Am i wrong for being soo ******..or am i just cranky!

Nurses General Nursing

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SO I work on really busy tele unit and i work nights. OuR unit is tuff, a lot of the nurses leave and we just lost 6 nurses between day and nights!!!!!! So we are short staffed for this month. We are all pretty new on nights, and i am about a year. I have a girl i work with who has gotten into to with other nurses because she always getting others to do her work!!!! I figured this out a while ago and stopped helping her! She has been a nurses for 3yrs and its just the type of person i think she is. I love to help my colleges when i can but she gets ridiculous! The other day we were only 5 and we were swamped, full floor...heavy patients all running around like wack jobs. She had had her tooth pulled and was telling me that they messed up and was in a lot of pain and taking pain meds! And that she joked about it with my manger who said he was glad she came in! So what ever, untill she had gotten sick from the pain meds which i learned that she took to types and was now vomiting. So eventually she had to go to the ER! Which left us in a hot mess. Well she leaves about 2am with nothing done!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! No 9pm meds,people with out there insulin coverage, no documentation........nothing. Well i got handed her 9pm meds for her patient that i took and refused to give them any pills at 2am!! I wrote a note in the patients chart that i was given patient at 2am with no meds given. I was not about to wake up a patient for medication that they were about to get 8-9am again the next morning!!!!!!!!!!!! Plus there were not critical meds at the time. I was furious to say the least that i was put in this horrible situation. I was not waking up her patient to accesses them at this hour. I went in and checked them make sure they are ok and thats all i did. I was sooo mad, and was going to talk with my manger but was just to exhausted to wait in the am. I am unsure what to do when i return to work, i like this nurse to some level and have to work with her so not looking for a fight! But this is my license and i think what she did was extremely irresponsible and she should get in serious trouble for. I understand that if your are ill your ill, but i felt it was irresponsible to take that much painkillers and try to work. I would rather get written up for calling out that put myself in that situation. We have a policy at our job about calling out which is y i think she didnt. But i am an adult and if i was that messed up i would have come in!!!!

I am sorry if i am rambling i am just still so annoyed by the situation and want to handle it in the best way possible. I am curious to see others reactions and how they would handle it? :confused:

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Specializes in Care Coordination, MDS, med-surg, Peds.

several things come to mind:

I would have been annoyed to discover that meds had not been given by 0200. I hope you filled out an incident report/medication error on your patient and that nurse. I hope you called the physician to report the meds had not been given and she what they wanted you to do about holding the meds. I agree, dr porpbably would not have wanted them given, but that is up to the dr to decide.

I most cerainly would have assessed the patient. I would NOT want a patient that I am NOW responsible for, under my care and NOT be assessed, no matter what the time or circumstances. I would more than likely wait until they were awake, or when vitals were due, etc., but they WOULD have been assessed. I think by NOT assessing adequately you would put your license majorally on the line.

I would also hope the nurse manager was aware that she was impaired at work from mediacations and let her work slide and that her patients were not being taken care of. I think she she should be written up at the VERY least. I would worry that she may be neglecting her patients on a regular basis.

IMHO, if a nurse is going to be impaired by taking a medication, they need to call in, not go to work, take a leave whatever, to keep themself and their patient safe.

Possible a conference with the nurse manager, her and the other staff might help to work out the best course of action?

I understand you were upset, but remember, the PATIENTS care is the mst important thing and even when dealth a bad hand, YOU have to take the BEST care of your patient possible, REGARDLESS of what the previous nurse did or didn't do!

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Thanks i realized maybe i could have done better and have learned.

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Specializes in CT stepdown, hospice, psych, ortho.

The nurse manager knew she was taking a pain med (I assume a narcotic?) and didn't bat an eyelash?

The nurse didn't ask for help when she was sick and have the charge nurse or whoever give her meds at 2100? I hope nobody was getting antibiotics or ended up with blazing high BPs or HRs at 0400 vital signs.

OP, I feel your pain. That was a bad situation. I echo the PP's concerns. It sounds like these patients ended up having a whole shift with no documented assessment. I hope you don't gt in trouble for that. I understand being ****** and you weren't thinking clearly but any time you take a patient from someone else, you must assess them. Waking up a patient is inconvenient for them but you can't tell me that sometime during the night someone else didn't have to go in there and empty a foley or draw some blood or do an hourly round? On nights I always tried (whenever possible) to go in right after someone else so the interuptions were minimal to sleep.

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Yeah, I would have been really annoyed too...That whole situation sucks.

I probably would have done exactly what you did...except I would have performed and documented a full assessment. I would not call the doc in the middle of the night for this unless she missed something huge....

I also would have stuck around until my manager came in. Someone needs to be aware of this....I absolutely hate to "tell" on people...I have been working as an RN for 5 years and have only twice gone to my manager to "complain/report" an event.

Some nurses run to my managers office for every little thing....but this is not a "little thing."

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Specializes in Care Coordination, MDS, med-surg, Peds.

I would definately check into the medication error report. meds not given unless for a documented reason authorized by a physician contitutes a med error. Sometimes docs give parameters, .like hold for bp, etc., but if the meds not given had no parameters and you had no physician authorization to hold the med, you are acting above your scope of nursing. Wake the dr up. Sorry, I don't agree with not waking the dr., and yes, I know it sounds silly if it is what could be considered "non-essential meds". but that is not something most floor nurses can decide without an order.

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erin01,

are you wrong for being soo ******?

Well you asked, my reply to your post is that after reading the entire message, it really struck me that you never mention any compassion shown to your co-worker who obviously was not feeling well at all...i think as nurses we need to gossip less, label less, and show more compassion to our team members. :twocents:

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Specializes in Care Coordination, MDS, med-surg, Peds.

I am very compassionate with co-workers who feel poorly, but to leave medications, assessments, and treatments until 0200 is insane not to mention dreadful nursng care. I don't care HOW poorly you feel, to neglect patients is criminal, to work impaired is inexcuseable.

I have a chronic medical condition that makes me very ill at times, so I DO understand what it is like to work ill, however, I will not work when I am ill enough to compromise patient care.

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I really thank all of you for your inpuT! I feel badly that i let my emotions get to me and cloud what i should have done!

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Sounds like her illness affected her ability to do her job, and no one noticed she wasn't doing her work. She should have asked for help.

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OP: it seems you were addressing two situations in your post. I am very willing to help others (team player thing) but I too have learned there are some people who abuse that willingness and in the past have gotten so I would help them if asked but not go out of my way to offer. Childish? maybe but when you see someone taking a smoke break every hour you learn not to be so willing to help. As for your coworker getting sick on pain meds at work...why didn't the charge nurse take over or assign someone to take her pts when she went to the ER? I hope your manager doesn't make it a habit of looking the other way, thereby condoning, when staff is working impaired. If nothing else, maybe you should schedule a meeting with your manager and ask what is expected of you in case something like this happens again.

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The charge nurse didnt take her patients because she had 6! this is a tele floor and we usually have 4 pts each and we all started with 5! I had taken 2 of her patients which gave me 7! I realize that i made a mistake being so wrapped up in anger that she was doing this. I would have went out of my way for someone else who was truly ill. But i find it hard to be compassionate when this was going on for 2 days and she was taking pain meds like candy. If your that bad off, then dont come to work! But also this is not the first time she has been to the ER either ...this is weird. I was also upset because why did you not tell us earlier. I plan on talking to her to hear her side but i just have a hard time accepting.

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