Look, I know I already talked about this shit two entries ago, so whatever, move on, nothing to see here, but can I just reinforce how tired I am of being everyone's bitch at this new hospital? Like, seriously. I almost swear they're fucking with me sometimes.
So, last night my teammates both went home before the shift was over, that was pretty standard, whatevs. Everything was done on their people, no one was super sick, so even though I had, like, eight patients, I was like, go home, bye, I got this. So I do everything on the new person I got and discharge some others and I'm in a holding pattern with a few others when I get a new patient, chronic fill in the blank twice a week visitor who is certified cray-cray. Goodie. Well, at least I'm maxed out on patients. I guess. So I'm at 5 at this point, which is weird, because everyone else at this joint seems to have about one or two. Whatevs, okay. I'm not overwhelmed or anything, but even the triage nurse who brought the patient back per the charge nurse instructions is like, "yup, that's an interesting choice." So I'm on standby with this crazy lady because who the hell knows if the doctor is going to do anything or everything because she was here like, 20 minutes ago practically and did I mention she was totally balls insane? So I discharge another patient. But at this point, my admit has orders that I have to take care of now, and my suicidal patient needs report called to the psych hospital, and my other patient just got orders placed so now I have to give a thousand meds, another is in pain, and WHAT. THE. FUCK. They sure did just send me an ambulance.
Oh, who by the way is totes a surgical case, in case anyone was wondering. Board update, everybody else is at zero to one patients, but who the hell is counting? Well, the doctor. The one who came back and was like, uh, WTF, why do you have ALL the patients? Oh, and at this point they have ordered all the labs on crazy lady without seeing her, and I'm still trying to take care of all this other shit and as well as get this new lady who is actually legit sick taken care of, and everyone else is talking and going out to smoke and braiding each other's hair or whatever. I'll at least give this charge credit- she eventually sent me one of the people who had zero patients to help me at one point, but by that time I was pretty much already done with everything.
I mean, damn. I don't even know what to do. I very tactfully brought this crap up to one of the charge nurses about a week ago, who basically acted like I was being a drama queen and made a big to-do about helping me without actually helping me. No, bitch, signing up for one of my 6 patients and then doing nothing for them doesn't do a whole lot for me. And now I'm getting a total condescending douche vibe from this lady that I can't even deal with. It's not like the load I had tonight was any worse than anything I had at Hood Hospital 1, or that I ever feared for any of my patients lives- I just hate being behind and not having my stuff done. And it's just annoying when I'm running my ass off and everyone else is still sitting down. So, basically, I don't know what to do. I feel like I can't win. I'm not sure talking to anyone will make any real difference, and there is very little that is worse to me than the drama of confronting someone about this foolishness. I've never felt like my license was in danger or anything like I did, well, basically all the time at Hood Hospital. I can take this. It's just frustrating. I just want a job where it's fair, where I can go pee, and where I can actually take some time to take good care of my patients. Is that some kind of pipe dream? Ugghh I need to get off my ass and start grad school already.
You sound like a worker-bee, which generally only works well if you work with other worker-bees. More often than not, people are more than happy to let others lighten the work load for them. This phenomenon is universal and just because you CAN handle it doesn't mean you SHOULD handle it. New job or not, it sounds like you need to start speaking up. If you keep it mostly to yourself, the only person that's affected is you.
ReplyDeleteGrad school may be just the ticket outta this hell you seem to have fallen into ... what the f**k gives with ratios like that. I don't get it when you have five and they each have one or two ... who thinks that's right ?~! More education is better always.
ReplyDeleteCan you document the off balance work load of all of the nurses -- like print out a copy of the "board" which lists who has which patients? Then give a copy of that to the manager. Seriously. If this goes on too often, then the charge/triage/whoever determines which patients are taken care of by which nurse is obviously trying to overload you with too many patients.
ReplyDeleteJust say no to new patients. F that. No one can ever come back to haunt you if you have 5 patients and get a 6th and everyone else is playing Scrabble on their phones or socializing.
