Do nurses get fired often?

billyboblewis · Mar 6, 2011

In Louisiana anyone may be fired with no notice for no particular reason and the amount of nurses being fired sometimes whole groups of them at a time is definitely on the increase. There is virtually nothing you can do about it. The law here is the type conservative anti labor legislators enjoy and until the effects are felt on a large percentage of the population this problem will persist.

tokmom, BSN, RN · Mar 6, 2011

In Louisiana anyone may be fired with no notice for no particular reason and the amount of nurses being fired sometimes whole groups of them at a time is definitely on the increase. There is virtually nothing you can do about it. The law here is the type conservative anti labor legislators enjoy and until the effects are felt on a large percentage of the population this problem will persist.

Whoa, are you not union?

kcmylorn · Mar 6, 2011

The above is so true- when a nurse witnesses or knows of a questionable situation, that nurse can count on being terminated or given a rough time to encourage him/her to quit(forced resignation). That's another example up for the Bronze Turd award. I guess in that situation- like the mob does- keep the witnessed event to yourself. I wonder if that comes under pt advocacy?

Nursing doesn't know about the Whistlerblower act. To nursing a whistle blower is some one who waves their hands and directs traffic

GooeyRN, ADN, BSN, CNA, LPN, RN · Mar 7, 2011

I know of one who got fired for yelling at patients, one fired for taking duragesic patches off of patients to chew, one for chronic absenteeism, one for not being a team player... Several for calling off on weekends (pattern- they seemed to ONLY get sick on Sat or Sun and it was FREQUENT, not once a year, more like once a month) one for not transitioning well and just generalized cluelessness (new grad)and one for staying out longer than expected on Maternity leave, but they were let back a few months later. Then there are the lay off's..... They don't get called back so they are pretty much fired.

hope3456, ASN, RN · Mar 7, 2011

In Louisiana anyone may be fired with no notice for no particular reason and the amount of nurses being fired sometimes whole groups of them at a time is definitely on the increase. There is virtually nothing you can do about it. The law here is the type conservative anti labor legislators enjoy and until the effects are felt on a large percentage of the population this problem will persist.

right to work state......same here in Wyoming. Your employment is 'at will.' There are very few labor laws here. Nurses getting fired is common here but it appears they get another job quickly - as long as nothing is attached to license. Cases I have seen recently are for basicallly just getting on the DON's bad side in one way or another. And just like the first post states - many work environments are so disorganized that no one can succeed in them. Retaliation is another issue - they can give u a schedule that u just can't be successful at working, so then they can 'run you off.' Needless to say, I am strongly considering moving to another state.

evolvingrn, BSN, RN · Mar 7, 2011

I haven't seen a lot of nurses get fired , in the past year we lost one lpn and no one knows why or at least they can't talk about it.........

The one other staff member that was fired was someone i worked with, i was questioned and told that if i ever discuss what i know about the case i too will be terminated.

DeLana_RN, BSN, RN · Mar 7, 2011

OP, as you know there are numerous threads on this topic and the replies so far pretty much summarize why this is. If I can just add my :twocents: , I too had worked in private industry for many years before nursing and am absolutely shocked how easy and common it is to get terminated in this profession.

One reason is that nursing school does not prepare students adequately to perform at the level expected of them as new grad. Most professions are aware that beginners need an extended period of training, orientation and mentoring (MDs: internship, residency - lasting years!) In nursing, it is rare that someone has a mentor. Far more frequently, new grads are thrown to the wolves and later under the bus by their dear colleagues and often vindictive managers. The art of brownnosing is sometimes the most useful skill of all (and I know several nurses who should have been fired long ago for incompetence but maintain their position - granted, on unpopular units on the night shift - due to their excellence at apple polishing :rolleyes:

As pp has pointed out, it is very easy to get fired - for any reason or no reason at all. The type of work is difficult to evaluate objectively; the more thorough and detail oriented are often unable to complete the enormous work load (full of busy work such as excessive paperwork) in a manner pleasing to their superiors (i.e., without even a minute of overtime). Some nurses who take dangerous short-cuts and neglect their pts are favored because they always leave on time (and make time to stroke the manager's ego, while the conscientious coworker is drowning in work). Too few nurses are represented by unions and therefore have absolutely no recourse when they are let go for vague or subjective reasons such as "not being a good fit".... how do you defend against such an accusation?!

