New Graduate Nurses: Tips & Tricks

 

Nursing is a well-respected profession in Canada. Students pursuing nursing courses in Canada must gear up to identify multiple rewarding career opportunities that are diverse in nature. The scope of nursing in Canada is wide, ranging from providing direct patient care to working in healthcare administration, teaching, research, and more.

Identified as an essential part of the Canadian healthcare system, nursing professionals are responsible for providing care to patients with varying needs for healthcare services. The scope of nursing in Canada is extensive and includes many different specialties and roles that nurses can accept professionally.

After graduating from nursing school, becoming a nursing professional is an exciting time, but it can also be intimidating. So, let us help you out with some tips and tricks that can go a long way in making your journey as a nurse a smoother one!

Research Your Options

The first step in transitioning from student nurse to professional is researching your options. There is a wide scope of nursing in Canada. There are several types of nursing roles ranging from acute care nurses working in a hospital setting to home health nurses providing care at patient homes. Consider what type of nursing you want to do and research the unusual places you can do it. Then, begin applying for jobs you think you would enjoy and that fit your skill set.

Get Familiar with Your Workplace

Once you have accepted a job offer, get familiar with your workplace before starting your role. Before day one, read any materials sent by the employer such as employee policies or handbooks, dress codes, or safety protocols. If possible, take a tour of the workplace so that on day one you already know where things are located and how things operate at your new job. Knowing where everything is will help reduce stress and make the transition smoother for you and your colleagues.

Set Goals for Yourself

Any professional needs to have goals; this is especially true for new graduate nurses who may not yet understand their full capabilities or what they can accomplish in their role. Set small goals that are achievable in the short term (such as learning all the names of patients or staff members) as well as larger goals that may take longer periods (such as mastering a specific clinical procedure or becoming certified in a specialty). Having specific goals will help keep you motivated, engaged, and organized throughout your transition period into the workforce.

Conclusion

Making the transition from student nurse to professional nurse can be an exciting yet daunting experience. To make this process easier on yourself—and those around you—research your options before accepting a job offer; get familiar with your workplace before starting and set both short-term and long-term goals for yourself during this period of transition. With these tips and tricks in mind, any new graduate nurse can make the shift into their new role more smoothly—and more confidently!

How Nurses Can Inspire Patients to Take Better Care of Themselves

Becoming a nurse is a big commitment to yourself and life in general. It is a profession that will always keep you engaged in learning new things. Along with substantial knowledge of medical concepts, you will also keep developing a lot more skills that will help you improve things at work. International students who study in Canada and pursue postgraduate nursing courses get a fair exposure to the fact that nurses are the closest allies to their patients. The influence left by nurses on their patients makes a lot of difference in the progress of their healing and recovery.

Nurses have various ways to inspire their patients to take better care of themselves. Let us emphasize this fact more. Listed below are some of the practices that can be helpful for you.

Identifying & Addressing Patient Needs

The needs of every patient will differ depending upon their health history. The first step here would be to acknowledge this. Furthermore, you must know that most of the patients are already aware of it, but there are a few who might want to hear it from you. So, as a nurse, you must explain to your patients everything about their health using the right approach. Any advice or suggestions coming from your side should be helpful, and unlike heaps of things they must have already heard from their family members.

The best approach to identifying and addressing varying patient needs is to create plans. Creating plans can help you understand what your patients already know and what they don’t. Based on this information, you’ll be better prepared to know how and what are you supposed to say things, which your patients must know and haven’t been told so far.

Effective Patient Follow-Ups

Unless you’re a busy nurse working in the ER, patient follow-ups are very important. Why we’d like to exclude ER nurses from this point because it is quite realistic to be unable to take patient follow-ups in an ER specialty.

Patient follow-ups in various departments and specialties can take the form of a phone call, email, or message. It is always a good idea to keep follow-ups more personalized and not generic. Doing so will make your patients understand that you are trying to go above and beyond to help them feel healthy again. It will also instill in them a feeling of wanting to take better care of themselves.

Integrated Patient Communication

Communication is essential to encourage improved patient care experiences. Effective communication with your patients is one of the easiest ways to inspire them. Becoming a nurse demands you improve visibly on your communication skills. Nurses who are good communicators can progress swiftly in their careers. The main benefit of being able to communicate well with your patients is that you can build up trust with them. They would want

to hear advice and suggestions from you because they would trust that when it is coming from you, it will only help them get better.

