Published
I'm a new grad, it's been 2 months of working on my own on MST. A lot of things are still new to me and I'm still learning and doing my best. I know that I'm doing a good job because I've already gotten 2 excellent customer service cards from my patients sent to my Director, one of whom happened to be a DoN herself. I've also received great written feedback from CNA's also sent to my Director for excellent teamwork.
On to my story, yesterday I had a direct admit, a process I'm still new at and learned that night nurses at my facility hardly do to begin with (I'm a night nurse.) it was change of shift and my former preceptor was giving me report on this direct admit that she received at 3pm. she said she didn't have time to call the dr. for orders, and that I would have to do it. Long story short, dr. said it was okay to admit the pt. as 'med surg' after I gave him report. Charge nurse was happy because I was able to do it on my own, I was so proud of myself. Anyway, I had an extremely busy night last night due to my other pt. who was in constant severe pain, and another confused who was in restraints, very agitated despite meds, trying to get out of bed, so my charge nurse suggested I stay nearby. My direct admit slept well throughout the night with stable vitals. Despite providing excellent nursing care to my pts. with the best of my abilities, one oversight I had was I didn't remove the tele monitor from my direct admit, so he had it on all night (doc said ok to put on medsurg). It wasn't that I wasn't paying attention, but I wasn't sure if I was supposed to remove the monitor since my preceptor was the one who initiated it yesterday. I wasn't aware of the "protocol" for something so simple, and I should've asked someone last night, but I'll be honest, it was a complete oversight on my part. So when change of shift came again, I made the mistake of asking her if I should remove the monitor and she completely yelled and humiliated me in front of everyone in the nursing station. Instead of telling me in private, she made a huge scene and told 4 other nurses in front of me how I didn't take off the monitor. Everyone in the nursing station heard, including the secretary and monitor tech. I gracefully apologized, I explained how it was an oversight, and I just didn't know the protocol and I wanted to double check with her before I remove it (something I will never do again since I was about to remove the monitor without asking her anyway but the newbie in me wanted to make sure) since she was getting the pt. back this morning. I truly felt embarrassed, especially for something so simple and how she completely humiliated me in front of everyone. She apologized in private to
me in the hallway before I went home, and said, "it's a lesson learned for you" in a weird tone. I cried all the way home, feeling like a wet dog with my tail between my legs.
Is this something I should just keep quiet about? I feel like telling my Director (who always encourages the new people to come to him if someone isn't treating us right), but I don't want to come off as "weak" or unable to handle it. I don't want any trouble or to make a fuss. In fact, I just wanna forget about it and crawl under a rock. WWUD? Thanks for hearing me out.