Although I hate to repeat this, one problem is the fact that this is a female-dominated profession; years ago, when I worked as a secretary with mostly male engineers (about 5 women and 70 men), there was none of the cattiness, backbiting, or cliques found in nursing; in fact, everyone got along! Imagine that! And no one ever got fired (I worked there for 7 years). And no, there was no union involved either.

But nurses eat their young (and their own, i.e., experienced new hires) instead of mentoring them and vertical and horizontal violence is rampant. In addition to capricious management (and/or coworkers), employers/hospitals can have very unreasonable policies that can lead to termination (again, few are unionized). More than 50% of hospitals have punitive sick policies and nurses can be terminated for something totally out of their control, such as the fact that young children do get sick and have to be kept home from day care or school. One hospital I know has a policy that nurses can only have 6 sick "occurrences" (1 or 2 sick days in a row count as one occurrence) per given 12-month period; when they reach the 6th occurrence they are written up and given a notice of impending termination if they call in even once during the following 12 months. As a result, nurses have to go to work sick (infecting their coworkers, let's not even mention the poor patients!) or risk getting fired. The posters on the wall "Stay home when you have symptoms of the flu!" are a sick joke... and definitely not addressed to hospital employees.

To summarize, yes, it is very easy to get terminated in nursing and more likely than not the reason will have nothing to do with your performance. It is a sad state of affairs and secret shame of our profession. If only we could all be unionized! :mad:

DeLana

MouseMichelle · Mar 7, 2011

Nursing is an extremely difficult field firstly. Labor, shifts you don't like, working holidays, dealing with abusive patients, dealing with abusive docs, dealing with abusive management, as well as having to do your job on top of that. Dealing with the politics, dealing with the drama, dealing with incompetent nurses, oh the list can go on and on and on.

In the four years I've worked where I've worked I've seen 4 nurses fired. One for not dispensing a med he was supposed to for a whole month then hiding the fact, one for not dispensing a lot of meds he was supposed to and for being an idiot really, one for chronic call offs, the other for making a very bad mistake that could've killed a patient but thank god didn't.

Why does this happen? Well nurses who call off a lot are either very stressed or lazy, or really don't like their job and won't admit it. Also new nurses who have no clue what they're doing and are given a weeks orientation and told go at it.....well i feel sorry for them really. Schools are churning out these nurses like crazy but they are so incompenet it's not even funny. Thank god I went to a good school where we had a lot of hospital (all areas), LTC etc practice on the floor where we kind of grasped it, and luckily when I was a new nurse I was given a month's orientation before I was let onto the floor, the first job I had at LTC, and the second at home health, by then I got it.

ddunnrn · Mar 8, 2011

I've been employed as an RN in PA (Philadelphia) for approx 25 years, and have seen many nurses get fired. A good proportion of them were fired because they brought attention to the deficiencies of the employer's system or policies or how they were enforced. When the powers that be want corrective action, rather than fix the problem, they fire the nurse, often the one that brought the problem to their attention, and then they can say, "Look we took action on the problem!" Which , of course, they didn't. Also, when someone gets fired because the deserved to get fired, the other workers are left to speculate why they were fires, but the management stays mute because of "confidentiality". The morale generally goes down as a result. I have also found that punitive policies just tend to make the nurses not report problems for fear of getting disciplined, and things just get worse until major systems breakdown occurs. Sorry if I'm ranting. By the way, isn't what's happening in Wisconsin another reason why all RN's should be unionized?

ddunnrn · Mar 8, 2011

Addendum to my previous reply: I just remembered a situation that happened where I last worked, about 10 years ago. The head nurse was having an affair with the Nursing Director, were witnessed having sex in a car in the parking lot by 2 LPN's. Other indirect evidence (faxes, phone calls) witnessed by several other staff. The 2 witnesses were fired immediately, but got their jobs back via the union. Anyone else that either of the management people involved found out were talking about or had knowldege of the situation were either fired, or had their time seriously cut back, or were transferred to another unit/building. They tried to get rid of a medical assistant who was an in-law of the head nurse, but since they had no replacement for her, she was not moved. The rest of us learned to be very careful what we said. The nursing director ( a male) finally got the axe after he had an affair with the Regional Nurse Manager and jilted her. All of these firings/disciplinary actions had nother whatsoever to do with job performance.

