Why Nurses Make Great Project Managers
Angeli Mae Lagasca works in healthcare program management in New York.
My 5-year-old son recently asked me, “Mommy, if you’re a nurse, how come you don’t work at a hospital?”
My child’s sincere curiosity reminded me of the beginnings of my professional journey. I began my nursing career in surgical intensive care at a high-acuity metropolitan hospital, providing skilled, empathetic care for patients during the most vulnerable moments of their lives.
Though I’ve taken a career path away from hands-on care and currently work as a clinical program manager, I regularly leverage and continue to develop many skills I first learned as a bedside nurse.
The career trajectory from nursing to project leadership may not be common, but mastery of the challenges and processes inherent in patient care make nurses prime candidates for success in project management roles.
Let’s talk about some of the attributes and experiences of clinical nurses that directly relate to the work of project management.
Nurses work systematically
Healthcare is an industry in which small mistakes can have huge consequences. In nursing, a task as simple as giving a patient a pill requires a strict process, checklists, and safety measures to ensure that the right patient receives the right amount of the right medication by the right route at the right time for the right reason.
As a critical care nurse, I routinely kept …
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