously, that are utilized through delegation, prioritization, coordination and decision-making.

The charge nurse is responsible for assigning the twelve nurses to assignments between the emergency department, the fast-track clinic and the trauma area; within the emergency department there are twenty rooms with six hallway beds, the fast-track clinic consist of ten beds and five chairs and the trauma area is made up of the waiting room with three trauma rooms for quick assessments. Assigning the nurses around the

Since the ER has a continuous flow of patients the turnover of beds and rooms available is crucial in

As a nursing student, I am continuing to learn the characteristic of proper delegation and how to prioritize, both which come with experience. Within this day of observation, it was revealed that both of those tasks require effective critical thinking. Working within the emergency department consists of making a plan and then readjusting that plan every fifteen minutes, utilized by effective critical thinking. The only way the emergency department can be safe and productive is when it is managed by expert critical thinker; the charge