I several years experience as charge nurse and I think I always handle people and situations quite well. However, at my current place of my employment, the first person who shows up for the shift is the charge nurse. Quite fine by me, but I've noticed a couple women who love the power trip of being charge and the other day it finally got to me. I show up for work and noticed that me and another nurse only had 8 patients assigned to us, whereas, the charge nurse assigned herself 11. I also noticed that we had 5 open beds. I voiced my concerns because it was clear to me (as always) that the other nurse and I were going to get the 5 admissions and the charge nurse won't have any, because she was already at her max. She disregarded my concerns and the shift began. Yep. right away, the other nurse and I each got 2 admissions. And then ED called to give us the 5th patient. This is where I put my foot down. I told, yes, TOLD the CN that she would be taking the 5th admission. She said NO, because that would give her 12 patients. I told her she can give me report on one of her current patients as I will take over their care. She huffed and puffed and pouted, but ended up taking it.
So by the end of the shift, I ended up with 11 patient (2 admissions and her spillover patient); the other nurse got 2 admissions = 10 patients....and the charge nurse had to give up a patient to take an admission, for a total of 1 admit and 11 patients.
Was this professional of me to grab the bull by the horns like this? I was very matter-of-fact, yet, professional......if that makes any sense. I wasn't ****** about it. I told my boyfriend about it and he thinks I was unprofessional....