Your Guidebook to Promoting Teamwork in a Nursing Unit

Nursing professionals use teamwork skills every day. From collaborating with other nurses to developing care plans with doctors, nurses are required to collaborate to ensure optimal healthcare outcomes. If you are a nurse then this post will serve the purpose of being your guidebook to promoting teamwork in a nursing unit. 

Students are made to learn the importance of teamwork early on from the time they pursue nursing education. This is because teamwork teaches nurses to reduce medical errors, improve patient care, and establish an efficient workflow. This in turn leads to a successful nursing career. 

In this blog, we will list some actionable steps that can be taken to improve your teamwork skills as a nurse. 

1. Increased Communication: An extremely common cause of a medical error is when a nursing professional communicates with a colleague but fails to verify whether that colleague has actually received the message and understood it as well. This is a common blunder that leads to many mistakes. 

Even when students are completing their nursing courses in Canada, they are asked to work on their communication skills. Using verbal and written communication helps in collaborating with other nurses and healthcare professionals for developing a team dynamic. 

2. Transparency: Make sure that you establish transparency on your team by being honest with the other nurses and your patients. When you are transparent, teamwork can be promoted effectively. 

You can also practice transparency by taking detailed chart notes for each patient and regularly checking in with your nursing team to confirm the status of various priorities. 

3. Role clarification: You can classify and clarify roles for improving team collaboration. When you form a system, you confirm that everyone is accomplishing their assigned tasks without any accidental overlap of responsibilities. 

When everybody in the team knows which role they have to complete, it becomes easy to find important information and prioritize tasks accordingly. 

4. Following Up: You can reach out to other healthcare providers and follow up about patient care so that accountability can be improved. Healthcare settings work with high volumes of patients. This is why it is important to take initiative and track progress. 

Make sure that you update your colleagues when you complete a task and follow up with them when working together for treating other patients. Following up with colleagues and healthcare providers can help your team stay organized. 

5. Supporting Each Other: The team members within a nursing unit should never feel reluctant to ask for support. This goes specifically for the newly hired nurses who have just graduated from registered nursing programs. 

New nurses can often start thinking that if they ask for support, it might look like they are unable to cope with their work. Any failure to offer or ask for support results in undue stress. Hence, nursing staff needs to feel that it is acceptable to ask for support in an overwhelming situation. 

Conclusion: 

The nursing profession is run by teams that communicate and collaborate effectively while offering healthcare services. Teamwork helps in empowering the nursing professionals to save lives and offer effective healthcare services. 

Nursing professionals should implement methods that can be effortlessly embedded into their practice. This will improve team performance, safety, and patient care. 

Your Guidebook to Prepare for a 12 Hours Nursing Shift

The nursing profession is a robust career that continues to grow every day. Given the number of responsibilities that are supposed to be taken care of, it is natural for nurses to prepare for a 12-hours shift. If you are a nurse who is figuring out ways to deal with a long shift then here is your guidebook to prepare for a 12 hours of nursing shift. 

In many healthcare settings, the newly hired nurses who have just completed their nursing education are hired to work a 12 hours shift. What these nurses must understand is that the workplace schedule requires making important adjustments to daily routine and even personal life. 

There are ways in which you can work through the long shifts effectively. Below mentioned is your guidebook to prepare for a 12 hours nursing shift. 

1. Eat Well: Students are aware of the importance of eating well while attending nursing colleges in Canada. However, the pressure of the job can make them forget it all when they are on the job. 

As a nurse, it is vital that you stick to a healthy eating pattern by eating light meals or healthy snacks that avoid any kind of drowsiness. Eat foods that are easily digestible such as nutritious fruits and vegetables, salads, bread, etc. 

2. Stay Hydrated: When you stay hydrated, you keep your appetite in check. You can also avoid dehydration headaches and flush all the toxins out of your system. 

Purchasing a big bottle and setting a goal on how many times you will refill it through the shift is a good way to monitor your water drinking habits. No matter how burdensome work may be, drinking water is important during a nursing shift. 

