Bad shift after bad shift

They are ALL god awful units. With less than one year of experience.... you will have many more god awful experiences. Whenever a family member goes to management, management does not care about anything other than sucking up to the family. You had a choice... go on rounds, or suck up to family.. ask manager which she would have preferred.

In the future use an arm board to make sure the patient cannot bend their arm. 

It was your manager's job to deal with the unhappy family member and she did. Your job is to prioritize your nursing responsibilities and you did that correctly. 

The only thing that went wrong here is that your manager decided to tell you that patient experience is key, as though you did something wrong and that's why she stepped in. You didn't do anything wrong. What she should have told you is, "Family is settled, glad I could help."

Along with the recent post about healthcare corporations and troubles in nursing, the shift in focus from patient outcomes to patient experience is a huge step back for nurses. Saved your life? Meh. You didn't like the meatloaf?! FIRE that nurse!

Give yourself a break. It sounds like Florence Nightingale wouldn't have made that family member happy. If you can walk out at the end of the shift knowing that you prioritized patient CARE appropriately, you have to accept that some people will always complain and there's not much you could do.

Sorry it's been rough lately. It's been a very challenging time to join the profession, it will get better! Take care of yourself and relax when you can. Good luck!

Not much to say about this situation except that it isn't worth it to engage with people who don't care what your input is, like your manager.

19 hours ago, newnursemoon said:

I explained my side to my manager, I had a heavy team and was trying my best to triage (I’m still relatively new, <1y experience). My manager said “pt experience is key!” And that I shouldn’t have left.

 "explained my side to my manager" makes me bristle just reading it.

If it is absolutely necessary to do this, keep it sort and make sure it doesn't appear that you are trying to defend yourself. State plain facts in very short statements. Also things like, "Thanks for letting me know." Based on many different stories posted here, it seems like the more nurses talk/engage this kind of nonsense the worse it is. Better to say thanks, walk away and let it roll right directly off your back.

Nitpicking nurses in these situations or even interrupting our day with it is foolishness. Frankly I think it's somewhat abusive.

I agree very much with the above post.

And hospital administration can't understand why people don't want to work the bedside anymore. They have made it so toxic. 

50 minutes ago, OUxPhys said:

And hospital administration can't understand why people don't want to work the bedside anymore. They have made it so toxic. 

Most sincerely, I don't think they can't understand. I think they literally do not care. They have different system in place now, which is churning through new grads and slandering the group of them as being irresponsible when they don't want to stick around for poor treatment.

Pt families have "fired" the nurse, and where I work they will get you to switch patients with another nurse to appease the family.

Get used to this. Nurses are not treated like professionals by all families and/or management.  More like a maid at their beck and call. You are not allowed to mention you are busy with other patients.  You will be on the defensive.

 If you should change jobs, do not take one with "primary nursing", its impossible to do your job adequately alone---with the workloads they expect you to manage.