Supervision in Nursing Practice: The Pathway to Career Adaptability

Abstract

Supervision is the activity of management that has been familiarized as clinical supervision, and is a proper method for supporting, training, and discipline of manpower. In addition, it is an essential part of clinical practice, and it is considered the gatekeeper to profession. Moreover, supervision is helpful in identification of clinical problems and trained clinical supervisors can inform nurses what and when to do, while supervising. Thus, it aims for supporting, strengthening, motivating and encouraging personal and professional growth through the sharing of knowledge and experience to enhance their career adaptability and to be creative and innovative. Accordingly, it brings development to the organization (Cassedy, 2010; Koivu, et al., 2012). In nursing, clinical supervision is a process between two or more professionals (novice nurse and practitioner nurse), involving the supervisors who use their knowledge and experience to assist their supervisees (nurses) to develop their practice, knowledge and values. During supervision, the two individuals should meet on a regular basis for education, monitoring, assessing, examining practice and receiving feedback at work, which leads to the development of professional skills (Manchester Mental Health and Social Care Trust, 2014). Therefore, supervisors should meet specific attributes as; communication skills, leadership behavior, emotional control, decision making skills, personal qualification, professionals and technical knowledge, flexibility, integrity, openness, collaboration, appreciation of diversity, high levels of self-awareness, and demonstrating the capacity to create culturally safe environments, and having adequate preparation for their role via continuous training and education (Berggren and Severinsson,2011). Nature of supervision differs according to kind of work to be supervised, the type of people to be supervised, the extent of supervisor's responsibility and the level of supervision (Eldeeb, 2010). Clinical supervision included three main functions namely; educational/formative which focuses on developing supervisee's skills, understanding and abilities. While, managerial/ administrative/normative function focuses on developing supervisee understands of the professional and ethical requirements of their practice. And supportive /restorative function focuses on developing supervisee's ability to adapt with their work for achieving personnel and organizational goals (Marquis and Huston, 2015).