3. Do Not Overcommit: If work wants you to pick an extra shift and you know that you are already emotionally and physically spent, it is not just okay to say no, but imperative many times. 

Even though nursing education trains you to keep your duty above all else, sometimes the situation is extreme. In those times, it is best to listen to your body and mind without any over-commitment. 

4. Sleep Well: Many nurses can work a 12 hour shift without facing any problems at all. However, many experience sleep deprivation and a general feeling of being tired during the day. 

You have to ensure that your body gets a good amount of sleep so that it can feel healthy to get back to work. Remember to make sleeping a priority when you reach back home so that you can teach your body to fall asleep properly. 

5. Dress Comfortably: It is natural that a long 12 hours shift will require you to be on the move. So you should try your best to be as comfortable as possible when doing this. 

Something like investing in the right shoes is important for long days on your feet. You can also consider wearing compression stockings for long days so that your feet improve circulation, and minimizes inflammation and muscle pain. 

When you dress comfortably, you will move around easily and that helps in getting work done effectively. So if you haven’t yet thought about this, make sure that you keep it your priority. 

Conclusion: 

It takes a level of personal commitment, dedication and an effective plan to get through 12-hours shifts. If you have been assigned to work during long shifts in a healthcare setting then follow the tips mentioned above to work effectively. These tips will definitely help you to increase your output while taking care of yourself and your patients simultaneously. 

  

Your Guidebook to Study Cardiac Nursing in Canada

Rising heart diseases are resulting in many fatalities all across the world. People from the medical fraternity are consistently sensitizing others to take care of their heart and cardiovascular system. Given the importance of a healthy heart, there is a raising need for healthcare professionals of all kinds specializing in cardiac healthcare. 

The cardiac nurses are responsible for treating and caring for patients with a wide range of heart diseases after completing their nursing study in Canada. In case you wish to become a cardiac nurse then are some things that you must know. 

What is Cardiac Nursing? 

Cardiac nursing is a profession that includes treating patients who are suffering from heart conditions. This includes patients who are suffering from coronary artery diseases, congestive heart failure, recovering from angioplasty, bypass surgery, etc. 

After the completion of a suitable nursing course in Canada, a cardiac nurse is trained to monitor the hearts of patients of all ages and administer heart medications. In addition, they may also perform stress-test evaluations or care for the most urgent heart diseases such as assisting in processes like defibrillation. 

A cardiac nurse works very closely with a cardiologist for facilitating quality health care services for heart patients. As a cardiac nurse, you may be required to do many jobs at once. 

Why Study Cardiac Nursing in Canada? 

There is a wide scope in the field of cardiac nursing study in Canada. As mentioned in the introduction, cardiac nursing is extremely important and there is a need for qualified nurses to ensure that patients suffering from heart problems are taken care of properly. 

The graduate certificate of coronary care nursing assists the registered nurses to develop knowledge and skills needed to care for cardiac patients. It offers additional knowledge and skills to competently care for individuals experiencing cardiovascular diseases. 

One must study to become cardiac nursing in Canada to gain extensive knowledge in the field of coronary nursing. Studying this field of nursing offers the knowledge, skills, and judgment needed to practice safely in an acute coronary care setting. The students get an opportunity to apply their new knowledge to application exercised and case study analysis. 

Outcomes of Studying Cardiac Nursing in Canada 

After completing cardiac nursing study in Canada, you will be able to gain the additional knowledge and skills needed to care for individuals and their families experiencing cardiovascular illness. You will be learning about care from ER to ICU, and Cardiac Cath Lab to advanced diagnostics techniques. 

Cardiac nursing also includes patient teaching, goal setting, and understanding the clinical pathways for patients with cardiac disorders. During the duration of this cardiac nursing program, you will be introduced to the Canadian protocols and guidelines as per the Basic Practice Guidelines for medication administration. This will include IV, Tracheostomy Care, NG tube insertion and care, Wound care, Mobilization, Documentation, Catheterization, etc. 

Conclusion: 

The field of cardiac nursing has a great deal of promise for nurses who wish to help patients suffering from heat-related illnesses. In case you have decided to become a cardiac nurse then you have made a great career decision. 

After completing a suitable nursing program, you will be working in a great professional environment for assisting patients who need your support in leading a heart-healthy life.