Nurse on Thinking Outside the Box
NURSES ON THINKING OUTSIDE OF THE BOX
In the Clinical Set-Up:
As a staff nurse, thinking outside of the box may not be as usual or as routinely as we do every shift, like doing endorsements or administering medications. On the floor, not every issue, challenges and patient’s problem requiring nursing intervention necessitate out of the box thinking. We incorporate the nursing process, with adequate knowledge, nursing skills and attitude learned from getting the degree and through our mere experience. Many problems can be effectively solved using a more conventional approach. However, sometimes to achieve more effective outcomes, innovative thinking is required but in order to do so, one must gain ample experience to foresee crisis that may happen upon the application of the nonconventional. Getting out of the box means sticking with the problem longer, and looking at it from various sides, which may not always be suitable for a fast paced nurse, even with the right time management nurses are naturally multi-taskers and are known to accomplish one job to get on with the other. In the box thinkers often believe that every problem needs only one solution; therefore, finding more than one possible solution is a waste of time.
In Nursing Leaders/Supervisors:
Nursing leaders on the other hand, thinking outside of the box may mean seeking the opinions of others which can help in the creative thinking process. As a nurse leader, one can improve out of the box thinking if one seeks ideas from those outside of one’s own profession. Asking oneself on how things are being done in other industries could go a long way from just going around his/her own department. Through this, a leader can easily seek what ideas can be best applied to a particular situation/task/problem and this requires a willingness to take new perspectives to day-to-day work. As nurse leaders, they need to nurture their ability to think outside the box and promote this skill in others.
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In the Clinical Set-Up:
As a staff nurse, thinking outside of the box may not be as usual or as routinely as we do every shift, like doing endorsements or administering medications. On the floor, not every issue, challenges and patient’s problem requiring nursing intervention necessitate out of the box thinking. We incorporate the nursing process, with adequate knowledge, nursing skills and attitude learned from getting the degree and through our mere experience. Many problems can be effectively solved using a more conventional approach. However, sometimes to achieve more effective outcomes, innovative thinking is required but in order to do so, one must gain ample experience to foresee crisis that may happen upon the application of the nonconventional. Getting out of the box means sticking with the problem longer, and looking at it from various sides, which may not always be suitable for a fast paced nurse, even with the right time management nurses are naturally multi-taskers and are known to accomplish one job to get on with the other. In the box thinkers often believe that every problem needs only one solution; therefore, finding more than one possible solution is a waste of time.
In Nursing Leaders/Supervisors:
Nursing leaders on the other hand, thinking outside of the box may mean seeking the opinions of others which can help in the creative thinking process. As a nurse leader, one can improve out of the box thinking if one seeks ideas from those outside of one’s own profession. Asking oneself on how things are being done in other industries could go a long way from just going around his/her own department. Through this, a leader can easily seek what ideas can be best applied to a particular situation/task/problem and this requires a willingness to take new perspectives to day-to-day work. As nurse leaders, they need to nurture their ability to think outside the box and promote this skill in others.
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