[nurseman99]

one of the sad things being an rn is that we all talk a good talk until the crap hits the fan.many a nurse over the yrs has had the same complaints i have had.unfortunately,when confronted by the manager i seem to do most of the talking.here is the reason,nurses by nature are nonconfrontational.we are so used to comforting or helping people we just want to complain but not go the extra mile to report poor performance or downright dangerous behavoir because if mr/ms poor nurse loses her job who;s going to feed /clothe her family?but.....what about mr pt??!!!doesn;t he deserve at least moderately skilled nursing care?reporting a dangerous situation or pattern of nursing is the least we can do to safeguard the pt;s in icu!i wish you good luck and pray that your hospital sees beyond that manager and looks at the bigger picture.if you truly are well respected by your peers than all will work out if you desire reinstatement...god bless..

[LadyCharge]

I just read through this entire thread and first of all I want to tell you how greivous this is to me because I have experienced the same thing, and I too, felt "sad in my heart" as you described in an earlier post...so NO you are NOT corny one iota for feeling that way. First you are stunned, then the sadness and hurt sets in. My heart truly goes out for you and if I were in critical condition or one of my loved ones, I would want YOU as my nurse!

I've only been a RN for 10 years and over the past 3 months I have taken a much needed sabbatical and I really am feeling I never want to work in a hospital again. I have just had it with administration. Its not about the patient or their so-called "values." We all know that its about their selfish financial gains. Managers are rewarded with hefty bonuses if they keep their budget low. I had a manager that was so disgustingly, sticky-sweet, phoney, fake, two-faced, almost angelic looking, but beware! There's a knife hidden under her lab coat. I saw so much unethical behaviors, falsifying of MR, and implying even the good docs were getting old and forgetful...(when they were not), as an attempt for cover-ups. And I am talking about a very well-known hospital.

Yes, I've been railroaded. One time I reported my hospital to a hotline and the next day administration had an impromptu employee meeting on my floor whose real purpose was to locate the whistle-blower and fire them. There were numerous safey issues that they continually glossed over.

My heart is with you TN Nurse. I love nursing. I love the challenges and the satisfaction I get from helping to save a life and make the smallest difference in a person life. But my eyes have been opened in the medical profession...its really not about any of this with the people in charge. Its all about their money and building more buildings and profit, profit, profit! I loved Panhandle Nurses post! Boy did you hit that nail on the head!

Follow your heart and do not back down. If your attorney thinks you can win then go for the throat because I promise you they will go for your jugular. Your ex manager should be FIRED! And anyone in upper management should be investigated and terminated as well. This seems to be difficult to prove however. But not impossible. I would have NO PITY on them, and for heaven's sake get rid of the sentimental attachment to that hospital! Trust me, I have had the sentiments thinking they all loved me, would never hurt me, cause Im one of the best nurses they had, and how often I heard it...but oh yes, I am living testimony thats all a joke.

Nursing in the south sucks. The nurses here, (no offense) have no backbone to unite and make the desparately needed changes. The nurses in California do not take any crap and united and take a look at the wonderful changes they made for their patients and their careers. If I am to stay in nursing I am moving to Northern California and leaving the armpit of nursing here in Florida. If I have to stay here...I promise you I am getting out of this profession. It has been one of the most demeaning jobs in my entire life.

God Speed to you...keep us posted.

[panhandler]

I just got a notice from the lawyer I am hiring to defend my license to the BON: this chap (recommended by the State Nurse's Association) is charging about $400 per hour. He wants a RETAINER of $2K.

THAT is the reality. WHen you get stabbed in the back, you get to pay most of what you have saved from a too-low salary just to have the axe handle removed. For shame!

Ah, what we have abrogated, what we have abdicated! Ah, my sister nurses, take heart's-ease in large doses. Hospital work is: Life in the shark tank. Except that SHARKS are CLEAN.

Like you, I just do not want to believe how deep and how foul the chancre of for-profit health "management" has gotten. Its roots are wrapped tightly around the law itself. Shine some light on it, and you too will smell its stench. Perhaps it is better to walk blindly in, mesmerized by the "benefit package." Perhaps it is better to "yes" them to death, and remove the energy we would otherwise give to the patient to satisfy the nonsense that passes for "administration."

