covering ones A double S

[hapeewendy]

I work with a certain little crafty nurse *and I dont mean martha stewart crafty either*

she is quite careless, silly with the attention span of a gnat at certain times......she covers all this but blaming things on other nurses.

case in point, a few weeks ago , I was in charge and gave her verbal orders from the dr to immediately give a bolus of N/S to a pt with low BP, she acknowledged what I was saying, And went on her way to set up the bolus , or so I thought.....I transcribed the order and thought nothing else of it, FOUR HOURS LATER she goes home and I get a call from the evening in charge asking me why I didnt tell the nurse to bolus a patient... I asked for clarification , although I knew exactly the pt and the nurse we were talking about and sure enough the incharge called sillynurse up and sillynurse said that I never told her anything about a bolus and left it at that. I confronted her in a nice way that time and told her that of course I told her about the bolus and that she acknowledged me, so sillynurse apologized and I left things alone

until today, when I hear from my co worker that yesterday sillynurses pt came back from endoscopy with a heartrate of 160, and sillynurse went to pick her up and get the report and brought her back to the floor and went on her lunch, didnt tell me anything out of the ordinary had happened to the pt in endo, and certainly didnt tell me that the dr gave a verbal order to her when she picked the pt up to do a stat ECG, so I go on my hapeewendy way home and my co worker again calls me saying that sillynurse told me about the pt being tachy and that I Didnt do anything!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

ack!!!!!!!! what?!??!

I looked thru the pts chart when the pt returned to check for orders and of course there was no ecg order because it was a verbal to sillynurse herself!!!!!!!

luckily for my sanity and sillynurses safety she was off today, I'm just wondering how I can handle this situation without totally losing it on her!

shes done this kind of stuff to other ppl too so I'm not special or anything but I'm tired of her excuses for her own inadequacies.....

[nursegoodguy]

You say she's done this to other people... well get them together and submit the documentation to your supervisor before she causes someone to die! When it happens she'll just blame it on you... "I told hapeewendy this" or "hapeewendy didn't say a word about whatever"! get the others to document and submit a copy to your supervisor and keep one for yourself just in case...

[Y2KRN]

Write everything you say to her down!! If a Doc gives you as a charge nurse a verbal order on one of her patients, tell her write it on the physicians order sheet and do not do not sign it off. Write in the nursing notes, verbal order received, primary nurse aware!!!!!!! Good-luck to you! I hope she doesn't hurt anyone.

Y2KRN

[P_RN, ADN, RN]

I had that problem and solved it by writing out the order/directions having this nurse sign the paper and then keeping the paper myself. I had my own file on him.

[night owl]

hapeewendy,

I feel for you on this one. It really stinks when you work with someone like "sillynurse." I agree with Y2KRN....Document, document, document in the nurses notes that you "have informed sillynurse of whatever and she is aware." That way your A double S is covered...nicely. She may very well "Moon" you about it, but your documentation is your license saver.

[OBNURSEHEATHER]

Everyone else already said this, but it bears repeating:

DOCUMENT, DOCUMENT, DOCUMENT. I normally don't like an incident report happy nurse, but this deserves special consideration. I would hate for something terrible and tragic to happen, and her sloppy patterns aren't documented.

You said it yourself.... CYA.

Good luck,

Heather

[suzannasue]

Agree with all...document,document,document...

Have worked withher clone and we finally got rid of her by documentation of her ineptness...

[willie2001]

And I repeat, document, document, document. This sillynurse is a twit and sounds like she a disaster waiting to happen. I hope no on gets hurt.

[hapeewendy]

I will be documenting my hapeewendy A double S off

also the unit administrator is aware of things and will hopefully be talking to sillynurse on monday

u guys , once again are not only good looking but smart too...

good advice as always

thankyas

[night owl]

Hey,

That's what cyberbuddies are for...

[duckie]

I take no chances when covering my booty! I chart everything in the N.N's. If I delegate a task, such as taking a lab req, or a transport req, I chart who was taking these to what area. This habit saved my butt when state came in for our survey. It was found that several types of therapy were ordered for a resident. I took the req. to the appropriate department and documented this action in my N.N's. Well state detected that the follow up was not completed and therapy was not rendered as ordered. MY DON called me asking why I had not followed up on these orders. I told her to read the nursing notes from my entry that day. She later said she was sorry for having doubted me, that the therapy department was at fault for not following up and they had found my memo. Never pays not to cover you butt!!!!!

[Hardknox]

Wendy--this isn't a sillynurse--this is someone who is DISHONEST and dangerous to patients, nevermind to YOU. You need to document with all your co-workers and get rid of this blight on the nursing profession.