N479 Leadership Management Shadowing Activity Form

Your Name: Julie Brandt

Date of Activity: 11/3/15

Faculty name: Darlene Lacroix

Who did you shadow (add their credentials too)

I had the opportunity to shadow Joan Pettit, RN CNL, a charge nurse on the Labor and Delivery
Unit at Tucson Medical Center.
Role of this leader and where do they practice? (Be specific)
As stated, Joan is a charge nurse on the Labor and Delivery unit. She is a registered nurse and
holds a clinical nurse leader position as well. As a clinical nurse leader, she is specifically in
charge of the unit on her scheduled work days. She has no patient assignment and therefor
spends her time organizing patient assignments and the care that they need. When nurses are in
need of assistance, medications, and/or doctors Joan is who they contact. From there she steps in
or gets a hold of the needed providers. Another duty of hers is scheduling. Offices or patients call
the unit and she schedules them appropriately; whether that be for a cesarean section or
induction. In order to accurately track the patient census, Joan inputs data into the computer
system every hour. Specifically, she inputs the number of nurses on the unit to number of
patients. She also includes the number of babies born each hour. There are anywhere from 150300 babies born in a two week period. A flow meeting is held twice in a 12 hour shift; once in the
morning and once in the evening. Joan, along with the charge nurses of neighboring womens
health units, attend. They discuss the number of patients they have and give each other important
updates as far as who and what they may be expecting or offer float nurses and assistance if
needed.

Discuss the benefit and value of this experience to you (Be specific)
In the future I see myself possibly pursuing a charge nurse role. I would ultimately like to be
working in Labor and Delivery as well. I feel that this experience provided me with information
and experience to better prepare myself for what would be expected and what I need to do to get
myself to that point. Joan was exceptionally kind and offered a lot of information, allowed me to
accompany her throughout the entire day, and answered any and all questions I had.
Would you recommend this specific shadowing experience in the future; why or why not?
(Describe why or why not)
I would most definitely recommend this shadowing experience to others. Joan, as well as all
other staff members were exceptionally accepting to having a student. They mentioned their
liking for student nurses and made me feel welcome. I feel that I learned plenty of valuable
information in the eight hours I shadowed and would accept another opportunity any time if
possible.
Business card obtained/attached?_____ Signature on validation of clinical hours form
obtained?__X__