Faculty Development and Retention Strategies

PART I. JOB DESCRIPTION

Description: Pediatric Nurse

Pediatric Nurse Job Purpose: The pediatric RN provides aid and support to pediatricians by taking stock of the patient’s initial needs and by providing initial patient care. A pediatric RN is expected to help families deal with the special needs of their child’s illness. They must be able to asses patients needs and then plan an appropriate care program for the patient depending on their individual situation. For example, knowing when to recommend antibiotics for otitis media. Great bedside manner is a must as the applicant will be dealing almost exclusively with young children.

Educational Qualifications: Applicants must have a Bachelor of Science in Nursing, be a registered nurse (RN) in the state of California and must have successfully completed an internship at a qualified institution and passed the Pediatric Nursing Certification Board (PNCB) examination. Previous work experience in a related field preferred but not required.

Job Responsibilities: Must be able to perform all of the following:

• Setting Children at ease in difficult situations.

• Properly administering medicines and injections.

• Basic pre-checkup duties such as taking blood pressure, temperature, heart rate, etc.

• Being able to work well under pressure.

• Quickly respond to sudden medical emergencies.

• Clerical duties such as appointment settings and incoming phone calls.

• Understanding parental stress and concerns over a childs needs.

• Writing and maintaining reports of patients care.

PART II. CANDIDATE SELECTION PROCESS

1. Initial Qualifications: This part of the hiring process can be known as the resume portion of the selection process. In this phase we read the applicants resume and check to see if they meet the minimum qualifications for the position. The resumes that meet the minimum requirements are moved on to the next stage. The resumes that do not meet the minimum qualifications are discarded. 

2. Past Experience: The resumes that have made it to this phase are sorted based on experience. Preference will be given to candidates with the most experience in the related field. If no experience exists then preference will be given to candidates with the highest level of education. 

3. Selecting Prospective Interviewee’s: The candidates with the best references, education, and experience will be selected to go on to the next phase of the selection process.

4. Desired Personality Traits: Since this job revolves heavily on interacting with Children, certain personality traits are necessary. The applicant must have an amicable demeanor which will come in handy when dealing with children. Their appearance must be neat and give off a balanced sense of authority and approachability. 

5. The Interview: The following questions should be asked in order to ascertain an applicants qualifications for the position:

1. Did you graduate from high school?

2. Did you graduate from college?

3. What is your degree in?

4. Where did you go to nursing school?

5. What did you specialize in?

6. Do you have any previous experience?

7. What extracurricular activities were you involved with?

The questions above will not only give the hiring staff information regarding the qualifications of the individual, they will also provide insight into the character of the applicant. To get a better understanding of the applicant’s nature the following three open ended questions are suggested:

1. What made you become interested in pursuing a career in nursing?

2. What in particular drew you to pediatrics?

3. What would you say is your biggest character flaw?

6. Hiring the Best Candidate: After all potential clients have been interviewed, the best one should be selected based on a combination of their qualifications, personality traits, and their answers to the questions in section 5. Once the candidate had been selected they should be notified immediately as they are likely applying to several places at once. This will ensure that they do not take a position somewhere else because the hiring staff did not get back to them in time.

7. Rejection Letters: It is considered professional to send polite rejection letters to candidates that were not selected this time around. The letter should encourage a candidate to reapply again if a future position becomes available. It is in the best interest of the hiring staff to maintain good terms with potential future applicants as qualified individuals in any given professional field are not always easy to come by.

PART III. FACULTY RETENTION PLAN.

Faculty retention is a huge problem facing the medical community. The amount of training an individual must go through in order to become a qualified professional in a medical field is intense enough to make said individuals uncommon. It is therefore imperative and cost effective to develop a strategy to retain said individuals once they have been employed. This is particularly true when it comes to the matter of nursing turnover. 

In order to better understand the causes and effects of nursing turnover and shortage so that a viable retention plan can be created, we must first define the term. “Jones (1990a, b) defined nursing turnover as the process whereby nursing staff leave or transfer within the hospital environment. This process encompasses voluntary and involuntary, as well as internal and external turnovers” (Hayes et al., 2006). This is not as simple as it would be in the case of a low skill employee. When a nurse decides to leave their position the implications and consequences are many. 

The reasons for why a nurse may choose to leave their positions are important to understand if any strategy to retain them is to be implemented. “The nursing literature reports that the inability to handle the intense working environment advanced medical technology, and high patient acuity results in new graduate nurse turnover rates of 30% to 60% within the first year of employment” (Halfer & Graf, 2006). The best way to combat this problem is to make sure that new hire’s are acquainted and proficient with any and all technology used by the facility employing them. Training programs and adjustment periods should be made available to current employees for any new technology procured during their tenure. This should reduce the number of turnover rates that occur within the first year of a new employee’s career. 

Another common reason for a high nurse turnover rate has to do with the patient to nurse ratio. “In hospitals with high patient-to-nurse ratios, surgical patients experience higher risk-adjusted 30-day mortality and failure-to-rescue rates, and nurses are more likely to experience burnout and job dissatisfaction” (Aiken, Clarke, Sloane, Sochalski, & Silber, 2002). This problem can be solved by increasing the number of nurses hired per year. In the long run it is financially more sensible to hire more employees to lower the patient to nurse ratio than it would be to continually hire new employees to replace the ones that leave. If an employee leaves due to dissatisfaction in the workplace, it is very likely that their replacement will encounter the same dissatisfaction and leave as well if the problem is not addressed. The cost of employee’s replacement is often greater than the cost of employee retention in the long run. 

Given these problems one must consider why a good retention program for nurses is not already in place. A possible reason may be that “Based upon assessment of the relative supply of nurses and demand for their services, many decided that a plentiful supply of new graduates (at base pay) would always readily replace those who resigned” (Prescott & Bowen, 1987). Unfortunately this is not always the case as the training involved in becoming a nurse is very intensive. The best reason to develop a good nurse retention program would be to reduce the replacement cost of hiring a new nurse. “Replacement costs include advertising, processing of candidates, interviewing, and selection” (Mitchell, Holtom, & Lee, 2001). It is therefore far more cost effective to retain an existing nurse than it would be to hire a new one as once previously thought.

References

Aiken, L. H., Clarke, S. P., Sloane, D. M., Sochalski, J., & Silber, J. H. (2002). Hospital nurse and patient mortality, nurse burnout, and job dissatisfaction. JAMA. 2002;288(16):1987-1993. doi:10.1001/jama.288.16.1987.

Halfer, D. & Graf, E. (2006). Graduate nurse perceptions of the work experience. Nursing Economics, 24, 150-155.

Hayes, L. J., Obrien-Pallas, L., Duffield, C., Shamian, J., Buchan, J., Hughes, F., Laschinger, H. K. S., North, N., & Stone, P. W. (2006). Nurse turnover: A literature review. International Journal of Nursing Studies, 43, 237-263.

Mitchell, T. R., Holtom, B. C., Lee, T. W., & Graske, T. (2001). How to keep your best employees: Developing an effective retention policy. The Academy of Management Executive, 15, 96-109.

Prescott, P. A., & Bowen, S. A. (1987). Controlling nursing turnover: Find out why they leave and why they stay to manage the flow to your advantage. Nursing Management, 18, 60-66.