What Sneaky Things Should I Look Out For?

nightingale, RN · Oct 21, 2001

thank you Sundowner... You are so right.. The familiar "treat others as you expect to be treated" applies here.... Thank you for reminding me, that I can, with confidence expect to be treated fairly because I too am reasonable.

People are people and we all have our moments....

I am excited now (as usual) to start a new assignment... and I have the confidence, once again, to look forward to a challenging and rewarding day.....

In peace,

B:) :)

Stolen from a fortune cookie ------------> "The secret to staying young is good health, and lying about your age:p :p

Sundowner · Oct 22, 2001

Your welcome Nightngale1998!

I know how hard it is to walk into a new facility, I dread it every time, but I always tell myself, I am gonna go in there and go to it. We all know what our jobs are, we know how to be nurses, the job remains the same no matter where we go, only the people change.

It also never fails, every time I go to a new facility, I get what I like to call "the eye" right off the bat. You know that look that says, oh no,, I wonder if she is a flake....will she remeber to do her treatments....will she chart....am I gonna have to hold her hand all night. My response is always a smile and an introduction, and lets get started.

I never understood the agency nurse who would gripe about not being "oriented" to a facility. Basically all facilities are the same. They all have clean and dirty utility rooms.....they don't hide them from you...ect. I feel that agency nurses should be confident enough to know these things.

You have to prove yourself every time you enter a new place, otherwise you are in for a hard time. I also try and refrain from letting the regular staff see my somewhat strange sense of humor for a few days or so.........hee hee.

I also will only work in long term care facilities, I insist on getting a decent report on my patients and I ask alot of questions. I have had problems getting info on patients and I can't stand that. Regular staffing in LTC seem to be willing to give more info on their patients I think because they are theris.....they want them to be very cared for, there isn't high turn over like in the hospitals.

frannybee · Oct 23, 2001

Of course you can, Nur20! I'm flattered (My personal net-name is GlitterGirl, thus the shining)

mollie · Nov 26, 2004

Hi sundowner,

I have just signed up with an agency and the information you have provided is very stress relieving. I am a very shy unconfident person at the heart of me. Will this prove to be a huge hindrance? Also, you said you will only work in long term care. Could you explain your reasons for this and what I should expect? So far, I have only worked home health with the agency. I did admissions, had horrible directions to the pts homes and ended up making about $5.00 per hour after all the paper work hours. What do you generally get paid in long term care? I just came out of a management position at a hospital and I am extremely burned out from that . Thanks for any help.

dolphinRN · Nov 26, 2004

i currently work in the area of scheduling agency personel to come work in our hospital. i have always had the utmost respect for someone who can function at different facilities without going crazy. :saint:

before becoming the "scheduler", i worked the wards and have had the pleasure of working with a lot of agency, both good and bad. but you also get that with "regular" staff. i was always thankful they were there to help out because i remembered the times when we worked very short. when i was charge, i always made sure they did not get the horrid assignments and i always thanked them for helping us.

unfortunately, since i have worked as the scheduler, i have found out there are staff that will give agency the worst assignment and out of pettiness try to make them "do not returns" if they do not like something about the agency person. unless the agency person actually did something major like give someone the wrong meds, i would simply not schedule that person to return to that ward. pretty soon, we had no agency staff wanting to work on that ward.

i really think that regular staff need to appreciate the agency people that come through. if it weren't for them at our hospital, patient care would definitely suffer.

:balloons: thank you brave individuals who work agency.:balloons: