Abandonment

[confusedinthesouth]

Hi everyone. I quit my job today at an Assisted Living complex. I am an LPN and have only worked their 3 weeks. I am a new grad and just passed boards in Sept of this year. My Director of Nursing has given me little if no orientation on the dementia unit at the complex and insisted I work on the unit because another nurse recently quit. She is trying to fill in the gap left by the other nurse who quit, but I didn't and still don't fell comfortable giving meds to dementia patients that I do not know by face and I surely don't know their names (and they can't tell me their names because these are severely demented patients). I called and quit this morning because she has me down to work the unit today and I have told her and told her that I needed more orientation with another nurse who is familiar with the patients and she wouldn't hear of it. I have only worked on the dementia unit 3 days and still only know maybe 5 patients by name. She is saying that she is turning me into the Board of Nursing for "abandonment". Well, when I go on to my state's nursing website, it says that abandonment is only when you have established a patient-nurse relationship and then you leave in the middle of your shift.....it says they do not address job abandonment. My arguement is that I did not feel comfortable with the assignment given and wanted to keep the patients safe from possibly getting the wrong meds or something. God knows, I surely don't want to lose my license just because I don't know a patient and accidently give them the wrong meds, you know?? I just don't know what to do. I have been telling her for about a week and a half that I didn't feel comfortable on the unit and that I needed more orientation but she is only thinking of herself. Anybody got any opinions or been through this before??? Any thoughts are appreciated. Have a nice day.

[merri666]

I had a major personality conflict with my 4th DON within 6 months at the local county hospital. She basically told me that she was going to look for cause to terminate me (Mississippi is an "at will" state). Anyway, I resigned in the morning after having worked night shift. I did not give long range notice but I gave her 3 days...(I could have waited and resigned just before time to go back to work). She and her good buddy, the human resources' manager put in my personnel file that I was "terminated for abandoning the facility". I had never heard anything so ridiculuous in my life. Of course, the DON quit and left shortly thereafter, but no one at the facility will address the issue of what was put in my file. I live about 40 miles from anywhere so not being able to work at the local hospital, even if it is a hellhole, is a pain. During my 15 years as a nurse I thought I had seen everything but she beat it all.