Charge Nurse!

[Davey Do]

WRMC (Wrongway Regional Medical Center) psych division administration has finally decided to designate and pay extra each shift for an RN to be assigned the responsibility of acting as the "Charge Nurse".

That's all well and good and there should be a recognized team leader to avoid arguments, power plays and other problems that usually stem from putting personalities over principles . But for me and my work wife Eleanor, it's never been a problem with arguments and power plays because she's always in charge and she's always right.

I'm sort of kidding. But Eleanor is a great nurse, has a really good personality, and is not difficult with which to get along. Besides, she's worked at WRMC for the entirety of her nursing career of over 35 years.

It has been an unwritten law that when you're on a nurse's home unit who has more seniority than you, then they are just naturally the one who makes the decisions. That's how it started the first night I worked geriatric psych with Eleanor 16 years ago and that's the way it's always been.

When we went to 12 hour shifts on the psych side of WRMC two years ago, Eleanor wanted to pick up an extra shift a pay period. That meant that once every two weeks Eleanor would pick up a shift on a night that I worked.

Now, another unwritten law is that if an RN picks up a shift, they acquiesce to the scheduled RN. It's never been a problem with Eleanor and me. She prefers to work the desk and I prefer to work the floor, so that's what we do every time we work together. We've traded places at times and have done okay, but it's just not the same.

But now we came upon an point of contention: On the nights Eleanor picks up and works the desk where the charge nurse typically works, she would get extra pay on top of her overtime pay, even though I was the scheduled nurse who should get first dibs.

Not a problem! Eleanor took it upon herself to inform administration that on the nights she picks up and works with me, I should be assigned charge nurse, work the floor, and get the extra pay. Wasn't that fair of her?

Okay, I've gone on long enough. I meant for this post to be a short introduction to a few comics I made, but as Daniel Day-Lewis' character Abraham Lincoln said, "Once I (got) started, I (got) too lazy to stop!"

So, I'm going to allow this post to stand alone as a neat nursing situation that may spark some interesting discussion and go back to the club and post the comics there.

I'll provide a link once I'm done.

Thank you... and.... good night!

[Davey Do]

Here's the link to the comics: