head nurse
9
3.0
- noun
- /hɛd nɜrs/
:
enfermera jefe
- As the head nurse, she oversees the entire nursing staff and ensures patient care standards are met.
- head nurse managers
And Summer's husband, Well, he's the head nurse of the heart surgery department, right?
- And Summer's husband, Well, he's the head nurse of the heart surgery department, right?
Examples
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I spoke to two CDC representatives and our local Health Department's head nurse.
Blog text (5) -
The head nurse gave me a smile and a pat on the arm this morning.
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You should be the head nurse.
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Call the head nurse, please.
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And as your head nurse, it's my responsibility to take care of my girls.
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I'll call the head nurse.
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The head nurse and social worker listened in.
Fiction book (1997) -
Miss Hatfield is our head nurse.
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But when you're the head nurse, the key is to know when to send in the orderlies.
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I went to nursing school, moved to the country, and became the head nurse of Vermont's first in-hospital birthing center.
Fiction book (1992)
How Senior
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'the nurse in charge' is directly and transparently derived from combining 'head' (a leader) with 'nurse' (a trained caregiver); the compound simply denotes the senior/leading nurse. This noun+noun/head + noun composition is a common, cross-linguistic pattern and would be immediately comprehensible to a B1 learner who knows both constituents.
Etymology
The job title head nurse comes from the simple image of a head as the leader of a group and a nurse as the caregiver. So a head nurse is the nurse who is 'in charge' of and looks after other nurses.