Bad Nurse...Need Advice

gwenith, BSN, RN · Jun 20, 2005

1) Have you documented all of this with times and dates?

2) have you got solid evidence that would stand a court of law?

Unless you have that you have nothing to take to the managment. If you do have that evidence and they are not listening then you take it higher. Sometimes it requires saying "Does this hospital want to face an expensive lawsuit that it will lose?"

SmilingBluEyes · Jun 20, 2005

1) Have you documented all of this with times and dates?
2) have you got solid evidence that would stand a court of law?
Unless you have that you have nothing to take to the managment. If you do have that evidence and they are not listening then you take it higher. Sometimes it requires saying "Does this hospital want to face an expensive lawsuit that it will lose?"

excellent advice.

mysticalwaters1 · Jun 20, 2005

Yeah I hear you I HATE that. I have one coworker on days who is exactly like that although at least she's personal just doesn't give her meds or assessments ect! She is still on our floor as well and we got the same thing from management to write it up. So mainly with this nurse (and i have to follow her and allways play catch up) I would copy mars not signed, orders not removed ect and give it to the manager write what happened and if other errors write an incident report. It did get nasty but I couldn't take it anymore. It got to the point the manager i believe told her of my complaints and she snapped at me b/c I told her please sign out your med did you give this? and she told me i could look on the computer if she gave the med (states when med last dispensed only, and we are suppose to sign out meds on a written mar) then she almost yelled saying she didn't want me to go complain to management. I was so ticked. But it's really bad. Even one family caught her. Said she was the worse nurse ever her husband got none of his meds. And she was in the medical field so average people sometimes don't realize what's going on. Someone summed it up good, this nurse would bend over backwards to get you a p&b sandwhich but meanwhile your K is like 2 with nothing done!

So the manager talked to her. Got better just she wouldn't talk to me except short verbal junky reports only not even aknowledge me for a good 6 months and only recently started somewhat talking or at least aknowledgement since i didn't really have to follow her or I didn't find anything really bad and I was allways polite. Just stinks to have that turmoil at work when it's not neccesary if she'd just do her job. A lot of times she's charge nurse which is a huge mess but at least she doesn't have that many pt's b/c of it and that's the only real reason why i don't think i've found anything.

That's I think the main thing to do is keep writing up incedent reports and copying errors or issues and sending it to the manager. The nurse may find out but hey people have to do her job.

It is awful b/c everyone makes mistakes and some on our unit have this "don't want to rat on anyone" and that's awful b/c if it's consistent it's gotta stop. And a couple other nurses i had issues with and sometime i'd catch an error and if it wasn't harmful or not really relevant might brush it off unless i had too but if it KEEPS happening or harmful it has to happen.

fab4fan · Jun 21, 2005

luvbug9956 wrote:

What boggles my mind is that she still works on our unit! The manager wants to have "written complaints" from us about her. To us, that is not our job...it should be the job of management to follow up on our complaints. Many of us do not want to be pulled into the middle by making formal, written complaints. This puts us in an akward and unfair position. Plus, there have been several written complaints from patients and families, and still nothing was done, which, to me, is a travesty. And the nurse is breaking hospital policies daily.

I'm sorry, but it is your responsibility to document. Managers can do nothing if complaints are all word of mouth. There need to be dates, times, specific complaints, witnesses, etc., and it must be in writing.

You say you don't want to be in the middle of it; well, where do you think you are when you're complaining to your manager? You're already in the middle of it. You put your manager in an untenable position; lots of complaints with nothing to back them up.

If this nurse is breaking hospital policy, there needs to be documentation, documentation, documentation. If mgmt. tried to take action against her without it, it would be a slam-dunk for the nurse to win that battle.

Speaking as a former manager, if I had staff coming to me complaining about another nurse but the staff was unwilling to back up those complaints with appropriate documentation, I would have to wonder if it was a case of "mobbing."

You are supposed to be a patient advocate. Sometimes that means doing something you don't want to do; in this case, documenting substandard care. If you don't, you share culpability if this nurse does something that harms a patient. Knowing someone is giving poor patient care yet refusing to take appropriate action (in this case, providing your manager with the necessary documentation) makes you complicit. It is your ethical obligation to follow up as your manager requested.

The real travesty is nurses who complain about another nurse giving substandard care, yet refusing to give the manager the needed documentation to take appropriate action.

kat911 · Jun 21, 2005

Management can't reprimand or fire someone on "someone said". If you want something done then put the specific actions on paper and give it to your supervisor. I sometimes hear people talk about how bad a nurse is but won't put anything in writing, yet they want something to be done. If you are not willing to document what you have seen, specific behaviors or patient complaints then you can't expect the facility to do anything. You always havae the option of going to the board of nursing. If patients are complaining about care we do adverse event forms to document "expressed dissatisfacation" those go to risk management and will be investigated. Another option is tho have a meeting with her and all the staff and tell her about your concerns, as a group, and what you all expect from her. That will certainly get the message across.