Who's got the cujones to challenge it? We would starve without table scraps from the feast of 50% of the USA Federal Budget that is taken by the Medical Industrial Complex. A famous lady tried to DISCUSS a revision of the status-quo, and was thrown out on her largesse by the US Congress. Politics aside, Mrs. Clinton was brave, but the fight was lost before she turned on the microphone.

The prescription drug, the Medicare and Medicaid messes, are just the top of the iceberg.

Our lawmakers are bribed into preventing the enactment of a logical, intelligent healthcare system by paid lobbyists from Big Medicine, Big Sugar, and Big Oil, Big Insurance, and of course, Big Law. These entities 'write' more than 80% of the "news" we "believe." Including, my sweeties, the venerable "AJN," whose mission is to continue the hypnosis. The beauties at that journal also left splinters in my spine. (I was, and I quote from my kangaroo-court Axe-It interview, "too aggressive towards our sponsors," and "too involved in reporting State Nurse Association organizational efforts in local hospitals.")

Any ideas? Any comments?
There is an age-old conflict called "shoes-on-the-baby" whereby we must earn our bread and shut our senses off to the way in which that bread appears on the table. Do our clients pay us directly? Or have we hired a "landlord" to do our dirty work?

There's nothing inherently wrong with making a profit, because it keeps the doors open and the lights on. It's just that our "landlords" have diverted all that "sticky" money into their own purses. Do nurses OWN the hospitals? Of course not, we stick our heads in the comforting sand which blinds us to the financial realities. How can an "administrator" earn so much more money than someone who holds the patient's life in her hands -- literally!! As nurses we trust blindly in our bosses. We are hypnotized by professional mezmerizers to believe in a secure and safe environment. We cannot do nurse functions in a vacuum: we need supplies and institutions to enable us. We want clean floors and linens, we want the electric to work. We want to push that button and have someone come when we get overwhelmed. We are shocked and hurt when they betray us.

I looked in the home-town paper (population 65,000) for a "RN" job today. Every thing BUT: techs, 9-to-5 "administrators" -- staffing clerks; Medical Assistants; Insurance specialists; front-desk receptionists; "floor care technicians," records managers, sanitation experts, QA professionals, Info Technology specialists,Dietary Managers; Activity Specialists; Physical Therapy Aides; Patient Care Tech; Assistant Nurses. We've sold the farm. Our little kingdom has been paved over into a gated community where we are no longer welcome.

The salary for a registered nurse with 20+ years in the field in my town is at 40% of the national median; Rent, cars, food, clothing, are at 110% of the national median. Therefore, I conclude that hospital bedside nursing ain't gonna pay the electric bill this winter!

Something's gotta give. It's time for new ideas. I heard one this weekend: that firefighters, cops and nurses who are ON THE LINE should have tax-exempt status, and the ancillary personnel OFF THE LINE have to pay.

It might answer the 50-year-old NURSING SHORTAGE in record time.

[GLORIAmunchkin72]

As sad as that was it was beautiful.

Originally Posted by panhandler

I just got a notice from the lawyer I am hiring to defend my license to the BON: this chap (recommended by the State Nurse's Association) is charging about $400 per hour. He wants a RETAINER of $2K.

THAT is the reality. WHen you get stabbed in the back, you get to pay most of what you have saved from a too-low salary just to have the axe handle removed. For shame!

Ah, what we have abrogated, what we have abdicated! Ah, my sister nurses, take heart's-ease in large doses. Hospital work is: Life in the shark tank. Except that SHARKS are CLEAN.

Like you, I just do not want to believe how deep and how foul the chancre of for-profit health "management" has gotten. Its roots are wrapped tightly around the law itself. Shine some light on it, and you too will smell its stench. Perhaps it is better to walk blindly in, mesmerized by the "benefit package." Perhaps it is better to "yes" them to death, and remove the energy we would otherwise give to the patient to satisfy the nonsense that passes for "administration."

Who's got the cujones to challenge it? We would starve without table scraps from the feast of 50% of the USA Federal Budget that is taken by the Medical Industrial Complex. A famous lady tried to DISCUSS a revision of the status-quo, and was thrown out on her largesse by the US Congress. Politics aside, Mrs. Clinton was brave, but the fight was lost before she turned on the microphone.

The prescription drug, the Medicare and Medicaid messes, are just the top of the iceberg.

