For today’s nursing students, undertaking a charge nurse management role is a great way to gain practical clinical experience. Whilst studying, student nurses are taught the essentials of how to obtain and achieve management and leadership proficiency. A charge nurse is therefore the student who carries leadership and management responsibility, often for the very first time. Student nurses often find it hard to balance their time between their books, their practical hours and their personal life, with the additional requirement of assuming a charge nurse management role, balancing of ones life becomes even more strenuous and it requires a lot of motivation to see this time through.

One of the problems that many students face with charge nurse management is that it places them in a position of authority above that of their peers. This means that offering slack and being a friend is not possible during working hours, in order to complete one’s degree one has to be wiling to learn how to balance friendship and work, and understand the concept of delegating work and having staff members cooperate. Challenges faced by student nurses in charge nurse management positions is that they must learn important work ethics, much of which is practical experience only learnt in a working environment. The charge nurse must therefore be able to earn the respect and the commitment of the staff and at the same time delegate work so that all priorities and necessities are seen to. As a charge nurse, management positions may often be underestimated as little work or sometimes overestimated to feel like one owns the institution. It is however important to remember that as a charge nurse, management authority entails that you are responsible for ensuring that everybody else is completing their work dutifully and at the same time, that everyone is happy within their working environment. As a charge nurse, you are therefore not more or less important than anyone else, your duties and responsibilities are just different.

Offered the position of charge nurse management should be seen as a privilege and an honor. This is a great opportunity to learn those all-important skills first hand as well as how to deal with varying circumstances. As a charge nurse you will learn how to work with diverse people from all backgrounds, you will be shown and delegate leadership and team building skills, you will learn how to manage your time more effectively between your priorities and very importantly, you will learn how to deal will all kinds of crisis management. Once qualified within your field of education, there are many job opportunities for charge nurses to assume the role and responsibility of management in the absence of the director. These positions are very rewarding and often teach one skill that you would never learn in lectures.