Discouraed and about to give up on Nursing

MaritesaRN · Oct 27, 2008

I too am horrified by the idea of a "slacker tracker." I'm sure doctors don't have to wear them at these hospitals. I have a text pager and am generally easily located since I never leave the unit without asking someone to cover my patients anyway. As a general rule I rail against any and all "big brother" tactics. I would find it insulting.
One would think that a magnet hospital, which gets its magnet status by its treatment and support of nursing, wouldn't do such things. :angryfire

:yeah:Thank you. Good point about the doctors.........if nurses use this as they say for easy pinpoint location , don't we need this more for doctors, considering the difficulty to get hold of them, especially in getting some needed stat orders?

I still can not fathom the idea of a hospital putting this on the nurses??? From where I come from in my floor days , I do not even have time to go to the bathroom!!!!!!!!!! or eat a very late lunch like 3 or 4 pm.....what administrator in their right mind would think nurses need this????? The nurses are already overwhelmed w/ more patients than they should have and now , insult to injury , put a "slacker tracker" ? They think nurses have time to slack ? who are these hospital administrators ? Are they really that stupid (or to be nicer... blind?) and to think that you probably have some nurse administrators who should know better than to allow this petty, unproportion requirements ! Get a pager if you must!...or is the tracker less expensive? I tell you , somebody goofed on this!!! :madface:

meeks · Oct 27, 2008

I have 8 months experience in nursing in NY at a local hospital and i recently relocaed to durham nc, i got a job at a magnet hospital in a med surge unit and i was so overwhelmed, i was given a tracking device to wear at all times to keep tabs on my every movement, my preceptor felt i wasnt fast enough to keep up so thats what she told the nurse manager but told me i was doing great, i was followed around all day like a child and that was the most humiliating month i have ever had......and so i resigned having bought and closed on a a house in nc a week before i resigned. i was so depressed until i cried on a public bus on my way to work while a stranger tried to comfort me .
i found another job in a nursing home and now i have to give meds to 30 pt 2 times for the night.....i feel like giving up it took me3 hours to give the meds and i am finding that i am not liking nursing and feel like walking out
i am lonely in nc with no family
help...i am still trying to find wherei fit in nursing but still havent found it..i wish there was an area in nursing with not so much overwhelming work
may god help me before i give up

I feel for you I came to nevada after working in NY for 4 years state standards are very low here I came to nevada as a young energentic nurse who loved it I am now thinking of giving my licence up this state has made me sick the understaffing is horrible, fast used to be my middle name untill I came into a sticky situation where i signed for something i should not have on accident, I am now condemed for the rest of my carrer due to that i recived the lowest form of disiplinary action you can, from the nursing board but no employer cares i have to disclose this for the rest of my life so you can imangine i have not been able to find a job, Ive been a nurse for eight years now speed comes with time but accuracy is more important so now matter how the DON or supervisor mentor or anyone else tells you your slow, tell them accuracy is more important then speed, my advice would be get out while you still can, no one is going to be protecting your licence in the end. Nursing is the only proffession where they dump so much work on you your worried about the speed compromsing quality and no one other then nurses seem to care.

erroridiot · Oct 28, 2008

Giving up can be justified and appropriate.

It is not wrong to "give up".

Giving up can be the right thing to do.

kendel · Oct 28, 2008

Re: Meeks

i am sorry that happened to you ..is there any time period for it to come off your licence

when i worked at the magnet hospital in durham nc the preceptor told me i was doing good especially with giving medsbut told the manager i was doing horrible .....i did not feel i was doing horrible all i felt i needed was a little encouragement and learn more to prioritize when 10 people are calling me at the same time while the tracker is locating my everymove

i overheard the preceptor telling some one on the phone that i cant be left alone..i was so hurt and humiliated imagine it was only a month and i was expected to have her 20 years expereince in ne month

i was getting into the routine but i went home thought about it andjust could not bring my self to return

when i worked in ny for 8 months no one treated me like that they were supportive and i just got into the routine of my work as a nurse and discovered and caught many med errors by mds and pts thanked me and even recognised me on the street

now i move to durham nc and this is what i get

maybe i should just move back to ny and sell the house

i made 34 per hr in ny for less aggravation and 20 per hr i north carolina with lots of aggravation makes me wonder if its worth it

