[caliotter3]

If you have trouble with any of your "contract" nurses I would suggest keeping a paper trail of counselings for the time that you have to go to the head of the company. I would also ask to see those contracts. It is quite possible that someone is pulling your leg about this matter. It is not a good idea to put one over on your DON. No DON I've ever worked for lacked the ability to get rid of poor performers. This doesn't smell right.

[HannasMom]

If we eat or drink anything at the nurses station we get written up, if it continues, we can get fired. She sounds like a spoiled brat. Anyway eating should be saved for lunch break. Also think of the contamination, she puts her food in her mouth, then touches the pills? Even if she wears gloves, all I can think of is yuck. I bet she would have had lots of complaining to do if she had our dress code, nurses in our facility wear white, and our patients know who the nurses are and who the CNA's are. Works well for me, anyway.

[eccentricRN]

Originally Posted by suanna

Sounds like she was doing you a favor! I can live with a nursing shortage as long as I don't have to put up with a bunch of half educated primadonas who think a RN license entitles them to royal treatment. Give me three nurses with professional intergity, commitment and some common sense over 6 "fluff chicks" who think the job is a chance to do thier nails, catch up on thier e-mail, and flurt with every MD that strolls through. More nurses dosen't equal better care, better nurses usually does. I'd like more and better but the profession can't afford to lower its standards any further.

Ouch, that hurt a little... I'll however get over it. I'm a new grad & I'm not sure what some are taught in school, but it was STRESSED... that we should not expect to just walk into a new job just because we were now a nurse. We were told to dress properly, blah...blah...blah to get hired & that we should expect the off shifts as the norm. I'm sorry that there are so many new nurses out there making us look bad... we're not all bad.

[natania]

I don't know why this has to turn into a "new nurse vs. old nurse" thread. I think most people can recognize that work ethic has nothing to do with how long someone has been a nurse. If it seems like this is a problem with only the new nurses, perhaps that is because the old nurses who behaved this way were already weeded out.

[gracenotes1]

Ahhhhhhhhhh now I feel at home. I am so glad I found this site today.
My name is Angela and I was a DON for 7 years in 103 bed Long Term Care facility.
I know this may sound crazy but I miss it so bad. I even miss the lazy nurses that eat on their med carts.
I was on my way to work on morning and a tractor trailer truck turned over and slid into me. I lost my spleen and my career at the same time. I haven't nursed since. I still keep my license because I am a writer now. I am hoping to soon get my provider number and provide a CEU here or there to facilities.
I even miss the stomping out fires!! Sounds crazy I know--but I do. I think I was a good DON and we had a good facility but the problems never ceased. I thrived on it I reckon.
The one thing about being a new DON is it will take months to assemble your team. It will take months to showthem that you mean what you say and you say what you mean.
I wanna help you guys.
I am tickled pink that I found this forum.

[HannasMom]

As far as an old nurse vs new nurse thread, is concerned, I have seen many "old" nurses with bad habits too. Sometimes the new nurses are more respectful of the DON, than the old nurses, because change can be hard for some of them. At the facility I work at many of the older nurses have trouble with changes, complain about the work, etc. So it isn't only the new nurses who can behave badly.

[gracenotes1]

She is right about that. Some of the older nurses have gotten set in their ways and it takes dynamite to change them. I remember having to terminate a nurse that had been at the facility for 25 years. She was lazy and I found out and proved that she was only giving meds to the patients that could talk. Now that is bad.
No one believed that I actually would fire her--but what good was she to us or the patients?
Once I read an article in a Nursing Journal titled--Nursing--Are We Eating Our Young?
Sometimes I think this is true. I hope that new graduates are not all like the one yall have been talking about. And I hope that veteran nurses take young ones under their wing and help them instead of hindering them.
It is sad to think that a new nurse behaves like the one you have been discussing. I just hope that she didn't get the idea that she could eat at the cart and not do her work from other nurses that have been training her in orientation. Now that would be a scary scenario.
A new DON has a very difficult job until her team is her team. When a new DOn gets the people in place that she knows she can depend on things will run alot smoother. It just takes time and a great deal of patience.