Our lawmakers are bribed into preventing the enactment of a logical, intelligent healthcare system by paid lobbyists from Big Medicine, Big Sugar, and Big Oil, Big Insurance, and of course, Big Law. These entities 'write' more than 80% of the "news" we "believe." Including, my sweeties, the venerable "AJN," whose mission is to continue the hypnosis. The beauties at that journal also left splinters in my spine. (I was, and I quote from my kangaroo-court Axe-It interview, "too aggressive towards our sponsors," and "too involved in reporting State Nurse Association organizational efforts in local hospitals.")

Any ideas? Any comments?
There is an age-old conflict called "shoes-on-the-baby" whereby we must earn our bread and shut our senses off to the way in which that bread appears on the table. Do our clients pay us directly? Or have we hired a "landlord" to do our dirty work?

There's nothing inherently wrong with making a profit, because it keeps the doors open and the lights on. It's just that our "landlords" have diverted all that "sticky" money into their own purses. Do nurses OWN the hospitals? Of course not, we stick our heads in the comforting sand which blinds us to the financial realities. How can an "administrator" earn so much more money than someone who holds the patient's life in her hands -- literally!! As nurses we trust blindly in our bosses. We are hypnotized by professional mezmerizers to believe in a secure and safe environment. We cannot do nurse functions in a vacuum: we need supplies and institutions to enable us. We want clean floors and linens, we want the electric to work. We want to push that button and have someone come when we get overwhelmed. We are shocked and hurt when they betray us.

I looked in the home-town paper (population 65,000) for a "RN" job today. Every thing BUT: techs, 9-to-5 "administrators" -- staffing clerks; Medical Assistants; Insurance specialists; front-desk receptionists; "floor care technicians," records managers, sanitation experts, QA professionals, Info Technology specialists,Dietary Managers; Activity Specialists; Physical Therapy Aides; Patient Care Tech; Assistant Nurses. We've sold the farm. Our little kingdom has been paved over into a gated community where we are no longer welcome.

The salary for a registered nurse with 20+ years in the field in my town is at 40% of the national median; Rent, cars, food, clothing, are at 110% of the national median. Therefore, I conclude that hospital bedside nursing ain't gonna pay the electric bill this winter!

Something's gotta give. It's time for new ideas. I heard one this weekend: that firefighters, cops and nurses who are ON THE LINE should have tax-exempt status, and the ancillary personnel OFF THE LINE have to pay.

It might answer the 50-year-old NURSING SHORTAGE in record time.

[scampi710]

Panhandler says it all so well.

I also have been in the position of being THE outstanding nurse, the one everyone turned to for clinical information, a proponent of patient advocacy, a champion for the professional nurse.

I don't have to finish the rest. Panhandler says it all so well.

Has anyone out there figured out that nurses MUST stand together. Will it ever actually happen.

I can't abide the compromise of our ethics, professionalism, integrity; however I see us compromising it daily in our willingness to defer to the corporate stucture, defer to the nursing management so willing to cut our throats while we are scrambling on the front saving lives.

Panhandler said it so well.

[TsunamiKim]

