Charting for another nurse

[mominsd]

I started a new job at an adult day health center. The director is telling me I need to chart for the LVN because she is older and unwilling to learn how to chart on the computer. Mind you, I am not with her when she does her patient care, but I am asked to chart for her, using a post it note that she used to jot down info while seeing the patient. I am a new grad and need advice. My common sense says NO WAY, but the director is insisting I do it. Am I playing with fire, and should I quit?

[DoGoodThenGo]

From our first days in Med/Surg I two things were drilled into our heads:

Under no circumstances should you ever chart any thing not personally done or seen by yourself.

Never administer any medication not prepared yourself.

Does not matter if the chart is paper or electronic, it still is a legal document. Each time you make an entry and affix your signature you are making a statement of true actions and so froth taken by you as a nurse during your shift. Should you ever be called into court to defend your actions, how can you possibly vouch for something not only did you not personally see, but the information was left for you on a "Post-It" note

If the DON is so big on having an RN do the charting for a LVN, I'd ask for something in writing from the legal department, and even then would only stick around long enough to find something else, if then.

Let me put it to you this way; if this LVN for some reason could not administer injections and she walked up to you with a syringe and asked you to give her pt his med, but chart that she completed the task, would you do it?

Run fast, run far, run like the wind, but the main word is to RUN!

[mominsd]

From our first days in Med/Surg I two things were drilled into our heads:

Under no circumstances should you ever chart any thing not personally done or seen by yourself.

Never administer any medication not prepared yourself.

Does not matter if the chart is paper or electronic, it still is a legal document. Each time you make an entry and affix your signature you are making a statement of true actions and so froth taken by you as a nurse during your shift. Should you ever be called into court to defend your actions, how can you possibly vouch for something not only did you not personally see, but the information was left for you on a "Post-It" note

If the DON is so big on having an RN do the charting for a LVN, I'd ask for something in writing from the legal department, and even then would only stick around long enough to find something else, if then.

Let me put it to you this way; if this LVN for some reason could not administer injections and she walked up to you with a syringe and asked you to give her pt his med, but chart that she completed the task, would you do it?

Run fast, run far, run like the wind, but the main word is to RUN!

Thanks for the advice! I RAN like the wind yesterday. They will not play me like a fool. They can find some other fool to do it, which I'm sure there are plenty!

[Meriwhen, ASN, BSN, MSN, RN]

Thanks All. I gave my notice today. They said if I don't chart for the LVN, then I need to quit because they can't let the LVN go because she has been there for 10 years. Needless to say I quit and I feel great about my decision.

Glad you quit because my advice would have been for you to put the stethoscope down and get your butt out of there as fast as you could :)

[tewdles, RN]

Too bad she had to quit rather than the DON realizing that her expectations for both the LVN and the RN were unacceptable. So...another DON practices poor management in a facility where, ultimately, the patients will suffer. It is amazing to me that a director of nursing would actually think that it is ok to have a LVN who is not willing to document her own work...and that this actually means that a reasonable RN can then not practice in that environment. This DON needs some intervention, quickly, before something bad happens.