Your disdain for these patients has parlayed into anger. No going back now.
If you feel yourself burning out on this unit...find another position! Buff up the resume, scour the job boards to see what's out there.
Who knows... you could be doing what I'm doing. Sitting at home in my jammies, denying those admissions.
I want to work in my jammies from home. How does one get that position?
We have had almost the same thing happen. Family refused the alarm. (And, fyi, not all families who refuse are uninformed or uneducated, some are simply very aware of what their loved one will be like WITH the alarm on.) Anyway, the night he was admitted, he got up and fell. Broke his arm. We did have a motion sensor alarm in the room, which enabled us to discover his injury right away. No-one was at fault. Refusal of the TABs monitor and education was very well documented and care-planned.
I have actually interrupted a Dr. in the middle of his "yeah, yeah" with "I am not finished" Actually shut him up and he listened. For once. He's always real good at speed talking his order and hanging up.
My least favorite is when they just don't contact you at all, or respond to your calls or emails. At least have the courtesy to let me know you are no longer interested.
"My specific area of focus is how some nurses begin their path towards addiction while in school (via dependence on anti-depressants and/or anti-anxiety medications)."
I honestly had trouble getting past this assumption that antidepressants and anti anxiety med are gateway drugs.
There are so many days I feel the same way. If I could find a job making the kind of money I do right now, I'd get out of nursing in a heartbeat and never look back. At the same time, I know I feel that way because my workplace is horrible. I don't mind taking care of patients, but watching the constant backstabbing that my coworkers do every single day, plus the fact that I can see management is way more interested in numbers than safe patient care really drains me. Sure, a different job would fix that, but it's hard to find a job when there aren't very many out there, and the ones that are, I send a resume and never hear anything back.
In California, there isn't a ratio of nurses to patients in long term care. Instead there is a ratio of "direct care staff to patient". AM is 5 to 1, pm is 8 to 1 and noc is 13 to one. The ratio includes nurses+c.n.a. to patient.
One nurse with three CNA could be taking care of 32 on the pm shift. BUT! The ratio takes into consideration nurses in the building, not nurses on the floor. So if a nurse is working in an office of your facility(actually officially scheduled to be there) at the same time you are on the floor, that nurse affects the ratio so you could be assigned even more patients.
An example is the MDS coordinator sitting in his/her office. He affects how many patients the nurses on the floor are assigned. I know this because I am an MDS coordinator as well as ADON in a SNF. Monday through Friday, they count me into the ratio even though I don't work on the floor. On weekends, the am superviser affects the ratio.
Depending on the size of the facility, the DON can also be counted as direct care staff so that would affect your patient load.
It is very interesting reading and I recommend any LTC nurse in California go online and read it.
At least this is what I read at the California Health Department website yesterday.
Well isn't that just convenient for LTC facillities! It "looks" like they re staffing way better than they actually are. Nurses shouldn't work like that. If they couldn't find anyone foolish enough t work like that, then they would have to staff better to attract and keep them?
It's not a matter of foolishness. It's a matter of that being the only jobs out there. No matter what I think about the staffing in my facility, those residents need care, and I have to pay the mortgage. Maybe residents' families should stop grousing about the bill, and start insisting on better staffing ratios!
I had a doctor with a great sense of humor. Couldn't remember to write orders to DC a saline lock before dismissal. One time after I had reminded him to write that, he then also wrote "please dress patient in street clothes before discharge."
Another time, we had given a resident a flu shot, only to find out he had already gotten one that season. Informed the doc, who replied "let me know if he develops an 'S' on his chest or get the urge to leap tall buildings in a single bound."
I have IBS, and if I don't go to the bathroom when the urge hits, it's gonna be messy. I always make time for the bathroom. Meals I may have to go help someone, answer the phone, etc, but me taking a few minutes to make a pitstop isn't gonna derail my day. Or anyone else's. Smokers make time to smoke, don't they?
Could someone please pm me the original link?
I'm single, but I guess that's not an option.
Hmm, are you in a compact state? I've been a nurse for 19 years, and in LTC most of it...
Looks like Dr. Smith's ego caught up with him.
I was also wondering about West Nile.
Are we talking about baby sitting the staff or the patients?
We have had almost the same thing happen. Family refused the alarm. (And, fyi, not all families who refuse are uninformed or uneducated, some are simply very aware of what their loved one will be like WITH the alarm on.) Anyway, the night he was admitted, he got up and fell. Broke his arm. We did have a motion sensor alarm in the room, which enabled us to discover his injury right away. No-one was at fault. Refusal of the TABs monitor and education was very well documented and care-planned.
I have actually interrupted a Dr. in the middle of his "yeah, yeah" with "I am not finished" Actually shut him up and he listened. For once. He's always real good at speed talking his order and hanging up.
My least favorite is when they just don't contact you at all, or respond to your calls or emails. At least have the courtesy to let me know you are no longer interested.
"My specific area of focus is how some nurses begin their path towards addiction while in school (via dependence on anti-depressants and/or anti-anxiety medications)."
I honestly had trouble getting past this assumption that antidepressants and anti anxiety med are gateway drugs.
Quote from wannabe2008
One nurse with three CNA could be taking care of 32 on the pm shift. BUT! The ratio takes into consideration nurses in the building, not nurses on the floor. So if a nurse is working in an office of your facility(actually officially scheduled to be there) at the same time you are on the floor, that nurse affects the ratio so you could be assigned even more patients.
An example is the MDS coordinator sitting in his/her office. He affects how many patients the nurses on the floor are assigned. I know this because I am an MDS coordinator as well as ADON in a SNF. Monday through Friday, they count me into the ratio even though I don't work on the floor. On weekends, the am superviser affects the ratio.
Depending on the size of the facility, the DON can also be counted as direct care staff so that would affect your patient load.
It is very interesting reading and I recommend any LTC nurse in California go online and read it.
At least this is what I read at the California Health Department website yesterday.
It's not a matter of foolishness. It's a matter of that being the only jobs out there. No matter what I think about the staffing in my facility, those residents need care, and I have to pay the mortgage. Maybe residents' families should stop grousing about the bill, and start insisting on better staffing ratios!
I had a doctor with a great sense of humor. Couldn't remember to write orders to DC a saline lock before dismissal. One time after I had reminded him to write that, he then also wrote "please dress patient in street clothes before discharge."
Another time, we had given a resident a flu shot, only to find out he had already gotten one that season. Informed the doc, who replied "let me know if he develops an 'S' on his chest or get the urge to leap tall buildings in a single bound."
I have IBS, and if I don't go to the bathroom when the urge hits, it's gonna be messy. I always make time for the bathroom. Meals I may have to go help someone, answer the phone, etc, but me taking a few minutes to make a pitstop isn't gonna derail my day. Or anyone else's. Smokers make time to smoke, don't they?