Hi I can really feel for you,
The simple answer is that if they concocted a reason to fire you to silence your protests do not expect honesty or transparency now. What they did was plain dishonest, but dishonesty breeds more dishonesty, so expect things to get much, much worse. To best protect yourself contact one of the Whistleblower hotlines immediately, (look for them on the internet), for accurate legal advice on what to do next. There are quite brief statutes of limitations on this course of action and your Hospital is counting on outrunning them. They hope that by the time you wake up and smell the coffee it will be too late. I am not a Lawyer just another wronged medical professional silenced by a very powerful and prestigious institution. Seeking justice is a tough challenge, but I can share some of my insight.
Act swiftly and do not assume you can trust the Hospital at all. Get hold of all your personnel file documents ASAP. If they try to deny you access to your own files, as they did with me, write to the Labor Board immediately. Keep writing letters and hang on to every shred of paperwork. Try to put together an accurate and very detailed written account of everything that has occurred so far: actions taken, justification given, unfair or unequal treatment, work record and accomplishments. My own experience with the so called Grievance Hearing is that it is a total sham to rubber stamp their termination action. They will postpone it for as long as possible to put time and distance between the event and the resolution they are seeking: your permanent removal. They are counting on several things:
1. You will show up alone and they will outnumber and try to intimidate you.
2. You will actually expect them to be honest and hear you out taking into consideration your past track record of good service: Not!
3. If they postpone it long enough you will give up and go away.
4. You will expect them to produce legitimate documentation and knowing they have nothing beyond a flimsy pretext you think they cannot possibly prevail, but believe me, they will.
5. You will assume that a person from HR judging this will be neutral: Not!
BE WARNED THIS IS A TRAP.
What can you do?
Do not go to the hearing without backup; take a Lawyer if permitted or just people who can act as witnesses. This is necessary because the Management must start lying to justify firing you and catching them in inconsistencies is the best defense. I wish I had tape recorded my hearing.
Drown them in documentation paperwork. Write letters and keep all of their replies. Take copies of everything with you and deluge them with a copy of everything.
Remember you are facing Managers who are Nurses; Documentation is at the core of their training. They should have documented everything too, so demand to have copies of all their documentation. Lack of a significant pattern of behavior that would justify one incident as a firing offence will look suspicious when challenged by your copious paperwork.
The important things to document and prove include any dissimilarity in treatment that demonstrated overzealous handling of your minor error. Incidents where other staff made a similar documentation omission and where not penalized as harshly as you.
Prove your fine track record with all the professional recommendations you can muster; bring character witnesses if possible. The more unbalanced the ratio between one minor incident and years of flawless service the worse they will look.
Do not be shocked when none of the above works and new fake charges suddenly appear after the fact. I called this the “accusation de jour;” they may be totally unrelated, unsubstantiated and downright ludicrous. The longer you fight the more of these new charges will be generated as they will face tougher scrutiny from the outside. Do not be intimidated by false charges meet them head on and challenge them vigorously in writing ASAP. See these false accusations for what they are: an opportunity to catch the Hospital in a lie. The Hospital will do the old smoke and mirrors trick; keep it vague nothing very specific no real documentation. When you challenge these verbal charges by documenting there substance it will put the Hospital on very dangerous ground. They are then faced with documentation of their lies in writing that they must either deny making the false allegations or contemplate trying to substantiate them in court! That is why bringing witnesses and writing a transcript helps. All of this will make them very nervous as they will expect to catch you off guard.
Be very careful about phone contacts as this is an ideal way to trick you into providing evidence for them. For example you call to speak to a Manager or someone in HR. They do not take your call and you call them back latter. Several ordinary perfectly innocent calls to try and reach a busy Manager are now warped into "numerous harassing phone calls." You are then labeled a “disgruntled former employee” with an axe to grind. I was falsely accused of making over 50 such calls enough to justify police involvement! The inconsistency was, why was security not contacted? Why didn’t they tape calls or put a trace on them? Why wasn’t I sent a “cease and desist” letter? It never happened. What you will soon discover is that their biggest weakness is lack of conventional paperwork: it is not what they have but what they don’t have. Keep drumming home the Nursing axiom: “If you didn’t document it, it didn’t happen!”
If you have made calls already and suspect they may use this trick do the following: obtain a record of your calls if possible. I sent a letter stating that there could be no further direct contact by phone and requesting Faxed documents or written memos instead. If they continue to call you, state that you must record their calls. This may sound adversarial, but they have fired you to cover up your valid patient safety concerns, do not give in. They may try to upset or annoy you to precipitate an argument on the phone; never rise to this bait. Do not bring logs to the fire! Always communicate in a way that can be clearly documented. Tape record if this is allowed; question why if it is not! Take a laptop to your hearing and make copious notes or have someone else do this for you.
Hospitals count on one thing: that your actions will be governed by self preservation; when they get mean and play dirty you will give in. Very few people will support you if you decide to take a stand, but it is a very courageous thing to do. In my hearings I refused to be diverted away from the real reason why I was removed. I kept clearly focused on the negligence and danger to patients issue and I never let go. The Hospital stalled the Grievance Hearing for over 4months. Then they tried to bribe me at an EEOC mediation after 8months. Things were shown to EEOC behind my back and I had no access to my files or any documentation of why I was fired during this time. Then the Head of Surgical Nursing in "America's Best Hospital" lied under oath at my Arbitration Hearing presenting a new charge over 15months after I was fired. That was when I discovered additional "minor violations" had been inserted in my file after the fact. It took another year for the Arbitrator to decide in favor of the Hospital. I have elaborated on other aspects of my case on another thread:
"OR Burnout." It may help you to read this.
My Hospital had a Compliance Line; beware this is often just another scam! They say they will protect you from retaliation, but you must go through the HR process first. That is their trick to drag out justice and provide immunity for the Hospital. On the surface it looks so legitimate, so demand that they investigate immediately, protect you from retaliation by monitoring the HR proceedings. If they refuse be really sweet and demand an explanation in writing. This is just another cruel stalling tactic because when I went back to them after all else failed they were too spineless to admit they had just lied: they had never intended to offer protection or investigate. I am still fighting for that Compliance Line investigation five years on and I refuse to give up. I will be posting a Petition soon on thePetitionSite.com to demand a full investigation by the Compliance Line in accordance with their own stated mandate of protection. I am taking a while putting this together as the Petition itself will contain over 100 links to other useful internet sites. Many of these links will be a valuable resource to you in your fight so look out for it and follow the links to get more advice from the experts.
No matter what anyone tells you it is vital that credible people like yourself tenaciously keep fighting. Your professionalism and high standards are the hallmark that distinguishes those who become Whistleblowers, so do not hesitate and dwell on “why me?” Others may need to give up as they do not have your strong track record in their favor; that is why it is so important for strong conscientious Nurses like you to continue fighting as others do not share your unshakable credibility. The patients need us to take up this fight and few have the courage and determination to do so. Other factors like financial commitments compromise the most well meaning patient advocates. By exposing the flaws that allow wrongful termination to silence witnesses to negligent practices we provide safeguards that are vital to those who want to bear witness.
Less accountability is not better! We must force these Hospitals to put regulations in place that protect those who speak out because this is critical to patient safety. Despite five years of futile struggling to expose the truth I was forced to abandon my home in the US when I lost everything. Still I am spurred on by the arrogant hypocrisy of my former Hospital as they sanctimoniously preach honesty and transparency while supporting the deceitful cover up of my negligence allegations and the retaliation to remove me. They continue to win accolades and get great press for their patient safety initiatives while refusing to even investigate the problems I raised. They will never silence me; I owe this to the citizens of Maryland who still remain in danger. If you look at what I wrote regarding my case you may be horrified by some of the pitfalls that almost certainly lie ahead of you, but take courage and please do not give up.

