A feeling of impending doom

[beeker]

Disaster is on the horizon. We have new grads orienting, once they finish their orientation they are being given an orientee to train. They took away preceptor pay and with our floor being so short staffed, there simply is not anyone willing to train anyone. I love new grads. I love them, they are positive and full of hope and knowledge. But they don't know what they don't know and should be learning not teaching. And our manager chooses the cocky ones to be the preceptors. So there are a few "know it all" newbies leading the troops. There are people who have never put in a foley teaching new people how to put in a foley. Its a mess. I think the time has come to move on.

Please discuss. Anyone ever seen anything like this? Its scary.

[veggie530]

Sounds like you work at my hospital, lol.

Bedside nursing is a circle the drain gig. Sink or swim, head above water to survive as management rushes to cut costs everywhere.

[Bringonthenight]

I thought this was a thread about adenosine.

OMG me too! Loveeee cardiac

[FazzDazzle]

As someone with experience you should offer to train newbies. I was on a semi-short staffed unit and had a nurse train me who had been there for years. She taught me things a less experienced nurse couldn't have taught me. Suggest to management that newer nurses should have the opportunity to follow more experienced nurses into procedures such as foley caths, IV starts, Ect. On a regular basis. If there are new nurses full of hope and willing to learn than they need to hear of mistakes more experienced nurses have seen on your unit. I feel that as a newer nurse I learned to watch myself because "older" nurses told me about mistakes that had been made on our unit (enforced triple checking meds, calling docs about unclear orders, not checking patients until an hour into shift, etc.). Maybe they can let someone float a few times a week to float through these new nurses to talk about patients and find learning opportunities for them...

[jrbl77, RN]

When I left my last job, I was the nurse that had been there the longest -4 yrs. Most of the others RN's had been nurses for less than 1-2 yrs. The turnover rate was very high. It seemed as if a nurse would orientate and than would either leave or orientate the next new nurse. I was looked at as a valuable resource, but it is hard to be a resource to all. It added to my increasing burnout and frustration.

I will admit that I like things to be done the right way and it didn't usually get done that way. I myself found that management, in an attempt to get the care they wanted done- to meet HCAPS- would give rote statements to use when talking with the pts. This also added to the frustration level. it is not always easy to pass along why you know something is wrong when you just know it is. I guess you could say that it is a cumulative effect of all your past experiences.

My nurse friends that are in the same age group as me, do feel a sense of impending doom. As we, the baby boomers get older, who is going to be taking care of us?

[sunshyne17]

I guess it depends on the hospital and preceptee. My preceptor was awesome. She quizzed me, showed me things and got other nurses to show me things when it was something I could learn from. And it was for free. After my preceptorship, I brought in bagels for everyone and a gift card for my nurse. I think she totally rocked and was so honored that she was my preceptor.