Are You Focused and Do You Follow Through?
One of the most important parts of nursing is to be focused and to follow through. With the nursing process: assess, plan, intervene and evaluate, our job would not be complete unless we followed through and evaluated how our interventions worked. Focus and follow through is from the letter F in GIFTS. GIFTS are an acronym that if used, allow nurses to speak their mind, stand in their power and be a change agent to improve patient care while legally protecting their license. The “G” stands for giving, “I” for integrity, “F” for focus and follow through, “T” for trust and “S” is for source.
This article is going to focus on “focus” and “follow through” is all about because in my experience this is the number one area where nurses get into trouble. Frankly, with everything that is going on in our day, it is difficult to be focused and follow through. We get distracted, an emergency happens, we forget about the patient in pain in the other room. Things happen so it’s really important to get focused and to follow through with everything. Just like when we give our pain medication for a patient. It is important to make sure it is effective. Remember, it’s not just the assessing, the planning, the intervening, but we have to follow through and evaluate.
I’m going to give a little quiz, okay? You are going to read a sentence below. I want you take a look at it, take a good hard look. You might even want to pause it and count how many “F’s” are in this sentence.
FINISHED FILES ARE THE RESULT OF YEARS OF SCIENTIFIC STUDY COMBINED WITH THE EXPERIENCE OF YEARS.
How many F’s did you count? Did you get three? You’re wrong. Did you get four? You’re wrong? Did you get five? You’re wrong too. There are SIX F’s in this sentence. You might want to take a look again because our brain goes on “auto-pilot” and when we read “of,” we think of a “V” and our brain transplants the “F” into a “V.”
You can see how easy it is for nurses to miss subtle cues, just like an “F” in a sentence. And that’s why focus and follow through are so important. Like I said, I think this is one of the most important GIFTS, but you got to use all your GIFTS.
I’ll give you another example, okay?
Did you read “I love Paris in the springtime?” If you did, you’re wrong? There are two “the’s” in “I love Paris in the the springtime.”
I know it’s surprising and you are probably thinking “how could I have missed it?” But again, it just goes to show you how easily our brain goes on auto-pilot and how we can miss those subtle clues in our patients because we’re not focused and not following through.
Think about that as you’re going through your day. It’s really a practice, it’s a muscle that needs to be strengthened. To be focus and follow through requires mental energy because, after all, that’s what nursing is about. We have to follow through and make sure our patients are getting better and getting results from the interventions that we provide.
So, until next time, use your GIFTS and have an empowering day.
Now, I’d like to do a little experiment with you to show you how easy it is for our mind to go on auto-pilot. And I’m not trying to make you wrong or trick you or anything, but what I am going to do is put a sentence on the screen and your job is to count how many of the letter “F,” the letter “F” are in this sentence. Ready?
“Finnish files are the result of years of scientific study combined with the experience of years.”
Okay. Times up. How many “F’s” did you see? Did you see two? You’re wrong. Three? You’re also wrong. How about four? Wrong again! How about five? Still wrong! There are really SIX “F’s” in this! Our mind goes on auto-pilot and we look at the “of’s,” we think it’s a “V” and not an “F.” So, there are three “of’s” in there and that’s where a lot of the confusion comes in. So, take a look again and see if you can find all six “F’s.”