I wish you strength, Kim.

[LadyCharge]

Indeed....Panhandler, I love your posts! I have sadly and reluctantly these past few months been in transition of changing careers because I cannot work under the authority of unethical, vindictive, and selfish adminstration in this kind of "Business" any longer. I will never reach my full potential in this environment and I really saw that! God Bless my sister nurses who do stay in this profession, but I am too old to tolerate this crap any longer. I just can't stomach it anymore! LOL A large reason is because the core of my nature since I was even a child, is that of holding "Justice" as paramount; which is a quality of what authentic love is. My manager told me one day in her office as she was giving me the axe (ironically), "Now, we are alike...I have a high sense of doing what is right just like you do!" What a crock!!! She is oblivious to justice and doing what's right!

I call the healthcare system "The Evil Empire." We need hospitals for the sick, but somehow we in Florida must find a way to subdue them, control their ability to do harm, and take our power back. This was magnificently achieved in California. How? Those nurses organized, united, and tightening their ranks with a mission to take their power back. And rightfully so, because only a "nurse" really cares about the patient. Until Florida nurses "Get this" they will continue to suffer along with their patients.

Is anyone aware that Governor Swartzenegger is no longer governor of California? Did you know a major reason he was voted out is because teachers and NURSES joined ranks "Politically" to vote him out a second term? Yes, there is POWER in NUMBERS! One of my old nursing instructors tried diligently to get this truth across to her students.

We nurses in Florida are aware that we are being taken advantage of and controlled by the whims of an evil empire whose only motive is more profit for themselves. It makes me sick that we allow them to define who we are as registered nurses. Who gave them this power? Think about that.....

We do.

I am no longer working as a bedside nurse, but I can assure you I am not out of the game entirely. I plan to contact California Nurse Unions and get in touch with the people who made those positive and courageous changes in their state. While I am an older nurse, I still have a good 20 years to contribute to our profession. We must train our young nurses who they are...a professional and we should be respected as such. That is not going to happen until we come together as ONE. That kind of strength is what's needed to totally overturn the tables in these big corporations. I promise you...if even HALF the nurses in my city went on strike (bad word in my hospital), they would not survive financially. You cannot run a hospital without a nurse....

We must change our thinking. We must mobilize, unite, and create what the hospitals fear the most...a nurse union. This takes money. And it is well pointed out that hospital administration is so wealthy it is futile for one single nurse to pay all her life savings to hire an attorney as a futile attempt to get justice. However, we as a WHOLE, do have power! This is exactly how the nurses in California set the standard and made the changes!

