Charge Nurse... 1 month out of orientation?

[CandyGyrl]

Anyone experience this? During the last week of my orientation I spent the last week orienting to charge nurse. I am now being told that in fact, I will be in charge soon. Although I have objected and asked for more time to adjust to being on my own, I'm coming up on my 1 month anniversary and its happening again. SO I will soon have to step up to the challenge sooner than I've anticipated. I know its not that big of a deal its just that I feel that I should be able to become comfortable as a brand new RN handling day to day nursing experiences without being bombarded with the expectation of being a clinical resource, night clerk and deal with staffing and admission issues while managing 5 patients all at the same time until I've been an RN for a MINIMUM of 6 months . Is this fair? Or am I being unreasonable?

[Perpetual Student]

What setting? With the 5 patients comment I imagine you're talking a med-surg floor of some sort. I know I wouldn't want to be in charge when barely off of orientation. It's a lot of responsibility, especially when you're still trying to figure out how to just do the regular staff RN part of the job. How big of a unit, how many nurses, and why do they want to make YOU charge instead of someone with more experience?

[Music in My Heart]

I'm just off of orientation and there's no way I could charge. I am so not ready.

6 months? I don't know about exactly how long but I know that, if your orientation was anything like mine, you're not ready for anything besides taking care of your own patients.

I wouldn't want to be a patient in a hospital that would even consider something as ludicrous as what they're doing to you.

It sounds like you're caught between a rock and a hard place.

[SummerGarden, BSN, MSN, RN]

the last med surg floor i worked tried to get me to be a "relief" charge nurse. there were two permanent ones on nights and the third position is staffed by almost every nurse on nights at least one or two shifts per month. obviously brand spanking new grads are not considered. however, i noticed that 6 months out of school, new grads are groomed to become a relief. i flat out refused.

i told my mangers that if they wanted to train me during my first year i will accept the training. however, i was not going to accept a shift without at least a year of work experience. it was that simple because it is my license. as far as i was concerned, they can play their staffing games on someone else. i never worked as a charge nurse for that floor and when i had the chance i got out of dodge! now i work in an environment that would not consider me for a relief charge position until i have two to three years of work experience.

[kimmie4476, ASN, RN]

yes, it does happen. I was a newly minted LPN on a med-surg floor (with 2 days of orientation before I was orienting someone else but that is a different story) and I was Charge many times even over RN's due to staffing (the RN's would be PRN ones at that time) as a matter of fact, the hospital reimplimented it's program where an LPN could be charge because of me. In my case it is because I am a good resource for unit stuff, and luckily there was always an experienced RN in the ER that I could go to with things that were out of my league. My hospital is small with just med/surg, ER and surgery, and we all work as a team, but being charge in a larger hospital I wouldn't do. I agree that you should wait until you have more experience because you will probably be on your own without help. Do you know how to run a code? Deal with irate family members? Irate Doctors? Do you know all the resources your hospital has? Who would you call for DC planning? What if a patient dies, do you know what the procedure is? These are just a few of the questions I would want to know the answer to before I was Charge.

[dreavt, BSN, RN]

I've been working as a new grad for nearly six months, including 12 wks orientation, on a hem/onc unit with some general medicine pts, and if I say so myself I think I am doing quite well. There is honestly no way I would do charge at this point -- I *might* think about it after a year (right now our newest charge has been an RN for about 18 mos). Our charge nurses usually do not have a full assignment (except sometimes 11p-7a), but there is so much freaking juggling and delegating and dealing with admissions and discharges and transfers and bed assignments and dealing with families/doctors/patient placement/management/etc. etc. etc.... I would need to be at a much higher level of comfort with my own nursing expertise, and with the 100s of written and unwritten rules specific to my hospital of how to deal with this that or the other thing.... We have several experienced and expert RNs who also elect not to do charge because of all the headaches. IMHO, only you know if you can handle it this early, but think hard! Good luck!

[Jules A, MSN]

One of my supervisors has only been out of RN school 6 months. I was skeptical but she's very competent and isn't afraid to ask for help or advice when needed.

[NightOwl0624]

As far as I can tell, you aren't given much of a choice. When they think you are ready, they start to schedule you as charge. I started with another new grad who had lots of health care experience (I don't) and she started being charge about 3 months after being out on her own. She does great! She is very competent. They gave me more time - almost 6 months. And I still don't really feel ready.

Just a note, though - we always have more experienced nurses on the floor when us "newbies" are charge - and they don't mind at all helping, answering questions, or even giving unsolicited advice when they see fit - it is a great team atmosphere.

I think one month is too early. They're either pushing you because you're really, really good - or they are desperate and need someone to fill that role fast! If you're not ready, be honest and tell them.

[SiempreBella]

I thought 6 months was the usual time to start somebody as charge nurse? 1 month is ridiculous!

[CandyGyrl]

Heres the thing. I work on a Med Surg Neuro floor with step down tele. Technically we should get mostly Neuro patients as if that isn't enough. But we get all the patients who require telemetry monitoring as well as a hodge podge of med surg overflo. No I don't have alot of healthcare experience. Other than school, I was an Nursing assistant for like 5 months on my floor before I started my Graduate Nursing job. My orientation was for about 12 weeks. I got shuffled between preceptors for the first 5 weeks because there were no available preceptors. Our unit had just hired 14 new nurses, 5 with previous nursing experience the rest of us were fresh out of school and had not taken NCLEX yet nurses. Because of the LUDICROSITY ( just made up the word) experienced nurses are heading for the hills at record speed leaving the midnight shift high and dry with a staff of 2 experienced nurses, no clinical coordinator or night manager and the rest... you guessed it BRAND NEW NURSES. :eek: So obviously there are nights where neither one of the two experienced nurses are there and one of "us" has to be in charge. Somebody has to do it. So it's not me huh? This is quite ridiculoso? UPDATE: I requested to go on dayshift:idea: I start next week. There are no new grads on days, I'm the first so I guess I will get my six months after all!

[amybethf]

That's absolutely nuts! I also had 12 weeks of orientation and have been at my position for 7 mos and I am still not ready to be charge nurse! And I am sure that you have wisened up to the fact that hiring 12 new nurses means ur floor has a high turnover rate. If your not being heard its time to move up the chain of command because it's just not safe. And it's ur license on the line!

[NightOwl0624]

Wow...

Don't you work at HFH -WB? The rumor was that they weren't hiring new grads, only taking experienced nurses. That is truly scary. I wonder why there is such a high turnover so quickly. Going to days seems like a very good idea, indeed!