Leadership Jump

I remember a point in my career where I felt too comfortable. The feeling of wanting ‘more’ kept creeping up. I kept wondering, what’s next? I loved my job as a circulator in the OR, especially because I was able to still scrub cases on a regular basis. I knew ‘more’ still needed to be based in surgery. I began considering the thought of a leadership role in the OR. For most frontline nurses, the thought of leadership is fairly negative. I was discouraged initially when I began looking at making the move to leadership for a few reasons. One was that even though I wanted ‘more’, I didn’t want to leave the OR. I really enjoy my time scrubbing and circulating and wanted to stay at the frontlines for a bit longer. While working on my MBA, I knew that it was preparing me more for a leadership role, but I wasn’t sure that I would be considering that jump so soon. Then I suddenly remembered everything negative I heard others say about the leaders where I was, but also things that I had said. I didn’t want to be the leader who everyone disliked and talked negatively about in the break room. I wanted to be the leader that actually makes a difference, the one that advocates for their team, the one that isn’t afraid to jump in a room on a regular basis and help out. Now, before I go any further, I understand that you’re not always going to make everyone happy. I’m not that naive, but I didn’t want my peers to dislike me or change their behaviors towards me simply because I would be a leader and most likely, at least 50% of the team will assume you are unqualified.

I began applying to nurse leadership roles about halfway through completing my MBA. I wasn’t necessarily dead-set on moving into a leadership role but wanted to see what the was out there. Looking back, I’m glad that I applied at the time that I did. While there are a million nursing jobs out there, it was much more difficult for me to even get interviews for leadership positions. The most frustrating part was that no one wanted to take my surgical tech experience seriously. Those who have not worked as a scrub or alongside a scrub seriously underestimate the knowledge and ideas a surgical tech may have. I have written about this in other previous blogs (What Is A Surgical Technologist?). The other frustrating part was that everyone wanted someone with leadership experience already. I know this is common but how am I supposed to get the experience if no one will give me the initial chance? This seems to be a common question across any type of role; an entry level opening with a requirement for 3+ years of experience. Make it make sense!

After several ‘failed’ interviews (interviewed for manager position and was offered supervisor, etc.), I ended up accepting a connection on LinkedIn from a recruiter. The recruiter was helpful in helping me highlight some of my experience in leadership. Even though I had not been an official leader, looking back I did have leadership experience which I had been failing to highlight. After updating my resume to take this into account, I was able to gain a few more interviews. Some of them were for hospitals in states which we probably would not have relocated too anyway. However, I felt as though the interview experience would be worth it and, who knows, maybe we would have moved.

Looking back at my work history there were a few leadership qualities I initially failed to highlight. Starting back when I worked for the animal hospital. I managed all of the social media and advertising for this clinic. We were one of the larger veterinarian clinics in the area. Therefore, the social media was fairly active, and we promoted several vaccine campaigns and dental cleaning months through social media which were successful. I also implemented an instrument maintenance and medication schedule.  Prior to my employment, there was no consistency in instrument maintenance and checking the medication inventory. I established a schedule between all the vet techs and kennel help to conduct proper routine cleanings, maintenance, and then checks of the medication. This directly improved the reliability of the instruments and helped us stay on top of our medication refills. 

I also highlighted my experience in training both new graduate nurses and surgical technologist along with committees and councils I had been active in. I was active in the unit-based council, the nursing professional development council. I was also (and still am) a board member of the Surgical Technology Program Advisory Committee for the program that I completed. I was also the class representative for my surgical technology group.

I was then able to get a few more interviews with various hospitals. Some of them were very small….one of the first offers I received was for a Director of Surgical Services position in Colorado where I would have one nurse and two surgical techs in a two OR suite department. That sounded a little too small for me coming from a level 2 trauma center with nearly 20 ORs. Ultimately, I was able to find a hospital not far from where I was located that was also a level 2 trauma facility, although slightly smaller in size from where I had been working. They were in need of a manager who had surgery experience since their current director had very minimal knowledge in this area. She had a short-lived time in the OR on the CV team as a circulator- and if you know much about cardiac surgery, it takes a bit longer to gain competence due to the higher level of care needed, and in this hospital the limited cardiac procedures at the time. Her experience was based mostly in ICU.

I ended up taking the position and would have both the surgical services department and sterile processing that I would be responsible for. Initially, the responsibility seemed a little overwhelming. The staff consisted mainly of travelers. They were using the housekeepers as surgical techs (that’s a story for another day and I stopped it immediately) and the scheduling/room utilization was a disaster. I think we were doing more surgeries outside of normal operating hours than we were doing during. While this was less than ideal for someone to walk into, especially in their first leadership position, I found that there were a ton of improvements I could make- quickly. Go for the easy wins!

While nothing was going to change overnight, we did make little changes continuously which had huge impacts in the long term. After one year we had replaced all surgical techs with qualified individuals, reduced travel positions significantly- and at times completely. Unfortunately, this is a fluctuating need based on MANY things. I worked on addressing the surgical tech shortage immediately- I worked with the program director of the surgical tech program I graduated from to have their surgical techs conduct their clinical rotations at our hospital which had a positive impact on our recruiting and retention, and we also had a dramatic change in room utilization, and all other regularly tracked metrics, which ultimately reduced the number of surgeries that were being performed outside of normal hours.

Another huge shift in the department that was needed was the morale. As expected, having primarily travelers- there is a negative impact on the entire department’s morale. There were things I did each and every day to work on improving this- I will share this in the future in another post.

It was certainly a rocky road, and we are still improving to this day but overall, I think I have gained a lot of respect from my team having both nursing and surgical tech experience but also by listening to them and their frustrations and barriers on MANY topics. I am happy to say that I am glad that I took the leap into this leadership role and enjoy the team I support. As challenging and frustrating as leadership can be- it is rewarding, if you’re advocating appropriately for your team.