anotherone, BSN, RN · Mar 8, 2011

OP, as you know there are numerous threads on this topic and the replies so far pretty much summarize why this is. If I can just add my , I too had worked in private industry for many years before nursing and am absolutely shocked how easy and common it is to get terminated in this profession.
One reason is that nursing school does not prepare students adequately to perform at the level expected of them as new grad. Most professions are aware that beginners need an extended period of training, orientation and mentoring (MDs: internship, residency - lasting years!) In nursing, it is rare that someone has a mentor. Far more frequently, new grads are thrown to the wolves and later under the bus by their dear colleagues and often vindictive managers. The art of brownnosing is sometimes the most useful skill of all (and I know several nurses who should have been fired long ago for incompetence but maintain their position - granted, on unpopular units on the night shift - due to their excellence at apple polishing
As pp has pointed out, it is very easy to get fired - for any reason or no reason at all. The type of work is difficult to evaluate objectively; the more thorough and detail oriented are often unable to complete the enormous work load (full of busy work such as excessive paperwork) in a manner pleasing to their superiors (i.e., without even a minute of overtime). Some nurses who take dangerous short-cuts and neglect their pts are favored because they always leave on time (and make time to stroke the manager's ego, while the conscientious coworker is drowning in work). Too few nurses are represented by unions and therefore have absolutely no recourse when they are let go for vague or subjective reasons such as "not being a good fit".... how do you defend against such an accusation?!
Although I hate to repeat this, one problem is the fact that this is a female-dominated profession; years ago, when I worked as a secretary with mostly male engineers (about 5 women and 70 men), there was none of the cattiness, backbiting, or cliques found in nursing; in fact, everyone got along! Imagine that! And no one ever got fired (I worked there for 7 years). And no, there was no union involved either.
But nurses eat their young (and their own, i.e., experienced new hires) instead of mentoring them and vertical and horizontal violence is rampant. In addition to capricious management (and/or coworkers), employers/hospitals can have very unreasonable policies that can lead to termination (again, few are unionized). More than 50% of hospitals have punitive sick policies and nurses can be terminated for something totally out of their control, such as the fact that young children do get sick and have to be kept home from day care or school. One hospital I know has a policy that nurses can only have 6 sick "occurrences" (1 or 2 sick days in a row count as one occurrence) per given 12-month period; when they reach the 6th occurrence they are written up and given a notice of impending termination if they call in even once during the following 12 months. As a result, nurses have to go to work sick (infecting their coworkers, let's not even mention the poor patients!) or risk getting fired. The posters on the wall "Stay home when you have symptoms of the flu!" are a sick joke... and definitely not addressed to hospital employees.
To summarize, yes, it is very easy to get terminated in nursing and more likely than not the reason will have nothing to do with your performance. It is a sad state of affairs and secret shame of our profession. If only we could all be unionized!
DeLana

Awesome post and completely accurate from my point of view also.

VivaRN · Mar 8, 2011

I hate to be so jaded but it's the reality in a right to work state. They can let you go for whatever silly reason(s) and there is no way to appeal. I used to think that nurses/professionals in general were fired only for completely outlandish behavior like drug diversion, being inappropriate with patients, or repeated call-outs, but lately it's been like a witch hunt.

New management: 5 nurses on one unit fired within the year. Good nurses, too. I was fired for something very small in the grand scheme of things. Within a few weeks one of my friends in another part of the facility was fired as well. It is surprising once I started speaking up about it how many nurses had been fired at least once in their career. This is difficult for people from other professions to understand. Nursing is different.

Oddly enough, being fired is so common in this right to work state the nurses I know (including myself) found jobs in a very short amount of time. It's taken for granted that if you were fired it was probably something stupid as long as it's not a pattern. Isn't that strange? I was so afraid to interview after being fired, and I was 100% upfront about what happened - no one cared AT ALL.

It's changed my whole outlook on nurses who have been fired, what it means to be fired, and then to seek employment.

It's not a rosy answer but it's an honest one.