ReplyDeleteSAY NO TO NEW PATIENTS WHEN A NEW PATIENT = BULLSHIT.
We get criticals mixed in with our regular patients, but six patients is never safe, and I am probably the fastest or nearly the fastest IV-starting/assessing/whatever bitch in the bunch.
I get this crap with the techs all the time...they only want to help their BFFs or help out in critical rooms, and asking them to get a UA on a granny is a solid joke to them. After about 6 months of that at my new hospital, I just started reporting it. Fuck that.
The nurses are pretty good though.
I got the same bs going on at my work with some of our techs being unable to do anything on their own, you have to tell them exactly how to do their jobs! Otherwise they just gossip and sit around reading. I decided smooth working was better than work buddies, so I just started reporting it all.
ReplyDeleteHang in there. I hope grad school is your ticket out.
ReplyDeleteWhat's the bed assignment situation like? Are all y'all assigned to 5 beds each and yours are full and other people's aren't? Or you're assigned more beds than everyone else from the get-go?
ReplyDeleteI work in an ER and I've never seen nurses getting to go home before their shift is over unless we're completely shutting down their section of the department and closing their beds. WTF is up with that?! You can't just bounce and leave those beds open, you never know what's gonna show up!
I agree with what everyone else has said. Speak up! And speak up in the moment, or have some kind of documentation of the board or whatever so it doesn't look like you're just whining. That's some serious BS!
you need to speak up girl, the wheel needs to start squeaking!!!!!!
ReplyDeleteAs an ICU nurse who just floated to our ED for a 12hr shift (with my last float there over a year ago...can we say fish out of water?), I just needed to say how impressed I was with the fluidity and speed the ED RNs could manage the rapid flux of patients. They were busy enough that they were happy for my help, and courteously backed me up the MANY times I needed it as I tried to keep my head above water with 2-3 beds. Hats off to you for keeping up with so much more so routinely!
ReplyDeleteThat said, and more directly in reply to your post, I cannot imagine being content working with coworkers who were ok with the inequality of assignments that you describe. I enjoy my job (ICU), but a large part of that is knowing my coworkers and manager have my back and will go out of their way to help me when I need them to. And they rightly expect me to help them out whenever I possibly can.
To echo the others above, find a way to get an image of the board showing that gross disparity in assignments and make noise till this is fixed. Showing that 1) this is truly happening and 2) you're not a whiner 'cause you actually did a decent job with that crazy load (while the others whined about being busy despite your evidence to the contrary) should both help your cause.
A.W.
That would make me very bitchy and not quietly bitchy, very loudly.
ReplyDeleteI feel awful for you reading this. It's a fine line between trying to make friends and a good impression at a new job and presenting an opportunity for everyone to walk over you.
ReplyDeleteMy guess would be that this work environment is toxic given how they are already treating you. The only way to deal with it is to use their policies against them (that's what they are there for) and start standing up for yourself.
M
Next time your charge tries to pull this shit, pull him/her aside immediately and be like, hey, I'm not doing the whole damn ER's work, and I''ve got twice the number of patients as everyone else so you can take this patient to any other pod but he won't be staying here. Don't put off the conversation because you're busy. If it's an ambulance, tell the EMTs to go back triage. Hell, I'd even consider telling triage that but I'm cool with the triage nurses at work.
ReplyDeleteYou're being too nice and they're walking all over you for it. Bite back and they'll be bitchy but it will probably get better. It might get worse, but that's when you document and go to management.
Or now you can just print out all these comments and present them to your charge/manager and say you're tired of being a doormat. I think they're probably just testing you because you're new and at some point, you'll be in with the in crowd and have the option to slack off as they are doing - but you won't b/c that's not your nature.
ReplyDelete-whitecap
I have been a nurse for 15 years and I am going back to school to finish my original degree in FASHION! I have had enough of this oppressive bullshit. I totally understand your sentiment in describing yourself as everyone's bitch!
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