Taken for granted by nurses...

[PD82]

I need to vent!!

Nothing against nurses personally; I am a nursing student and work at a fantastic hospital with some great people. But sometimes the nurses just drive me insane!!!! I work on a postpartum unit with 17 beds--I am the only dayshift PCT with up to 4 nurses. I get to work and get started on the morning vitals- which of course isn't just vitals, its bathroom assistance, water, help with baby, spending time with each patient. Then I chart all those vitals for the nurses and do them all over again at noon. I pass linen, and make everyone's beds. I set up and break down all the rooms, I wheel patients out when they discharge--and of course the patient is rarely ready or doesn't have the car seat installed or the car pulled up to the front doors, etc. In between everything I am helping moms into the shower, or to the bathroom, answering call lights, and the door bell (we are a locked unit), telephones, transferring pt's and putting in orders.....did I mention Im also the unit secretary??

What irks me the most is when Im running my ass off in the morning and look over at the nurses station to see certain nurses just sitting there doing nothing, or having a fun filled conversation, or shopping on the internet, checking their phone. There are some that will even wait for me to go wake up and see their patients before they do. Or I love it when a nurse will leave a pt's room to seek me out and ask me to make that pt's bed in the room they were just in; Ive been called on the telephone from a pt's room by a nurse asking me to come in there and finish the bed. Many days I will take out several discharges in a row while that patients nurse sits at the nurses station watching.

Then I get asked if I will come in on my day off because its busy....ummm hell NO. Why? So you can sit on your ass and have me do all the work? Not all of the nurses I work with do this, there are a FEW who do their own linens and beds, or who actually say "thank you". Listen, I enjoy my job and working with the patients and I am more than happy to help who needs it, but stop taking advantage of "the help"!!

Thanks for listening. Feel free to vent also :)

[runsalot]

God I remember when my sister in law had her baby. She got up for the first time to go to the bathroom and had bled on the sheets so they needed to be changed. The RN was in the room with us as were the clean new sheets. The RN said we needed to wait for the CNA to finish bathing the baby next door and then she would come in and change the sheets!!! REALLY? And where should my sister in law sit in the mean time? In the bathroom? I told her I was a nurse too and I wasn't too good to change them so she didn't need to ask the CNA to come in. I changed them myself while she stood in the room getting the meds ready.

I would report that rn to the charge. That is ridiculous.

[Dspaulding]

I'm a 44 year old PCT and second year (ADN) nursing student on a gen med floor. Our nurses are not as lazy as you describe, but rude. The patients are nicer to me than nurses, and the patients are the ones who are sick! It makes me question the new ACA model of dlivering "care".

I plan on treating everyone, including PCT's, CNA, PCA's with respect.

[Graduation2016]

Having been a CNA for 2 years and now an OB Scrub Tech for 2.5 years has helped me determine what type of nurse I want to be once I graduate in Dec. 2015. I will cherish all of my CNA's and appreciate all they do and definitely not take them for granted!

[AnnCNA]

This is a great topic to read about. Sounds like a heavy load with some really good ways to remember priorities. I work as a CNA and always have to remember to prioritize. Truth is I don't always remember to do that, I just end up going from patient to patient until things are under control. Sometimes I ask for help and hear how busy the others are, most of the time the other aids know its a 2 person job and come help. Sometimes I just have to let the bells ring because I can't leave the patient in the circumstance they are in. I just had to deal with one of my assigned patients fell getting out of bed. It was close to lunch time and I didn't want to put her in bed. Soon enough I heard she fell. The DON told me she was high risk, didn't have the bed alarm on or the mats down. It was a mistake that I will have to learn from. I had a few fall precautions in place but not all needed for this patient. Nothing funny about it with that happens. not knowing that my fall patient was apparently, "Q15" till after the fall when the DON told me. A women I never met before. I'm venting and trying to recover from the incident.