I have only been an RN for a year; up until today I had been employed on the MR/autism floor of a large psychiatric hospital. I will make no bones about it, I am not a brain surgeon, nor was my job brain surgery; I passed meds to either 13 adults on one wing, or 11 children on the other wing -- what everyone has in common is aggression as a targeted behavior. I am also not delusional about why I was employed there; I am stronger than the patients, & I have a high tolerance to pain. I was good at what I did, however. By being a real person, I was able to successfully deescalate crisis situations on many occasions. My ancillary staff loved me because, unlike some of the other RNs, I treated them as equals with all of us striving to successfully make it through a shift; although the place was/is a cesspool, together, we truly attempted to provide quality care. And those are the reasons I enjoyed the job, regardless of the 40 mile drive. The reasons I felt like sticking the barrel of my 12 gauge in my mouth are too numerous to mention.
Here is how I got fired today. I am a bit rough around the edges, & that may be why I was able to achieve success with most of my patients. I was working an 11a to 1130p shift on the kids side today, & in the course of adminstering 1400 meds to a new (to me) patient this afternoon, I was unexpectedly attacked with an unexpected ferocity. I would have never guessed this little guy would have had the ability to hit or kick so hard. All I could do was take a butt kicking while I held the med-laced applesauce up high enough so it wouldn't become part of the crap stained carpet & I wouldn't have to wait for pharm to bring me down some more. I had good ancillary staff today & they all like me because of what I previously mentioned, & they were on this kid & took him down. I'm like "geez, let's try it on the floor, then." This kid was writhing like a ***** off aligator & he wasn't having none of it. It might not sound nice, but many times on this unit, the only way to get meds into a patient is the hard way. I wasn't even mad at the kid when I conversationally asked him to please just take the ******** meds. And honestly, that is not the first time I've conversationally used the term, & just as honestly, I'm truly cognizant that this is not an appropriate manner to speak to a patient, but equally as honestly, I gotta tell you, that is the very least of the problems on that floor. Okay, but anyway, regardless of how many times I slipped up in the past, this was the first time it happened when the PHD Behavioral Specialist was just coming through the door in the hallway where I was attempting to get this boy to take a mg of Tenex. I won't go into how ballistic she got & how apologetic I got, but the long & short of it is that I wound up getting a letter of suspension which at this place, is simply a formality prior to getting fired. They asked me if I wanted a union rep as I wrote up a staement, & I was like, nah lets just get it done, so we did, & I wrote up what happened pretty much the way I wrote it up top.
All right, it doesn't kill me to lose this job, it was hardly my dream job, 80 mile roundtrip, I was serving time in a tribe with way too many chiefs & not enough Indians -- I had no aspirations beyond throwing pills or being part of the goon-squad. But what does concern me is getting fired. I just got through submitting an online application to another psych hospital in the area, & when it got to the part about why I left my last job, well, what could I say? I wrote it like I wrote it up top. I also wrote that I felt that I learned a life changing lesson, & hopefully I have, but who knows? I've already confessed to being a tad rough around the edges, I'm possibly on the fringes of being bi-polar, & this was a mid-life career change; I spent 30 previous years in airplane hangars working with men who used the F-Bomb as a noun, verb, adjective and adverb. (It's almost comical that this is what I got fired for when I consider all the rules I used to break to get the job done.) Regardless, how should I handle this as I search for a new job? Will I even get through the front door once I write on an application what i wrote up top? I have a friend who use to do agency work; he gave me the name & assured me it wouldn't matter if I was a convicted serial killer, but the benefits aren't there....
I'm a veteran, & I'd really like to try to apply that to starting a career at a VA hospital, & I also know a girl who graduated with me who told me previously that where she was working (way closer to home) was always going through nurses, however she said she was not infatuated w/ the DON.... I mean, I honestly think I'd rather sling pills at this LTC & drive 20 or 30 minutes as opposed to the 1.5 hour drive I was making.... But assuming they even are truly hiring, once again, how do I get past the getting fired part?
