Drama in the Little City Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Drama in the Little City - Essay Example The card was almost maxed out and every time the interest rolled over, it added an extra $50 to the account balance. Chase and Tara were going to be parents soon. Tara was almost 9 months pregnant with their first child. Chase just wanted the pregnancy to go smoothly and for the baby to be healthy. Chase was worried because he himself had been born with a congenital heart defect. His Dad was currently dealing with CHF (chronic heart failure). One of the ventricles in his Dad’s heart pumped much weaker than the other, thus causing the problem. Chase was also preoccupied with the other things that were on his mind. He was wondering why he had all these financial difficulties. He worried that he and Tara might have to move into the basement of her parents’ house while their financial troubles subsided. Chase was working full-time as a history teacher at the local high school. Tara worked from home as a romance novelist. She really had a flair for it, too. But her advances on her books were getting smaller and smaller these days; a thousand here and a thousand there. But the bills kept piling up and it seemed like their incomes were getting smaller and smaller as well. Anyway, the money she brought in was minimal compared to what Chase was making at his full-time job—but still, Tara contributed to the household’s overall income so he considered that a bonus. Chase worried excessively about his job security in this bad economy. All of a sudden, the car swerved. The roads were icy this time of year, and Chase hadn’t put the chains on the tires yet since it was not technically â€Å"winter† in Colorado. In addition to this, it was imperative that Chase kept the SUV from turning over while it was spinning out. Luckily there were no other cars or trucks on the road at the time. Chase thought about Tara, the baby—his life flashed before his eyes. He was cursing himself mentally for not having put the chains on the tires now. Anyway, there was no damage to the car, and Chase hadn’t been injured—but the car was slightly in the ditch. By the time the police and the yellow angel tow truck had gotten there to the scene, Chase was a little shaken up. Unfortunately, the police couldn’t do much more at this point, but the police encouraged him to go to the hospital to get checked out just to make sure he was okay. He thought it was a lot of fuss, but he decided in the interest o f safety just to do what they said anyway. By the time he had driven himself to the hospital, at that point, the hospital staff took over. He thought they were all very nice but were perhaps being a little too overzealous. There was one nurse, in particular, Mary G., who insistently kept checking up on Chase in the waiting room. What was disturbing was that the hospital staff wanted Chase to have an MRI, even though this had been a relatively minor accident. â€Å"Excuse me†¦.is this Tara?† â€Å"Yes, I’m Tara Moss†¦Who’s calling, please?† â€Å"Mary Giacomo from Little Company of Our Sister of the Sacred Heart Hospital. It is about your husband.† â€Å"Oh my God, what happened? Is he alright?† â€Å"We’re running some tests now, but he basically walked away with barely a scratch. He seems just fine. His SUV just spun out and got into the ditch a little bit on the highway.† The nurse, Mary G., decided to take it upon herself to call Tara. Mrs. Moss got on the telephone with the nurse and mentioned that her water had just broken.

Leadership Styles in Professional Nursing Term Paper

Leadership Styles in Professional Nursing - Term Paper Example Since the style of leadership affects the patient’s mortality resulting from nursing care and the wellbeing of the nursing staffs (Firth-Cozens & Mowbray, 2001), the styles of leadership employed in the nursing scenario are essential. Autocratic and democratic types of leadership may positively or negatively affect the practice of nursing profession, nursing staffs and ultimately the patient depending on how it is implemented by the nurse managers. Review of Professional Nursing Literatures Autocratic style of leadership is where a manager is powerful and in authority to make decisions. The environment is influenced through sets of rewards and punishments. This is most effective when other types of leadership are not effective to manage employees. It also works when there is limited time to make decisions. However, this type of leadership should not be used in situations where employees become tensed, fearful and when employees always rely for the decision of the manager befor e they act. On the other hand, democratic leadership allows employees to be part of the decision making. This is participative in style. Employees are informed on everything that affects their work and they participates on problem solving thus the manager has to get the consensus of the group before making decisions. However, democratic leadership is not effective when there is limited time getting the decision of every employee and when safety of employees is a critical concern. Autocratic leadership is implemented in the profession of nursing in times of any emergency cases where the manager has to decide outright and employees are expected to follow without any explanations. This type of leadership is most beneficial in situations where employees are new and inexperienced and where the organization does not allow errors. Schaeffer (2002) provided an interesting finding that those emergency cases need autocratic managers for the sake of the patient. He further pointed out that man agers are equivalent to an operating room surgeon forced to do what it takes to save the patient’s life. Other emergency cases like evacuating the hospital for a possible threat needs the authoritative action of the manager to give directives to subordinates for a common goal that is to transfer everybody involved to a safer place. Another emergency situation is the need for the code blue team during cardiac arrest. On observation, the same strategy is employed by the nurse manager to effectively handle the situation that is to give directives and be in control of the situation to save the patient’s life during those crucial periods. In these scenarios, a nurse manager can raise voice to command staffs as needed. This is to make sure the nurse and the other members of the team are doing the right thing for a particular case at hand so that if the same situation emerges the group is already equipped with the skills needed. Exercising power in this method may transfer th e skill and knowledge of the nurse manager down to the subordinates. Schaeffer further pointed out that the strategy of being an autocratic leader depends on the challenges at hand. He further added that the strategy is to change the leadership style if needed. As a successful chairman himself of the Well point Health Networks, he accepted adopting different styles at critical