UnewmeB4 · Jun 21, 2005

luvbug9956 wrote:
I'm sorry, but it is your responsibility to document. Managers can do nothing if complaints are all word of mouth. There need to be dates, times, specific complaints, witnesses, etc., and it must be in writing.
You say you don't want to be in the middle of it; well, where do you think you are when you're complaining to your manager? You're already in the middle of it. You put your manager in an untenable position; lots of complaints with nothing to back them up.
If this nurse is breaking hospital policy, there needs to be documentation, documentation, documentation. If mgmt. tried to take action against her without it, it would be a slam-dunk for the nurse to win that battle.
Speaking as a former manager, if I had staff coming to me complaining about another nurse but the staff was unwilling to back up those complaints with appropriate documentation, I would have to wonder if it was a case of "mobbing."
You are supposed to be a patient advocate. Sometimes that means doing something you don't want to do; in this case, documenting substandard care. If you don't, you share culpability if this nurse does something that harms a patient. Knowing someone is giving poor patient care yet refusing to take appropriate action (in this case, providing your manager with the necessary documentation) makes you complicit. It is your ethical obligation to follow up as your manager requested.
The real travesty is nurses who complain about another nurse giving substandard care, yet refusing to give the manager the needed documentation to take appropriate action.

WELL SAID!

redwinggirlie · Jun 21, 2005

Has anyone talked with her?

SmilingBluEyes · Jun 21, 2005

luvbug9956 wrote:
I'm sorry, but it is your responsibility to document. Managers can do nothing if complaints are all word of mouth. There need to be dates, times, specific complaints, witnesses, etc., and it must be in writing.
You say you don't want to be in the middle of it; well, where do you think you are when you're complaining to your manager? You're already in the middle of it. You put your manager in an untenable position; lots of complaints with nothing to back them up.
If this nurse is breaking hospital policy, there needs to be documentation, documentation, documentation. If mgmt. tried to take action against her without it, it would be a slam-dunk for the nurse to win that battle.
Speaking as a former manager, if I had staff coming to me complaining about another nurse but the staff was unwilling to back up those complaints with appropriate documentation, I would have to wonder if it was a case of "mobbing."
You are supposed to be a patient advocate. Sometimes that means doing something you don't want to do; in this case, documenting substandard care. If you don't, you share culpability if this nurse does something that harms a patient. Knowing someone is giving poor patient care yet refusing to take appropriate action (in this case, providing your manager with the necessary documentation) makes you complicit. It is your ethical obligation to follow up as your manager requested.
The real travesty is nurses who complain about another nurse giving substandard care, yet refusing to give the manager the needed documentation to take appropriate action.

excellent post. I appreciate your perspective as a manager, as well. I worked for an excellent manager in OK who used to say, "if you have not documented it, or have not addressed it with the concerned individual, do not come to me with it. I want complete and factual documentation, not heresay and gossip"...and she meant it.

Mystery5 · Jun 21, 2005

I can't believe this! I've never heard of a nurse this bad! As stated previously, you have a responsibility to provide your manager with written accounts of this! This is imperative. They need to have written documentation for their files in order to proceed further.

This woman is an unsafe practioner. She needs to probably get out of nursing. She's a menace to the hospital and it's pts:o .

DG5 · Jun 21, 2005

Document how the floor is affected with safety issues. You are bringing serious safety concerns to your manager which is your professional and ethical obligation. Be specific and factual. It doesn't have to be finger pointing.

cowgrl44 · Jun 21, 2005

My sympathy is with you, I am a very experienced nurse in an acute care setting,in fact in charge up until last night. We have a nurse who is a pathological liar and has had confrontations with familys and nearly every member of the staff. She spends all her time telling tales on the staff and the patients and their familys. we have had a paper trail a mile long on her and still no one will do anything about her. I have been lied about so many times and accused of wild things all of which have been proven to be unfounded , that I am resigning my position the work place, lay about and the gossips seem to be administrations favorite . people. :crying2:

One of our unit's staff nurses is a very poor nurse and we have no support from the management about this subject. This nurse has NO bedside manner at all (and we work on an oncology/inpt chemo floor) and is verbally rude to patients and families (that is, if they are lucky enough that she acknowledges them at all!). I believe almost every staff nurse, as well as some registry nurses, have gone to the management with complaints. And yet, nothing is done!!! Here are just a few of the issues:
1. Ignores call bells, beeping IV pumps, and requests for help
2. Our policy is double-signing insulin, yet no doses are cosigned (is the pt getting them at all?)
3. Pt's state they dont remember getting their normal daily meds that day
4. Pt's state that they never were physically assessed, yet complete assessments are charted
5. IVs, PAC needles, central line dressings, and IV tubing are not changed per hospital policy
6. Blood transfusions are almost always left for the next shift, even if the order is from 9am
This RN has absolutely NO sense of teamwork. And actually, many of us end up pulling her share. For example, her pt came back from a test, needed to be pulled back into bed from stretcher...she sat, pulling up labs on the computer while 4 of us lifted her pt back into bed. We are all tired of the pts suffering. Day shift hates to work with her, and try to sign up on the schedule so that they dont work with her. Night shift hates to follow her because they spend their whole shift catching up on what should have been done and listening to pt complaints.
What boggles my mind is that she still works on our unit! The manager wants to have "written complaints" from us about her. To us, that is not our job...it should be the job of management to follow up on our complaints. Many of us do not want to be pulled into the middle by making formal, written complaints. This puts us in an akward and unfair position. Plus, there have been several written complaints from patients and families, and still nothing was done, which, to me, is a travesty. And the nurse is breaking hospital policies daily.
We are all about at our limit; but we dont want to leave this unit because the rest of the staff is so supportive and we love our oncology patients and what we do! We have an excellent reputation and this one nurse could ruin patient satisfaction!
Has anyone had this problem? How do we get management to listen and do their jobs!!!!!!!!!