Emotional strength and weakness.

The hospital that I am currently working at, I work as a staff nurse in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, and I work as a Night Supervisor as well. The example that I am going to use is an incident that just happened very recently with a family that wanted to pay their last respects to their father who had been on palliative care. With this pandemic, there are many policies and procedures that are forever changing in the hospitals, as nurse supervisors we have to stay abreast with the changes to ensure patient and employee safety. The visiting policy was one of the policies that was changing on a daily basis. My shift started at 2300 to 0700, at 2250 the outgoing supervisor received a call from the nurse taking care of the patient that was on palliative care. The nurse sounded frustrated and agitated that the visitors wanted five people to be at the bed side with their father. The policy only allows for 2 visitors for end of life and the visitors wanted five people at the bed side. I told the outgoing supervisor to tell the nurse that I will come down to talk to the visitors after my report. I proceeded to print the visitors’ policy and had it with me to talk to the family. I spoke to the nurse before I went into the patients’ room to ensure that he was not getting frustrated and agitated with the visitors. I told the nurse that I understand that this is the policy, however, we have to come to a mutual respect and understanding, meaning me and the visitors. I was extremely respectful to the family members as I could relate to wanting to be at my father’s side on his death bed, they were respectful as well. The son in law kept telling me that the doctor said they could have as many visitors as they wanted and I had to be assertive and inform him that the doctor did not make the policy, this is the hospital policy. He finally agreed that they could have three at the bed side but when he was passing the other two could come up to the unit. I told the nurse the plan, he had calmed down at that point, and he told the visitors to call the other family members right before the patient passed away. Now had I walked into the room with the policy and been adamant that these are the rules and we will not change, the outcome may not have been that the nurse and the visitors were comfortable with the decision. According to Nightingale the concept of emotional intelligence can be explained as the ability to manage one’s emotions and the emotions of others. Emotional Intelligence has emerged across several disciplines, and gained cohesiveness within the nursing profession as EI promotes the well-being of nurses, which subsequently impacts patients and families (Nightingale, 2018).
Empathizing with others is extremely important as it portrays emotional strength and not weakness. Empathy allows people to relate to others on a basic human level. It opens the door for mutual respect and understanding between people with differing opinions and situations (Spano-Szekely, 2016).
Utilizing an assertive style of communication goes a long way toward earning respect without coming across as being aggressive or too passive. Emotionally intelligent people know how to communicate their opinions and needs in a direct way while still respecting others (Prezerakos, 2018)