I don't know what to do

Nurses General Nursing

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I have been working at my hospital on the med/surg floor for eight months now. I had a patient with fussy family a few days ago and I expected that they would file a complaint because nothing we did was good enough. I went in to pickup my paycheck today and my team leader stopped me and asked me about that particular patient. Sure enough, they had filed a complaint against all the nurses who took care of the patient, not just me. My manager said that a nurse who fits my description was reported for "doing nothing but playing solitiare" by this family. I emphatically assured my team leader that not only did I not play solitaire that day, I have actually never played solitaire on any of the computers in the hospital. After I told her I wasn't guilty, she said for me not to play solitaire anymore. So we spent a couple of minutes going round and round and I kept telling her that I do not play games while on the clock. She told me a couple of times that "the folks downstairs didn't take very well to that complaint." I asked her several times what that was supposed to mean and she never would tell me, she just kept repeating the statement over and over. She never did believe me that I do not play games on the clock. She told me that she told the administrators that no one else on the floor fits my description so it had to be me. She didn't take up for me at all. I work very hard, as do most nurses on our floor. I don't know what to do. They have fired people for small reasons before and now I am afraid they will be watching over my shoulder picking me apart. I don't know what to do. As nurses, please give me your opinion. I feel like this is a very big deal that she didn't even attempt to take up for me and really slammed me to the administrators. Is it time to get a new job? And if so, do I resign immediately or give a notice? Or do I try to talk to her again???

alongbella, you gave some absolutely terrific advice, a primer on Defending Yourself 101... thanks! :)

Specializes in med/surg, telemetry, IV therapy, mgmt.

Well, I see you as having two choices:

(1) just forget about the entire thing and don't bring it up again. If it shows up on one of your future evaluations just write a note on the evaluation (you are allowed to do that) disputing the claim.

(2) Quit and go look for another job.

If they are going to watch you, OK. They are going to find that you're not playing games on the computer. I don't like that you weren't believed and were literally accused without them paying any attention to your side of the story. It's also quite possible that the family saw someone else doing the dirty deed, but for some reason your image stuck in their mind. Really, you can't win this fight. The customer is almost always going to be seen as right. If management is going to act the way they did, however, I would saddle up and move on because I would be getting into a battle with the powers that be and being asked to leave anyway. :smiley_ab

Specializes in ob, med surg.
alongbella, you gave some absolutely terrific advice, a primer on Defending Yourself 101... thanks! :)
:idea:

HEY! You don't think I picked the wrong career AGAIN do you. Maybe I should package "Defending Yourself 101" and sell it on infomercials. :lol2:

Specializes in ER, NICU.

Patients can be weird:

We had a lady who lodged a complaint against "a voice". She wanted to hear ALL of the nurses in the department speak to her on the phone so she could ID who it was that was rude to her on the phone.

Incredibly, supervisors had all of us speak to her!

The lady ID a nurse who WASN'T even working the shift the lady had initally called on! :rotfl:

Dumb, dumb, dumb.

I have been in nursing for 30 years. If this is the only complaint filed against you, don't sweat it. I am sure there will be many more in your career. Your supervisor was only doing what the guys upstairs told her to do. I do agree that you need more proof than just the family's say so. There will be a lot of times that you cannot satisfy the family even though the client you were taking care of did not complain. Hang in there. If you know you are doing a good job, give yourself a pat on the back. No one else will do it.

Specializes in NICU.

I just will never understand the need for others who feel ignored or sleighted in any way to go after other people's livelihoods (ie. their jobs) and then are so proud of what they have done to this person or people.

This never occurs to me and when someone else brings up how they would do such and such and that person would lose their job, I think to myself, "Is this really that important that someone should be out of work? Were you irreparably harmed or was your livelihood damaged or threatened?"

Keep your chin up. There are wonderful people left in the world still.

DeLySh

Specializes in Education, Acute, Med/Surg, Tele, etc.

I am sooooooo with Alongbella! And I am sorry to hear this happened! It happens too often...and believe me, I worked in an assisted living center that has this happen on a constant basis with people that couldn't remember eating five minutes after they ate, but remembered someone doing something three days before???

You can't discredit a patient for what they say occured at any given time, but you can document well during your shifts and provide information and implementations to help lower the risk in the future. All complaints, large or small...are to be investigated...so this is not uncommon, just proove your case, and come up with some solutions if you can think of them.

If it is a computer probelm..that is easy enough to stop. To access any programs on a computer, one only needs to set up a access code/password to access the program...so if that is a probelm, then simply suggest that :). That way you look right as rain and proactive :)!

Good luck to you, and thank goodness the complaint was simplistic vs the many we got about 'stealing' or 'inappropriate touching' or 'harrassment'...those are so much harder to prove innocence with (yep those times where you are guilty till proven innocent!)....

I think I know your manager! For future reference, I like to let my manager know about trouble makers ahead of time. "A lot of the staff has been having trouble with room 423's family. My understanding is yesterday they were upset about such and such even though Nurse p tried to rectify that, and then last night they were upset about this. I did this to try to rectify things, but that didn't seem to work, and with my load last night, unfortunately I wasn't able to do much more than that. Perhaps a visit from you to head off any future problems could help so they feel that we're not just responding to their concerns but that even our management cares about their concerns? And do you have any other ideas on how we can make their stay more pleasant?" Or something along those lines...

Get your story in first, and 9 times out 10 you get the credibility.

:idea:

hey! you don't think i picked the wrong career again do you. maybe i should package "defending yourself 101" and sell it on infomercials. :lol2:

$$$$$ rainbow.gif :chuckle

If you were able to give the patient's meds on time/ any tx ordered/ answering call bells/etc., then you did what you are being paid for.

It sounds more like the family had unrealistic expectations about how much time you "should" spend with the patient. If the family felt the patient needed more one on one time with a nurse, then the family should have notified the doctor. The doc could have arranged for pt to be transferred to another floor with smaller nurse to patient ratios.

If the family just wanted to someone there to hold the patients's hand and provide companionship, then it was the family's responsibility to have a member there to provide that service.

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