Nurse Character Traits – How Important are They?
I welcome you to this short but insightful read on Important Nurse Character traits.
Reading this piece to the end will equip you with the attributes the best nurses have and how these aided their successful careers.
Specifically, we’ll shed light on:
The important qualities of successful nurses
The organizational skills of good nurses
The soft skills great nurses possess
Overview of Nurse Character Trait
If a nurse wants to be recognized and respected in the medical field, they must possess some traits to make them stand out.
In this article, we will cover just what those traits are and why they’re necessary.
When you’re looking for a new job or thinking about advancing your career, it’s important to know which traits are needed to suit the job functions.
There are many different responsibilities a nurse must fulfill during their day-to-day activities, making some traits more obvious than others.
However, do you know what traits make an excellent nurse?
You will find out here!
Below are some important characteristics of distinguished and renowned healthcare professionals:
Empathy
Empathy is when you put yourself in another person’s shoes; you want to see an issue from their perspective.
A good nurse will put herself in her patient’s condition to know how they feel.
When a patient rings you, they shouldn’t wait endlessly without getting the needed attention.
It doesn’t matter if you attend to other patients; the patient will feel neglected and unloved.
Such a treatment has adverse effects on the psychology of the patient.
A good nurse will stop momentarily and assure the patient that help is on the way.
The statement will make the patient feel relaxed and loved; it makes them understand that you’re preparing quality care for them.
Most patients are vulnerable, and you’ll need empathy to accurately predict and meet their needs.
Please don’t assume that a patient understands that you’re busy and will soon attend to them.
You don’t know what the patient is going or has gone through.
Fortunately, empathy is a character trait nursing students can learn while in nursing school.
Most educators emphasize empathy during nursing education because they know how indispensable it has been since the days of Florence Nightingale.
Effective Communication Skills
One of the qualities of a good nurse is the ability to communicate effectively.
Registered nurses liaise between patients, doctors, physicians, and family members.
They also collect and relay essential data to stakeholders.
The healthcare industry is a highly delicate field; many things will be affected when you make errors.
Some common errors caused by communication deficiency include failure to list life-threatening allergies in a patient’s chart, wrong transcription of medical orders, and missing information on discharge papers.
These errors inflict unnecessary pain on their victims.
Your written and spoken communication skills must be articulate.
You also use communication skills to build therapeutic relationships with your patients.
Experienced registered nurses will tell you how they healed some of their patients with reasonable utterances and positive body language.
You can make patients more relaxed and willing to open up through your communication skills.
Healthcare providers can perform their job better and improve patient outcomes when communication flows freely among stakeholders.
Patients panic when they don’t have enough information about their illness.
They may be resistant to care and make difficult decisions about their health instead of asking questions that make them appear uninformed.
Please don’t assume that a patient doesn’t need a piece of information; tell them everything they need to know.
Let them know about their health status.
Be courteous in your communication and make the healing process enjoyable for the patient.
You’ll quickly build trust when you proactively communicate with patients.
Healthcare providers need this skill in their daily interactions with colleagues, patients, and relatives.
Critical Thinking Skills
It is the ability to assess situations and reach an objective and logical conclusion.
Critical thinking helps healthcare providers interpret data, troubleshoot demanding clinical scenarios accurately, and prioritize patient care.
Your decision-making skills must be accurate and objective.
You should think critically and own up to your actions in every situation.
You’ll be easily overwhelmed by high-pressure situations if you can’t think objectively and make far-reaching decisions.
Critical thinkers prevent burnout, attend to issues based on their merits, and ensure stability in the work environment.
If you’re not a critical thinker, learn this skill before going far in your nursing career.
It’s one of the character traits of the best nurses.
Problem Solving Skills
The ability and willingness to solve other people’s problems is known as compassion.
It is the cornerstone of nursing and makes all the difference in patients’ lives.
Patients should see you as kind, caring, patient, and gentle.
It will help if you devise strategies to solve problems in unexpected scenarios.
If you help an angry mother combs her hair before the arrival of visitors, she will feel you are compassionate and helpful.
A good nurse will allow grieving couples to mourn at their pace instead of taking them out of it. Let everyone that comes to you feel helped and relieved.
All these character traits are essential to your success in the nursing profession.
It’s a highly-regulated sector, and these traits will help you play according to the rules.
You can learn all the skills we discussed in this article.
You shouldn’t feel lazy about them because they distinguish between a failed and a successful nurse.
A nurse without a good character will be a nightmare to patients and colleagues.
Bad behavior affects competency.
Keep working hard to distinguish yourself from the rest!
