I’m in month 8 of a new position, it’s in a dialysis unit, but this isn’t specific to dialysis.
Last week a new, or newly reinforced policy for the techs to weigh the patients on the way out was reinforced. Seems like an easy enough task to complete without fanfare. Well, on Friday evening, a couple hours into the shift, the 4 techs who were on shift all went straight to the Manager with the story of “ Joe (the RN) wont help us. So, the manager came out to the floor and told Joe RN that “the techs all said that you won’t help.” Joe RN was completely blind sided as he was busy preparing meds, checking patients in and assessing them, and so forth. Joe RN has had zero complaints by staff and patients, and the Manager “knows” that this cannot be true. So everyone went on with their business and completed the shift. However, there was no more communicating between the techs and Joe, the normal, appropriate communication ended.
Joe has had a great report with the techs he was working with, no issues whatsoever, until now. All the techs involved have always been great at communicating and asking “can I get some help,” and Joe has always been the type to say “I’m glad to help.” The techs are not happy with the reinforcement of having to accept their responsibility of weighing the patients out, and for some strange reason, this shift not one of them asked for help, but all went to the Manager with complaint (lie) that “Joe won’t help us.”
Joe requested a huddle with the staff before the Manager left for the evening. And the techs all complained and nothing was accomplished. The Manager told Joe that he doesn’t believe the techs story, yet does nothing about it...
The main concern: Joe RN doesn’t feel that the patients are safe, nor is he safe with behavior such as this being allowed. Joe works with this same crew on the evening shift twice per week.
Joe has never seen or experienced anything like this before. It appears that the Manager has no control over the techs behavior, and their ganging up on the RN and all sticking together with the same lie is very, very concerning.
So, yeah, I am Joe (not my real name), and this has me so stressed that I haven’t been able to get it out of my mind all weekend, nor can I get rid of this headache all the stress has caused. I don’t know what the hell to do about this, seems like the staff is out of control and I am concerned about my upcoming shifts, patient safety, and my own future.
