Charge nurse help!

[KtFern]

Hi I haven't posted on here before, but I need advice on what to do about Surg Techs/nurses that are consistently unhappy with job assignments. I am a charge nurse who has worked in this OR for 9 years, and for the past 3 has been charge nurse on and off. Today I completely lost my cool and made a fool of myself in front of Anes, and the tech and another nurse. This was after a stressful week and having to deal w staff who do not respect our manager. I feel like a complete idiot! I apologized for loosing my temper, but that should have never happened. What can I do to keep from blowing

up again? Any advice?

[Rose_Queen, BSN, MSN, RN]

The first thing to remember is that you can't control the words/actions of another; you can only control your own response. So, before responding, engage the brain to mouth filter (believe me, harder than it sounds- I'm one of those who routinely catches myself halfway through saying what I think before I start censoring what comes out). Try taking a few deep breaths, count to 10, but try not to respond emotionally. As far as assignments, try to "spread the wealth". Who makes the assignments- the charge nurse or another management person? Ours are made by our service line coordinators the day before. How are people assigned? Are they assigned to a room for a shift? If not, have you tried rotation staff so everyone takes turns doing cases? When I did evening shift, once the scheduled cases were finished, it was first room finished got the next case and everyone else could take a breather.

[KtFern]

Thank you for your reply. We usually have our manager make out assignments. We do have a room rotation, but because of people off we have to move others around to fill in the gap. We try to keep the same people in the room for the day. We have been short staffed and this brings about frustrations with people not getting breaks.