We have got to stop being passive and continually rolling over, bending over, and tolerating these wrongful behaviors any longer.

Anyway, loved your post Panhandler. It is so comforting to know that someone in my area relates to me. For a while, I was thinking that Florida nurses were under some kind of spell, put in a trance, with their heads stuck in the sand while I am being labeled as a radical. I'm sorry, but it takes doing something radical to make right choices and forcing those in power to live by the high standards they pretend to.

[CseMgr1]

Originally Posted by panhandler

I just got a notice from the lawyer I am hiring to defend my license to the BON: this chap (recommended by the State Nurse's Association) is charging about $400 per hour. He wants a RETAINER of $2K.

THAT is the reality. WHen you get stabbed in the back, you get to pay most of what you have saved from a too-low salary just to have the axe handle removed. For shame!

Ah, what we have abrogated, what we have abdicated! Ah, my sister nurses, take heart's-ease in large doses. Hospital work is: Life in the shark tank. Except that SHARKS are CLEAN.

Like you, I just do not want to believe how deep and how foul the chancre of for-profit health "management" has gotten. Its roots are wrapped tightly around the law itself. Shine some light on it, and you too will smell its stench. Perhaps it is better to walk blindly in, mesmerized by the "benefit package." Perhaps it is better to "yes" them to death, and remove the energy we would otherwise give to the patient to satisfy the nonsense that passes for "administration."

Who's got the cujones to challenge it? We would starve without table scraps from the feast of 50% of the USA Federal Budget that is taken by the Medical Industrial Complex. A famous lady tried to DISCUSS a revision of the status-quo, and was thrown out on her largesse by the US Congress. Politics aside, Mrs. Clinton was brave, but the fight was lost before she turned on the microphone.

The prescription drug, the Medicare and Medicaid messes, are just the top of the iceberg.

Our lawmakers are bribed into preventing the enactment of a logical, intelligent healthcare system by paid lobbyists from Big Medicine, Big Sugar, and Big Oil, Big Insurance, and of course, Big Law. These entities 'write' more than 80% of the "news" we "believe." Including, my sweeties, the venerable "AJN," whose mission is to continue the hypnosis. The beauties at that journal also left splinters in my spine. (I was, and I quote from my kangaroo-court Axe-It interview, "too aggressive towards our sponsors," and "too involved in reporting State Nurse Association organizational efforts in local hospitals.")

Any ideas? Any comments?
There is an age-old conflict called "shoes-on-the-baby" whereby we must earn our bread and shut our senses off to the way in which that bread appears on the table. Do our clients pay us directly? Or have we hired a "landlord" to do our dirty work?

There's nothing inherently wrong with making a profit, because it keeps the doors open and the lights on. It's just that our "landlords" have diverted all that "sticky" money into their own purses. Do nurses OWN the hospitals? Of course not, we stick our heads in the comforting sand which blinds us to the financial realities. How can an "administrator" earn so much more money than someone who holds the patient's life in her hands -- literally!! As nurses we trust blindly in our bosses. We are hypnotized by professional mezmerizers to believe in a secure and safe environment. We cannot do nurse functions in a vacuum: we need supplies and institutions to enable us. We want clean floors and linens, we want the electric to work. We want to push that button and have someone come when we get overwhelmed. We are shocked and hurt when they betray us.

I looked in the home-town paper (population 65,000) for a "RN" job today. Every thing BUT: techs, 9-to-5 "administrators" -- staffing clerks; Medical Assistants; Insurance specialists; front-desk receptionists; "floor care technicians," records managers, sanitation experts, QA professionals, Info Technology specialists,Dietary Managers; Activity Specialists; Physical Therapy Aides; Patient Care Tech; Assistant Nurses. We've sold the farm. Our little kingdom has been paved over into a gated community where we are no longer welcome.

The salary for a registered nurse with 20+ years in the field in my town is at 40% of the national median; Rent, cars, food, clothing, are at 110% of the national median. Therefore, I conclude that hospital bedside nursing ain't gonna pay the electric bill this winter!

Something's gotta give. It's time for new ideas. I heard one this weekend: that firefighters, cops and nurses who are ON THE LINE should have tax-exempt status, and the ancillary personnel OFF THE LINE have to pay.

It might answer the 50-year-old NURSING SHORTAGE in record time.

