Not falling for that old trick

Nurses Relations

Published

You know when they beg you to come in sick making all kinds of promises. You can leave if it is too much, we won't give you a big assignment, the charge nurse will help you. Just for a few hours, or just until 11. Well you know what? I fell for it once before and you know what i got? Berated for being too slow, admissions dumped on, and when I started vomiting I was not allowed to go home because "there is no one else you just have to stay". 12 hours is just TOO long to suck it up when you are not well. The person on the phone that makes all the promises, well she leaves at 7pm. We have all witnessed this happen to each other time after time and well, it does not give you incentive to try to suck it up.

Specializes in LTC, Education, Management, QAPI.

Touche, monkeybug! You are right, it does follow management- but I'll tell you, it depends on the TEAM as a whole! I know I'm not telling you anything you don't already know. One nurse who isn't part of the team makes the whole machine slow down. I would like to think of myself as a very different kind of manager. Some of the changes I made include hiring a bunch of PRN nurses, and I *ALWAYS* give requested vacation as long as I can cover it, which is 99% of the time. I am on the floor when I can; I go to bat for my nurses over and over. I'm fighting tooth and nail during survey; I get looked at by other directors as if I'm mentally unstable just because I give our nurses a voice and I'm not an authoritarian. Problem is that I have 22 wonderful nurses who work hard, and when they make mistakes, we work together to fix them. It's the 3 nurses I have that think they are not the problem. I can quickly identify who is not a part of the team, and they ruin it for everyone. So, they're not good team members. So what? Not good enough to "change" and get in new nurses. My hands are tied. I guess what I'm trying to say is that you are right, management has a huge hand in it, but it's ultimately up to a nurse to be a professional and react in such a manner that is appropriate and not abuse the policy. With the amount of new nurses flooding the market, the mindset has changed and SOME of the newer nurses (more than before) don't really understand what it means to be a nurse. I was SO proud when I became a nurse, it seems like a good portion of newer nurses dont care at all and really shouldn't be nurses. Maybe that's harsh, but it's true. So, while I agree with you- I can say that my teams morale has really improved, by far- I think you may be looking more from the aspect of the downtrodden nurse, not the manager who is really trying to do everything he can but only getting flack and attitude. And yes, it's a little personal. Our facility has really improved in it's self image, however I can only lead a horse to water. I could really go on, but the morale of the story is as you know, it takes a village... And every village has it's bad apples.

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