I've had problems with one fellow RN in my unit which I posted about in the past. I started by confronting her, speaking to the manager...meetings were held, I started a paper trail about her interfering with my care in front of patients. Then she made a remark that I didn't like the color of her skin. It was suggested that I contact ethics, which I did to protect myself if she pulled the race card again. I asked only that the racial remark be reviewed, and not the rest of my paper trail. Long story shorter I was told she received appropriate disciplinary action in HR.
So so about a month ago she told our manager that she had to stop me from taking a patient with a saturation of 88% to an unmonitored floor from the PACU. This was a blatant lie. She walked by a couple minutes after I took the patient's O2 off for a brief trial of room air. Of course I told her I was replacing the O2 and got a tank to transfer the patient. I documented everything I did. The next day I started telling the manager about the patient, and when I was done she told me what this nurse had said. I was furious. I told her that I could file an ethics complaint and confront her right now, or she could talk to her and if it happened again I would file the complaint. The manager discouraged me from confronting her and said she would talk to her. I have the specifics set aside if needed.
Another co worker on a different occasion told he manager at I medicated a patient with a pain level of 3, and then had to give the patient a fluid bonus to bring up her blood pressure. I asked for the name of the patient so I could review my charting, and conviently no one remembered. Again I was furious. I was not written up or told that any of my care was not appropriate by management.
RN #3 has recently started speaking very sharply to me. I told her several times not to talk to me in that tone with no behavior change. Our manager told me that this nurse 'barks' at her as well when I finally approached her, after much hesitation. So she spoke to her and her side of the story was was that I had spoken to her that way as well. ?
The only other RN's on our unit are per diem. The first 2 have worked with this manager for almost 20 years. I've been there 2 1/2 years, but am NOT a new nurse.
So now I go in and interact as little as possible. I try to mind my patient's and concentrate on work.
Last week nurse 3 was barking at nurse 2. I mentioned this to the manager informally and she said "This is a dysfunctional unit". I asked her what could be done about it. She replied that everyone needed an attitude adjustment. I chose not to ask her how this could be done.
Bottom line is my mental and physical health are suffering from the stress. The work itself is manageable, the environment is becoming intolerable. I am the major breadwinner and don't have the luxury of quitting. Starting over terrifies me because difficult people are everywhere.
