Interview Summary

For this assignment, I interviewed a mate of mine from a nursing college who will be referred to as “Sally” in this paper. At the moment, Sally works as an advanced practice registered nurse (APRN) at The Medical Center of Southeast Texas. Her major duties are performing a physical examination, analyzing lab tests, diagnosing, developing treatment plans, advising public health issues, and others. Sally has undergone numerous training to obtain a qualification so that she could impact healthcare.

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Even though Sally enjoys her occupation and mentions the high-quality services provided by the organization, she emphasizes several downsides. Mandatory overtime is a major issue in the center Sally works for. It is primarily connected to the pandemic, which puts a strain on the staff due to the number of patients admitted. Working long hours negatively affects nurses’ performance leading to burnout, medication errors, and other problems. The hospital attempted to remove this strain by hiring staff; however, it was temporary salvation. Sally feels that her productivity lowers, although she tries to delegate the duties. She mentions that the organizational culture aims to promote collaboration between the nurses; however, the interdisciplinary work is currently halted. Therefore, Sally only had an experience of working in a nursing team.

Issue Identification

The issue Sally specifies relates to the improper labor-to-hour ratio, in other words – mandatory overtime. For most nurses, overtime usually implies more than 40 hours of work per week (Stimpfel et la., 2019). According to Lobo et al. (2018), “this is particularly true in critical care environments, which experience unpredictable fluctuations in patient volume and acuity, combined with a need for more specialized nurses” (p. 47). Since working extra hours demands more energy from a professional, Sally may fall into physical and emotional burnout. A solution to this issue can be introducing the interdisciplinary approach, which can reduce a range of duties of a nurse, thereby decreasing working time.