theres so much more but i am tired of talking

MaritesaRN · Oct 28, 2008

Re: Meeks
i am sorry that happened to you ..is there any time period for it to come off your licence
when i worked at the magnet hospital in durham nc the preceptor told me i was doing good especially with giving medsbut told the manager i was doing horrible .....i did not feel i was doing horrible all i felt i needed was a little encouragement and learn more to prioritize when 10 people are calling me at the same time while the tracker is locating my everymove
i overheard the preceptor telling some one on the phone that i cant be left alone..i was so hurt and humiliated imagine it was only a month and i was expected to have her 20 years expereince in ne month
i was getting into the routine but i went home thought about it andjust could not bring my self to return
when i worked in ny for 8 months no one treated me like that they were supportive and i just got into the routine of my work as a nurse and discovered and caught many med errors by mds and pts thanked me and even recognised me on the street
now i move to durham nc and this is what i get
maybe i should just move back to ny and sell the house
i made 34 per hr in ny for less aggravation and 20 per hr i north carolina with lots of aggravation makes me wonder if its worth it
theres so much more but i am tired of talking

:nurse: It is okay....we all have our limits...the important thing is to know yours. Others may mena well whne thye urge you to go on.....but that is them , and not you. Make a decision knowing you thought of it and not from others. Quick story....I worked from Medicare review analyst who pays less but not a crazy place to work. A friend who went to work in a hospital as a case manager convinced me to go in. ( I had experience as an inpatient coordinator in a VA hospital, and utilization review. I got out of the hospital because of the senseless politics and attitudes towards their nurses) So I did interview and was amzed by the salary offer( almost 20,000.00 more form the other place. Of course I worked there, and the department was a chaos, the nurses were really nice though....then a new case manager supervisor got hired. She was a micro manager, disorganized, and not a very good encourager for her nurses. She is negative oriented. NOt to mention , she forgets what she told you, and tells you another thing next. This is a profit hospital , so they look at stays very closely. This is fine and understandable,but then we did not get a proper orientation and no equipment. ( I did not have a desk and a computer and a hosptial cell phone---the later was a real pain because I added more work to the staff in the floor that I was assigned, because they have to come and get me when I get phone calls! And as a case manager you spend a lot of time in this task .I was so frustrated, but this supervisor can only think of giving us more forms to fill, did not order the needed equipment ASAP. Then she wants everybody to line up after work to report to her !!! Yikes!!! you can not micro manage a case manager !! so we had overtime because of this requirement of hers and of course made overtime!!! .....But she does not wants us to make overtime !!!! Okay, it was one of those impossible scenario................anyway I can see that I will not be able to work w/ these things.....so one day I just resigned ! Giving up ???? NO , I call it smart. Know when to bail out, then do it, and trust that you did what you have to do. I sacrificed a lot of money, but the sacrifice was worth it...I kept my sanity and my self respect. Luckily , my ex employer took me back.

But it was a good move on my part. Besides the supposedly " big pay" that I got went mostly to taxes...my taxes doubled in that job!!! so my take home pay was jsut a measly increase . Not worth it !!!!! :yeah:

DoeRN · Oct 28, 2008

A nurse on the floor had told me that i should hurry because they can see how long i stayed in the bathroom with the tracking device i was wearing

:angryfire:crying2: :cry: :bugeyes: :uhoh3: :madface: Now that is just CRAZY!!! I think that is an invasion of your privacy. What were they giving 2 minutes to use the bathroom? I had clinicals at a hospital that used this system but they did not take it this far.

MaritesaRN · Oct 28, 2008

:angryfire:crying2: Now that is just CRAZY!!! I think that is an invasion of your privacy. What were they giving 2 minutes to use the bathroom? I had clinicals at a hospital that used this system but they did not take it this far.

:madface: You know, there is something wrong w/ this....something to do w/ rights, some sort of labor law consult ?? This just do not sound right.....

rn-jane · Oct 28, 2008

First of all I want to say I'm sorry that they humilitated you like that. Your preceptor needs a lesson in honesty, she is not helping you by not being direct with your short comings and gosspping with everyone about your perfoprmance.

A tracking system; you have got to be kidding me! I would have high tailed it out of there. Is nursing becoming more like the pennitentary every day?

There has to be a more suitable medium for you. Maybe a smaller hospital in a rural area, it might be a little more of a drive but you might enjoy the environment. I agree if you are feeling uncomfortable where you are, sell the house and move back home but don't give up nursing because of a couple bad experiences.