Gaslighting job?

[CardiTeleRN, BSN]

Hello,

I'm really confused as to if my job is gaslighting me?

Employees do several things incorrectly. For example, a patient came in for something minor. I work outpatient. The patient stated feeling "off" and the patient stated having diabetes. Instead of the coworkers "training" me immediately assessing and asking for symptoms, last meal, meds, glucose check maybe, they immediately decided to give the patient water and juice. I actually had to interject and remind them to assess because the patient could have had a sugar of 400 or 20 and juice wouldn't have cut it. Point is, we did not know and the fact they decided to ignore assessment is beyond me. After the fact, they told me that's not how they do things and that cuts into their appointment time etc. Bizarre to me. Several instances like that have occurred with nurses and doctors. 

I had a doctor tell me to give a diabetic patient bread without this doctor back reading anything about the patient which if this doctor would have, the notes clearly indicated a diet for this patient to follow that included NO BREAD. The doctor instead told me its fine, check the glucose, and do it anyway. 

So I've tried to go to our don about several issues about this and how everyone's basically doing things incorrectly and this don basically says "well it makes sense to keep the patient traffic moving but ill look into it" in so many words and never does. 

This outpatient area was my last attempt to find peace in nursing but the environment is so toxic and uneducated all the way up to our chief nursing officer. 

This job offers great city benefits but im no longer sure it is worth it. I feel im being gaslit every day. 

 

 

[JadedCPN, BSN, RN]

I don’t know if I would call it gaslighting, but definitely sounds like poor care and using the “this is how we have always done it” excuse to explain the poor practices. More than likely even though you’re in the “right,” you’ll be looked at badly and potentially pushed out of the job simply because you’re doing the right thing and trying to advocate for the patient and right practices. Sounds like everyone up to the DON seems to be primarily focused on patient flow instead of taking the time to do right by the patient. I’m sorry you’re having to deal with this.

[JKL33]

I agree with the above poster, but make sure you aren't becoming disgruntled over small potatoes...

 

2 hours ago, CardiTeleRN said:

I had a doctor tell me to give a diabetic patient bread without this doctor back reading anything about the patient which if this doctor would have, the notes clearly indicated a diet for this patient to follow that included NO BREAD. The doctor instead told me its fine, check the glucose, and do it anyway. 

Like, unless the patient is allergic to "bread" or intolerant etc., then this is not worth more than a shrug in my book. Were they not supposed to have bread because the dietician recommended that it not be a regular part of their diet? Well, okay. But that that doesn't mean that a doctor needs to read someone's whole chart before asking that they be given a carb snack  for a particular reason at that moment.

Also keep in mind that outpatient and inpatient are different beasts.

This does sound frustrating but don't be the one who is overly-critical about things that aren't deal-breakers or significantly problematic.

This isn't meant to be critical or even a warning, per se. Just kind of a word to the wise. Make sure you're using good judgment. ???