This post needs to be sent to EVERY newspaper, TV affiliate and Cable News Network in this country.

The ramifications of our broken Health Care System which is mired in a self-serving bureaucracy and greed, along with the nursing shortage needs to be fixed by somebody, before the predicted bird flu pandemic hits...and fixes it for us.

[TNNURSE]

As far as # 3 goes...its like this. If you have a nurse who is praticing incompetently...and numerous nurses complain of their incompetencey....and then you complain that you are going to report that incompetent nurse to risk management....and that nurse manager ( who represents that hospital in mgmt) allows that incompetent nurse to stay in her position and alter a chart..and then you fire "ME" for those chart alterations.....then god have mercy on your soul.That hospital has been placed in a really bad situation.I was placed in a horrible situation. I was a patient advocate and was effectively silenced.

[TNNURSE]

Well...in response to the last 3 threads.
Believe it or not...I did have enough of a sense that something was "amiss" that I did actually tape record my termination meeting. You can hear my managers lying voice as she fires me over "alledged documentation " errors . She lied and said the events occurred on a Friday alledgedly...but in all the paperwork it said it occurred on a Monday morning.She also said that the "alledged" chart documents in question did not have a patients MR # on it....and that she had to manually place a patient identifier on it. So she admits that alterations were made to the document....on the recording. Are you guys impresseed with me yet?lol.See why I am looking forward to the dispute hearing now?She will have to admit...A. She lied about the date this alledgedly occurred on B. She admitted that the document in question was altered. C. She admits that the "alledged" documentation error I was fired for was actually ...not all bad...that only part of it was not acceptable. Perhaps this may have been the part that she or her incompetent friend tampered with..hmmm?Also during the termination hearing when I said " so...you are just going to let her keep killing peop[le?" what do you think that ,manager said? Do you think she said "what are you talking about? who are you talking about?" nope....she just said "we are not going there".So much for patient safety. But yeah...I want the administrators to hear her own...her own....clear...lying voice.Also....yeah...I actually have 11 different nurses that have been accused of the same type events and none of those nurses were fired. Also...my work history record...which I have a copy of...is impeccable.No negative info in it at all. I am HOPING that they alter my work record too and that way I can show how much into "changing" data they are into to meet their self serving needs. I also have a copy of my last perfect eval, a copy of the letters requesting my recent promotion ( apx 4 weeks before I was fired) that were written by ...none other than the same unit manager that fired me.Is that not too cool? I also have a email from the same unit manager that fired me only hours before I was fired "thanking me for my dedication". Then I complained of her friends incompetence...and I was fired. So .....keep in mind.....I am not putting all that I have on them on this thread.....but.....I am very much looking forward to the dispute resolution hearing...or court...whichever they force me into. I am in hopes that out hospitals administration will really want to do the right thing once they have all my info...and of course....after they hear all their lies...straight from the horses mouth.Whoever invented the small tape recorders are the bomb! I think we should build a shrine for them. I cant help but smile at night when I go to sleep as I wonder....what the judge is going to say about all their lies and misrepresentations on a model employee like me. Every night when I came in to work I gave 110%. I was a expert/ perfect nurse on that unit. If he doesnt believe me then he can read it for himself....by inspecting the letter for promotion she wrote requesting I be given the promotion.Or they can review my last few great evaluations, or they can just read a few emails I have where the manager is thanking me for my dedication, leaderships etc etc etc. See why I want this dispute resolution hearing?It will be like christmas...on its not on xmas day.lol.What is that old saying" oh what a tangeled web we weave when at first we pratice to decieve".This manager lied, misrepresented, altered and misconstrued info/data to cover her best friends ass....and now...it is coming home to her....and the hospital is left to answer for her actions and inactions.Keep in mind....I have alot more info than I will ever post on here that is just as shockingly stupid as the above ones are. In your opinion ...what do you think will happen when the dispute resolution people hear all this? I mean...it is her own voice. Do you think they will stand behind her decision to terminate me then despite my perfect over acheiver employee file?Still...in my heart...as stupid as I am...as naive as I have been in the past....I still feel bad for my hospital...bc...this manager and her incompetent cohort are not "the norm". Most there are like me and are highly skilled and are dedicated , patient safety conscious nurses.They are just now scared to open their mouthes and complain anymore.But back to my question. What do you guys feel like will happen at this dispute hearing? will it be a sham..or will they truly looking at everything? whats your opinion?